Are you okay with your (or your partner's) vajayjay?

[MTL]

That's not why it would be "gross" to me as a straight man... it is more to do with the fact that as a straight man it would be, by definition, without consent. So at best I'd be grossed out and shocked.

I am no homophobe.

If you are repulsed,  rather than simply disinterested, at the thought of sexual activity with a man, then you have some homophobia. It's not your fault, our culture has taught men to fear and loathe one another since childhood. We can't even hold hands or kiss hello or show anything like the level of affection that is common between females (in the United States, anyway). We have a very narrow range of "approved" methods of showing affection for another man. This is homophobia. It's not hatred, at least not hatred of gays any more than the hatred it has taught us to feel for ourselves and our fellow man, but it is a form of fear, or phobia. I pointed to the bacteria issue to highlight the fact that it is in no way based on empirical data, but on cultural programming. Do I have a desire to suck a dick? No. But it wouldn't bother me to do so, either. (Being actually forced is a very different thing, of course; that's rape, and has no real correlation to sex, but to a violation of power dynamics.) I think that C_L's expression of disdain for the vagina is rooted in a similar training to loathe one's own gender; it's not homophobia in the usual sense of the way that word is commonly used (as = fear-based hatred), but it is a form of it. Recognizing this fact is key to a better understanding of self and of others.

More interesting is a thought I first had, back in college: if men say that it is "gross" to suck a dick, and use the term "cocksucker" as a dire insult (or in general express the sentiment that gay men are inferior because they enjoy sex with one another), then we are saying that a woman has a "place" that is lower in society's eyes. We're saying that what we expect of our wives/girlfriends is debasing, disgusting, or degrading  when a man does it... but then we try to convince women that they should enjoy it! I think there is a clear corollary between homophobia and misogyny, and that we shortchange ourselves when we make this act into something "gross".

Cocksucker should be the nicest thing you can say about a person, male or female. "That person brings great pleasure to men."

The fact that I don't wish to do it is just too bad. Might make me a better person!

EXCELLENT clarity in this post, about the boundaries of homophobia. Well done.

This also calls to mind another paradox I've observed in commercial pornography, and it sort of ties into my post about tribadism:

Women who are genuinely enjoying themselves during sex, are usually women who are not in the least bit self-conscious.

Women in commercial porn are going to great lengths to CONVINCE the male viewers that she is enjoying herself,
when in fact she is the most self-conscious that a woman can be, during sex,
and is therefore, usually, not really enjoying herself at all.

Hence the paradox:

Women are supposed to ACT like they're enjoying everything the man is doing (for his own enjoyment) during sex;

...but a woman who is GENUINELY enjoying herself is still treated by many as if she is being selfish or gross or unfeminine.