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Currently prescribed usageThe term homosexual can be used as an adjective to describe the sexual attractions and behaviors of same-sex oriented persons. Some argue that the use of "homosexual" as a noun is offensive, arguing that homosexual people are people first, homosexual being merely an attribute of their humanity. Also, some recommend that the terms homosexual and homosexuality be avoided altogether, lest their use cause confusion or arouse controversy. In particular the description of individuals as homosexual may be offensive, partially because of the negative clinical association of the word stemming from its use in describing same-sex attraction as a pathological state before homosexuality was removed from the American Psychiatric Association's list of mental disorders in 1973. Even as late as the 1990s, the "Read code" system, used by the National Health Service in Great Britain, classed male homosexuality and lesbianism under mental disorders, as conditions E2200 and E2201 respectively, although this system has since been replaced. The use of the word "homosexual" in describing individuals and same-sex relationships may also be inaccurate, as people involved in such relationships may identify as bisexual, pansexual, or another orientation. Same-sex oriented people seldom apply these terms to themselves, and public officials and agencies often avoid them. For instance, the Safe Schools Coalition of Washington's Glossary for School Employees advises that gay is the "preferred synonym for homosexual",[1] and goes on to advise avoiding the term homosexual as it is "clinical, distancing and archaic":
The Guardian Style Guide, Newswatch Diversity Style Guide, American Heritage Dictionary, and the Committee on Lesbian and 'Gay' Concern of the American Psychological Association's Avoiding Heterosexual Bias in Language all agree that "gay" is the preferred term.
People with a same-gender sexual orientation generally prefer the terms gay, lesbian and bisexual. "Lesbian" refers specifically to women; gay can apply to both men and women, although unqualified usage would more often be referring to men. Other terms include same-gender-loving and same-sex-oriented. Among some sectors of black homosexual sub-culture, same-gender sexual behavior is sometimes viewed as solely for physical pleasure. Men on the down-low (or DL) may engage in regular (although often covert) sex acts with other men while pursuing sexual and romantic relationships with women. History of homosexual terminologyEarly historyPoststructuralist theorist Michel Foucault has argued that homosexual and heterosexual identities didn't emerge until the 19th century; before that time terms described practices and not identity. Foucault cites "Westphal's famous article of 1870 on 'contrary sexual sensations'" as the "date of birth" of the categorization of the homosexual (Foucault 1976). In his Symposium the ancient Greek philosopher Plato described three sexual orientations (through the character of the profane comedian Aristophanes) and provided explanations for their existence using an invented creation myth. [2] Aristophanes' fable is only one of many perspectives on love in the Symposium, and should not be considered identical with Plato's own ideas. Most of the Symposium's speeches are intended to be flawed in different ways, with the wise Socrates coming in at the end to correct their errors. TribadismThe tribas, lesbian, from Greek tribein, to rub (i.e. rubbing the pudenda together, or clitoris upon pubic bone, etc.), appears in Greek and Latin satires from the late first century. The tribade was the most common (vulgar) lesbian in European texts for many centuries. ‘Tribade’ occurs in English texts from at least as early as 1601 to at least as late as the mid-nineteenth century before it became self-consciously old-fashioned – it was in current use for nearly three centuries. Fricatrice, a synonym for tribade that also refers to rubbing but has a Latin rather than a Greek root, appeared in English as early as 1605 (in Ben Jonson's Volpone). Its usage suggests that it was more colloquial and more pejorative than tribade. Variants include the Latinized confricatrice and English rubster.[2] SodomyThough "sodomy" has been used to refer to a range of homosexual and heterosexual "unnatural acts", the term "sodomite" usually refers to a homosexual male. The term is derived from the Biblical tale of Sodom and Gomorrah, and Christian churches have referred to the crimen sodomitae (crime of the Sodomites) for centuries; the modern association with homosexuality can be found as early as 96 A.D in the writings of the Jewish historian Josephus. Jerome in the early 5th century uses the forms Sodoman, in Sodomis, Sodomorum, Sodomæ, Sodomitæ (Hallam 1993). The modern German word Sodomie and the Norwegian sodomi refer to bestiality. LesbianismLesbian writer Emma Donoghue found that the term lesbian (with its modern meaning) was in use in the English language from at least the 17th century. A 1732 book by William King, The Toast, uses "lesbian loves" and "tribadism" interchangeably : ‘she loved Women in the same Manner as Men love them; she was a Tribad’. SapphismNamed after the Greek poet Sappho who lived on the island Lesbos and wrote love poems to women, this term has been in use since at least the 18th century with the connotation of lesbian. In 1773 a London magazine described sex between women as ‘Sapphic passion’. The adjective form 'Sapphic' is still commonly used in the English language. Molly and tommyIn 18th Century England the term molly was used for male homosexuals; it implied effeminacy. Tommy, a slang term for a homosexual woman in use by 1781, may have been coined by analogy with molly.