Here is the issue: homo means same.
In a sense, the recognition of self and love of it would be, in fact, homo-love. Perhaps not erotic love or sexual love, but yes, a form of love.
This is exactly why catholics don't make peace with homosexuality, in that it is a form of self-love as opposed to other directed love.
Now, 'homo' has taken on all sorts of meanings, particularly since the genus name of human became homo. As in Homo sapiens. But underneath it all, it means 'same' like homogenous.
However, there is something else going on in macho heroism brotherhood that isn't predominantly sexual, and as eros has been completely sexualized in certain circles of criticism, it would cause us to reject the notion that all macho heroism is homoerotic or homosexual.
There is also something in macho heroism that isn't homo at all. A woman looking at a tremendous mother and admiring her isn't being erotic, and she may not even be loving the traits she herself epitomizes. She can be loving the traits that are part of her ideal femininity. she can recognize an ideal to which she may attain. Similarly, she can be attracted to a male hero, to his masculine ideal traits, but in this case it is a very 'other focused' admiration. These are different. neither is necessarily narcissism and certainly they don't have to be sexual.
We don't have to get drawn into the distorted and convoluted arguments of critics who are trying to make everything freud. There are more things out there, more important things out there, and many of them have little or nothing to do with sex, even as they may have lots to do with gender.
