“The point is that these men already have this arousal naturally, but that they block it because they do not see it as socially acceptable,” Dr. Nathan Heflick, a Senior Lecturer in the School of Psychology at the University of Lincoln, wrote on the study. “So they form extra strong anti-gay attitudes as a means of appearing heterosexual to others, and perhaps trying to convince themselves they are entirely heterosexual.”

But as we are now realizing with so many other seductive findings – and the psychological studies that produce them – this one may not be as firmly grounded as originally assumed. Just 64 heterosexual men, all college students, comprised the original study group. Moreover, the method used to assess sexual arousal, the penile plethysmograph, a device that measures blood flow to the penis, has recently come under fire in judicial and academic circles for variation in testing and the potential for false results. Moreover, the University of Georgia researchers admitted the possibility that “viewing homosexual stimuli causes negative emotions such as anxiety in homophobic men but not in nonhomophobic men. Because anxiety has been shown to enhance arousal and erection, this theory would predict increases in erection in homophobic men.”