Homophobia is a range of negative attitudes and feelings towards homosexuality or people who identify or are perceived as being lesbian, gay, or bisexual. It can take many different forms, including negative attitudes and beliefs about, aversion to, or prejudice against bisexual, lesbian, and gay people. Homophobia can be viewed as a method of protection of male masculinity, and various psychoanalytic theories explain homophobia as a threat to an individuals own same-sex impulses, whether those impulses are imminent or merely hypothetical. Homophobia can also be internalized, which refers to people who are homophobic while also experiencing same-sex attraction themselves. Homophobia can take the form of insults, discrimination, and even includes violence, and such abuse is motivated purely on the fact someone is of a different sexual orientation. Homophobia isn’t always obvious either, and if someone is ignored or not treated with the same respect as a heterosexual person, this is still homophobia. Homophobia can also manifest itself in legal restrictions or, in extreme cases, bullying or even violence against homosexuals.