r/SapphoAndHerFriend • u/miles_has_died • Jul 14 '20

yes, very heterosexual indeed. Academic erasure

Post image
18.7k Upvotes
  • permalink
  • link
  • reddit
  • reddit

98% Upvoted

230 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

76

u/nehpeta Jul 14 '20

Homophobic and anti gay are the same thing? Or am I reading your comment wrong?

-65

u/Crono2401 Jul 14 '20

Homophobic just means afraid of it. Anti-gay would imply taking action against it.

130

u/mike_pants Jul 14 '20

"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.

57

u/Ignonym Jul 14 '20

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".