What Is Homosexuality?

[+ Avalon]

Is it just a biological attraction to someone of the same sex or is there more to it?

 

When it comes to politics and religion we are all over the place.

 

So maybe it's just the attraction.

[Guy Fawkes]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality

However, the term gay is frequently used as a synonym for homosexual and is preferred.

 

Is it just a biological attraction to someone of the same sex or is there more to it?

 

When it comes to politics and religion we are all over the place.

 

So maybe it's just the attraction.

[KeepItReal]

[+ Avalon]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality

However, the term gay is frequently used as a synonym for homosexual and is preferred.

 

The reason I sometimes use the word homosexual is because when I was young I knew that I was different. And homosexual was the word I found in the dictionary that described me. This was before gay was adopted.

[+ Avalon]

 

Is that Rock Hudson?

[+ friendofsheila]

Is it just a biological attraction to someone of the same sex or is there more to it?

 

When it comes to politics and religion we are all over the place.

 

So maybe it's just the attraction.

 

It is a biological attraction to superior window treatments, and track lighting.

[+ WilliamM]

Is that Rock Hudson?

 

No. Maybe you not gay after all!

[+ Avalon]

No. Maybe you not gay after all!

 

:p:p:p

[Guy Fawkes]

When you was young the "N" word was common but it's no longer used.

 

The reason I sometimes use the word homosexual is because when I was young I knew that I was different. And homosexual was the word I found in the dictionary that described me. This was before gay was adopted.

[+ Avalon]

When you was young the "N" word was common but it's no longer used.

 

I was never around anyone who used the "N" word. I had a friend who went to Oregon State in the 1950s where he became friends with a student who was from the Congo. His African friend told him that he didn't mind the "N" word because it had no context for him. He took offense at the monkey comparison.

[Guy Fawkes]

and I don't mind the word: "Queer" because of it's definition but "Faggot" will set me off really fast again because of it's definition. Homosexual has a definite context, I'm not apart of that context.

 

I was never around anyone who used the "N" word. I had a friend who went to Oregon State in the 1950s where he became friends with a student who was from the Congo. His African friend told him that he didn't mind the "N" word because it had no context for him. He took offense at the monkey comparison.

[+ Avalon]

and I don't mind the word: "Queer" because of it's definition but "Faggot" will set me off really fast again because of it's definition. Homosexual has a definite context, I'm not apart of that context.

 

I'm of the old school when gay meant happy like in the Flintstone song "We'll have a gay old time". I find faggot offensive. Queer is okay. It means odd and I've often been told that I am odd.

[+ WilliamM]

No. Maybe you not gay after all!

 

I was in a car pool driving back and forth to college in 1961-1962. One of guys was friendly with Lee Strasberg who started the Actors' Studio. He told us Rock Hudson was gay, also Strasberg's son. I do not remember any discussion of Marilyn Monroe, who died after that school year ended (Monroe studied at the Actors' Studio).

[rvwnsd]

The reason I sometimes use the word homosexual is because when I was young I knew that I was different. And homosexual was the word I found in the dictionary that described me. This was before gay was adopted.

One of the subjects of a post by @LoveNDino, Harold Mays (who died at age 81 in late 2017) is quoted as saying “...Sometimes I stop and think about all the turmoil of … being black and gay in America...".

 

If an 81 year old man can use the word "gay" so can you. It is 2018. Get with the times.

[+ WilliamM]

One of the subjects of a post by @LoveNDino, Harold Mays (who died at age 81 in late 2017) is quoted as saying “...Sometimes I stop and think about all the turmoil of … being black and gay in America...".

 

If an 81 year old man can use the word "gay" so can you. It is 2018. Get with the times.

 

It's a slight affectation by Avalon, not sure why.

[mike carey]

Words do not mean 'what we choose them to mean, nothing more nothing less'. You can't use a word to mean whatever you want, nor can you pretend that one of the accepted meanings of a word does not exist just because you don't like it. You also cannot refuse to accept that some words have come to be offensive in certain contexts. Gay, queer and homosexual are perfectly valid words to reference certain sexual identities and patterns of attraction. People may have their preference for how to describe themselves, and each word has its own nuances of meaning. To my ear, homosexual works if it is used in an academic or sociological sense but has become insulting and even pathologising if used to refer to a particular individual in a social context, or to refer to a community. Another issue to consider is that some offensive words can be appropriated and even become acceptable within the group towards which they were used as slurs. Thus the N word and faggot have been 'owned' by PoC and some gay people. That does not make it acceptable for people outside those groups to use them, and no, that is not hypocrisy. Language moves and grows continually, and English ebbs and flows in different ways in the different Englishes. To refuse to understand the way the language has changed is to refuse to understand the world.

Edited October 18, 2018 by mike carey

[longtime lurker]

The whole problem with "homosexual" is the "sexual" part. It qualifies as a clinical term if you are studying "sexual" behavior like some Kinsey/Masters & Johnson researcher. However we generally don't use "heterosexual" to describe a vast swarth of the population unless we are discussing what they do "sexually". You generally don't think of "sex" when observing a man and woman with children even though it is obvious that was involved at some point.

