Dilcio Dantas Guedes 1. Universidad del Salvador, Argentina. Participants responded to standard questionnaires which assessed internalized homonegativity, occurrence of heterosexist events, anti-feminine preconceptions toward gay men, mood, and syndemic count of factors associated with minority stress and potential protective factors.
Results showed that the loss or absence of support from attachment networks and higher nicotine consumption were the factors that affected participants the most. These impacts were associated with adherence to heteronormative ideals and negative attitudes against female gender expressions in men that seem to generate diffuse anxiety, the expectation of suffering heterosexist harassment, and internalized homophobia.
These findings are important because they flagged associations between manifest adaptive behaviours to hegemonic expectations among these men that mask deeper psychological conflicts.
Received: March 7; Accepted: March 9. Historical references to the regulation of homoerotic practices indicated society's emphasis on hegemonic, heterosexual masculinity. Later, during the post-World War II period, such regulation added complexities due to the migration of the population from rural areas to urban centres where there were βmostly- obvious spaces for homosocialisation and the exercise of homoeroticism Kinsman, Such changes generated more complex strategies of state oppression of sexual practices, especially for those that did not conform to the hegemonic -heteronormative, monogamous and patriarchal- sexual ideology.
It is now known that while such strategies have, for some, become fuel for resilience and resistance, for others, they have become detrimental to their mental health. In the contemporary Western world there are dominant cultural standards which, according to Zukerfeld and Zukerfeld , provide devices for members to regulate their self-esteem, whilst adjusting to ideals of efficiency -performance and competitive success-, immediacy -intolerance of uncertainty and impulsive activity-, body change and manipulation -altered somatic and sexual abilities-.
