Chapter 3: Fear Is Desire

By Anna Terrell

Part I

The line drawn between homophobia and homosexuality is thinner than imaginable. It is repeated through history that many outwardly homophobic people are actually gay themselves, and it stems from deep rooted fear of their own desires. A man putting out hate towards others with his same qualities has a created a monster in his own head. It is important to look at people like this and those similar to understand how monsters are prevalent in our society still, with a modern twist.

Part II

Part III

When you think of a monster, you probably go straight to things like Frankenstein, or maybe a werewolf. Yes, these are examples of monsters, but what you may not directly see is that monsters affect our daily lives. Jeffrey Cohen wrote “Monster Theory” which dives into seven theses about monsters speaking of why and how they exist. Some of these include that the monster’s body is a cultural body, monsters are the harbinger of category crisis, that they inspire fear due to their difference and that that fear is symbolic of one’s desire. The latter affects our society more than seen from the surface. Like the character Viktor Sykes in the movie “Boy Erased,” one’s own fears or insecurities are often projected onto others, specifically those who have broken the barriers they cannot get through. Although this is not an always accurate assumption, various studies and examples show that fearing and hating your own desires is more common than you may think. It is important to understand the dangers of this type of behavior, as it affects our societal peace. This paper will look at various studies, examples of people portraying this behavior and other examples of these habits to back up Cohen’s thesis.

Cohen’s six thesis “Fear of the Monster Is Really a Kind of Desire” can be difficult to unpack, but once done, it brings out a much deeper meaning. A monster is fearful, but why do we fear? At the lowest level of understanding, take Halloween. Every year people dress as ghosts and vampires and mummies; in real life, one of those creatures would give you a heart attack. On Halloween, humans are allowed to express that desire to be exactly what they fear. Society tells us monster = bad, but does it have to? The equal sign is much more blurred than the ink on this page. On a deeper level, this shows how people can create their own monsters. This can happen in a variety of ways, and this will look at a specific “monster.” (Cohen, 1996)

The movie “Boy Erased” is based off a true story and depicts a young college student, Jared Eamons navigating through finding his sexuality. Jared is raped by another male, and when his uber Christian parents find out, he is sent to a conversion camp. Although an extremely compelling story line, my focus is on one of the characters a little bit more in the background. Viktor Sykes, named John Smid in real life, runs the conversion camp (Love in Action). At Love in Action, Viktor uses aggressive verbal and sometimes physical methods to “fix” the participants. At the end of the movie, it is revealed that John Smid came out as gay and married his husband shortly after. This is the perfect example of fearing a societal made “monster” due to your own desires. Due to the way Smid was raised, it was placed in his mind that being a homosexual was a sin. This caused him to fear gay people as if they were a monster and try to make them heterosexual. This fear and aggression came from his own desire and turned him into the monster.

As stated earlier, Viktor’s fear turned into verbal and sometimes physical abuse. He would often have the participants repeat after him things like “I am using sexual sin and homosexuality to fill a god shaped void in my life,” or “it’s a behavior, it’s a choice,” (Edgerton, 2018). It is sickening to think that someone would take their own insecurities out on teenagers trying to figure themselves out; how a monster would act. In one scene, he repeatedly hits one of the participants with a bible to get the “demon” to leave and this is where you can really see the monster. Knowing now that Sykes is gay himself, one of the most powerful lines he says is, “The people who get the most out of this place are the people that are just really brave and – and honest and – and lay everything out on the table and – and fess up to what god already sees,” (Edgerton, 2018). Sykes stutters throughout this phrase; this is representative of both his fear of his own desire and the hesitation he has preaching this. The turmoil in his own head has turned into his own personal hell filled with unimaginable monsters just tugging at his brain causing him to act like this. This goes hand in hand with Cohen’s sixth thesis and backs up the fact that monsters are created in our heads due to our own fears.

This idea is also backed up by scientific studies. In 1993, doctors did a test with two groups: straight males and homophobic straight males. They had them watch a variety of types of porn, one being same-sex male, and measured their penis circumference based off arousal. What was shown was that the homophobic straight male group were more likely to be aroused than the straight male group. (BA;, A. H. E. W. L. W. L. 1996). This proves that it is a more concrete fact, not just one person that happened to be made into a movie. Another study that backs this up was done from psychological side, “The study analyzed four separate experiments conducted in the US and Germany, which provided evidence that homophobia is in fact ‘external manifestation of repressed sexual desires,’” (UK, T. H. P. 2015). This relates back to Cohen’s argument. A monster is repressed in all of us, but in these situations the monsters are only monsters because of their own sexual desires. Their “external manifestation” come out in a harmful way that allows them to be coined a monster. It’s also not just these tests, there are many real-life examples. A man named McKrae Game ran a conversion camp as well, and he previously had preached that “being gay would send someone to hell,” but came out as gay himself in the past couple of years, (Goldstein, J. 2019). He was the winner of a website called gayhomophobe.com (2004) that publishes when a prominent figure who is outwardly homophobic, comes out as gay or is caught in same sex relations. The list includes  anyone of power (politicians, religious figures, and people like McKrae) dating back to 2004. All this just goes to show that Cohen’s theses are accurate and continue to play a role in our society, even without the conventional meaning of a monster.

Although there are numerous examples, it is obvious that 100% of homophobic people are not gay. So, let’s look at this from another side. It’s a popular thing to say to a child that they are being bullied because the bully is insecure or maybe jealous. From a glance at an older age, these words seem like they have no weight. But looking at the society we have today, maybe this is exactly what Cohen is talking about out. Fear of the “monster” is really a desire. Cohens thesis is proved timeless here because it shows how his words have so easily carried over through generations. The bully sees other people as a monster because they have what they desire, and this sparks the monster in them. This goes hand in hand with the previous arguments, and there are a million other ways to look at it both small and large scale.

Cohen’s thesis goes much deeper than just your typical Halloween monster. It allows us to reflect on our lives and the types of monsters we have or may be surrounded by. Whether it’s suppressing your own sexual desires, dealing with a bully or something completely different, Cohen’s monster theses can help to see what the significance is.

Bibliography

Joel Edgerton, 2018, Boy Erased [Film], Anonymous Content, Blue-Tongue Films, Perfect

World Pictures

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Goldstein, J. (2019, September 4). Conversion therapy founder comes out publicly as gay after

20 years of leading homophobic program. Peoplemag. Retrieved October 25, 2022, from https://people.com/human-interest/conversion-therapy-founder-comes-out-as-gay/

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thesis) introduction: – history is fragments – history is a monster – in: Course hero. Cohen: Monster Culture (Seven Thesis).pdf – Cohen: Monster Culture (Seven Thesis) Introduction: – History is fragments – History is a Monster – In | Course Hero. Retrieved November 4, 2022, from https://www.coursehero.com/file/55969565/Cohen-Monster-Culture-Seven-Thesispdf/