 

When Blanche asks Sophia in Golden Girls "don't you Italians do anything besides hit?", her response is "no, we also make love and sing opera". Likewise, gays/LGBT do more than just be "sexual"... and many are less "sexual" than most "heterosexuals". When Ted Cruz was asked back in 2015 if he had any animosity towards "gays", he refused to give a "yes" or "no" answer but insisted on replying with the word "homo-sex-wual" repeatedly with the "sex" part emphasized. Sadly he could not stop thinking about what "they" do with their body parts. (He also said "look, I am a Christian and WE are taught to love everybody", which I guess was a roundabout way of saying that "we" as "Christians" are a separate species and he doesn't naturally love everybody unless taught to.)

 

Yes, sex is a part of life but humans should not be judged strictly by that.

[+ FreshFluff]

I'm of the old school when gay meant happy like in the Flintstone song "We'll have a gay old time". I find faggot offensive. Queer is okay. It means odd and I've often been told that I am odd.

 

I’ve noticed that he traditional usage of “queer” has been replaced by “quirky.”

[+ Avalon]

I’ve noticed that he traditional usage of “queer” has been replaced by “quirky.”

 

Language adapts. Since we've taken over "gay" a new word has been found to take over the traditional meaning. Good!

[Merboy]

It's a word that might be outdated and comes from a generation of sexologists going back to the late 19th century. I believe that being gay is all about the brain, and is a spectrum, so there's a great variety of gay men because there's a variety of different brain maps. I'd say that what we know as stereotypes are actually a clue to what "homosexuality" is in some men. Why, for example, do so many gay men have the "gay voice" or why do so many "look gay"? It's a bigger picture, certainly more so than just physical attraction. It's sad that the sexuality part of it has dominated when it's a much smaller part of the whole picture than one would think.

[mike carey]

I’ve noticed that he traditional usage of “queer” has been replaced by “quirky.”

That's interesting, and may be an example of my living with a different English to yours. To me, queer always had an edge of being just odd, and not necessarily in a good way (although it could be neutral), whereas quirky carries overtones of odd but endearing, or idiosyncratic.

Language adapts. Since we've taken over "gay" a new word has been found to take over the traditional meaning. Good!

The word hasn't been taken over, it has an additional meaning. The other meanings are still there, but when using it in older ways you need to be mindful of the potential for it's now-predominant usage to be assumed. An old fashioned example, a gay bachelor would be taken as a reference to sexual attraction, but a bachelor gay would not be so interpreted. If you say someone is happy and gay most English speakers would not take that in a sexuality-related way. If you wanted them to make that connection you would need to leave a specific cue.

[+ Gar1eth]

It is a biological attraction to superior window treatments, and track lighting.

 

 

Gman

[longtime lurker]

It's a word that might be outdated and comes from a generation of sexologists going back to the late 19th century. I believe that being gay is all about the brain, and is a spectrum, so there's a great variety of gay men because there's a variety of different brain maps. I'd say that what we know as stereotypes are actually a clue to what "homosexuality" is in some men. Why, for example, do so many gay men have the "gay voice" or why do so many "look gay"? It's a bigger picture, certainly more so than just physical attraction. It's sad that the sexuality part of it has dominated when it's a much smaller part of the whole picture than one would think.

 

Yeah... you hint at another long lasting stereotype that refuses to die. People who are attracted to their own gender must therefore behave or talk like the opposite gender. This is one that spans multiple cultures, including those that were traditionally more accepting of gay rights such as the native Americans with their male "squaws" doing domestic chores instead of hunting. Of course, in order for this stereotype to flourish, the genders themselves must be restricted to very strong stereotypical roles themselves. Women must be women (submissive, be barefoot and pregnant, and have little say in political/society affairs) and men must be men (fight the wars, make all of the laws and stone the women for adultery). There is plenty of THAT in followed-by-the-letter biblical passages that so many Americans today hold dear to their hearts.

 

However I also think this stereotype comes and goes throughout history. Apparently during this last century, it was still pretty strong thanks to new media like movies, TV and radio mass producing the so-called "sissy" type in their comedy. Men in America had to be "macho" due to two world wars and the vast military industrial complex that followed. Nothing is ever cut and dry, but I have long suspected that the reason why so many older gay guys (50s and over, who were born into this environment) have picked up the smoking habit and can't stop is because they initially thought they could be more "masculine" by lowering their voices through nicotine.

 

This video is interesting. I wonder if the "manly gay" is puffing quite a few when the cameras aren't rolling. I also wonder if the happily married man really has absolutely ZERO interest in other men or is simply convincing himself because he became a father and, therefore, must be 100% heterosexual?

 

[Rudynate]

The reason I sometimes use the word homosexual is because when I was young I knew that I was different. And homosexual was the word I found in the dictionary that described me. This was before gay was adopted.

 

 

 

You're not THAT old. The expression has been in use at least since the 50s.

[+ Avalon]

You're not THAT old. The expression has been in use at least since the 50s.

 

Gay may have been around but it didn't have that definition in the dictionary I had.