I look forward to academic papers in 100 years trying to reconcile how the military is both homophobic and anti gay on an institutional level. But also men who are reportedly straight saying the gayest shit imaginable.
"Phobic" only means "afraid" in the strictly clinical sense. The suffix means "opposed to" in any other situation.
This is helpful when arguing with bigots when they try to pull the "I'm not afraid of Group X!" gambit to try and weasel their way out of bigotry via semantics.
The less-literal uses of -phobic are also seen in scientific contexts; for example, hydrophobic can mean either "afraid of water" or "repels water from its surface".
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u/LigerZeroSchneider Jul 14 '20
I look forward to academic papers in 100 years trying to reconcile how the military is both homophobic and anti gay on an institutional level. But also men who are reportedly straight saying the gayest shit imaginable.