[3] PederastyToday, pederasty refers specifically to the sexual orientation of an adult male towards male youths, or the cultural institutions that support such relations, as in ancient Greece. However, in the 18th and 19th centuries, the term usually referred to male homosexuality in general. A pederast was also the active partner in anal sex, whether with a male or a female partner. BuggeryVery similar in meaning (though not derivation) to 'sodomy', the term buggery often implies anal sex, but has been used to describe a range of "unnatural sex acts" including bestiality. Derived from the French word Bougrerie, which in turn came from the medieval Latin term bulgarus, meaning "Bulgarian". The association was inferred by the Roman Catholic Church, who supposed the sex lives of the 'heretical' Cathars of southern France were similar to the Bogomils in Bulgaria. Cognates include the Spanish bugarrón, the Italian buggerone, and the German puseran(t), a word which survives in Eastern Europe. UrningtumKarl Heinrich Ulrichs invented the term Urning in Germany in the 1860s for a male-bodied person with a female psyche, who is sexually attracted to men and not women. He expanded this system to cover a range of sexual appetites and gender variance in both males and females. HomosexualImage:Kertbeny.jpg Karl-Maria Kertbeny coined the word homosexual around 1868. The word homosexual translates literally as "of the same sex," being a hybrid of the Greek prefix homo- meaning "same" (as distinguished from the Latin root homo meaning human) and the Latin root sex meaning "sex." The first known appearance of the term homosexual in print is found in an anonymous 1869 German pamphlet 143 des Preussischen Strafgesetzbuchs und seine Aufrechterhaltung als 152 des Entwurfs eines Strafgesetzbuchs für den Norddeutschen Bund ("Paragraph 143 of the Prussian Penal Code and Its Maintenance as Paragraph 152 of the Draft of a Penal Code for the North German Confederation") written by Karl-Maria Kertbeny. This pamphlet advocated the repeal of Prussia's sodomy laws (Bullough et al. ed. (1996)). Kertbeny had previously used the word in a private letter written in 1868 to Karl Heinrich Ulrichs. Kertbeny used Homosexualität in place of Ulrichs's Urningtum; Homosexualisten instead of Urninge, and Homosexualistinnen instead of Urninden. The first known use of "homosexual" in English is in Charles Gilbert Chaddock's 1895 translation of Richard von Krafft-Ebing's Psychopathia Sexualis, a study on sexual practices. The term was popularized by the 1906 Harden-Eulenburg affair. Although some early writers used the adjective homosexual to refer to any single-gender context (such as an all-girls' school), today the term implies a sexual aspect. The term homosocial is now used to describe single-sex contexts that are not specifically sexual. Homogenic loveUsed by Edward Carpenter in "Homogenic Love: and its Place in a Free Society", 1894. Other late 19th and early 20th century sexological terms
These terms describe individuals for whom the sex of the psyche is the opposite of that of the genitals (as with Ulrich's Urnings). The female invert is therefore masculine and the male invert is feminine. Traits of inversion include homosexual erotic attraction, temperament, and behavior; sometimes inversion can affect career choice and even anatomic structure. Krafft-Ebing, drawing on the earlier writings of Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, described male inverts with varying degrees of effeminacy, from Effemination in which a man has a distinctly feminine demeanor, to Androgyny in which a man is so effeminate that he can even has feminine bodily characteristics like rounded hips. HomophilePopular in the 1950s and 1960s (and still in occasional use today, particularly in writing by Anglican clergy), the term "homophile" was an attempt to avoid the clinical implications of sexual pathology found with the word "homosexual", emphasizing love (-phile) instead. HomogenitalIn the late twentieth century, this word was coined by Christian groups opposed to homosexuality.[citation needed] In contrast to "homophile," the word focuses solely on the sexual acts which some churches believe to be sinful, side-stepping the associated issues of romantic or family love, community, and personal identity. The term's use remains confined mostly to anti-gay religious groups, but it is occasionally seen in the writings of their opponents, such as DignityUSA. Androtrop and GynäkotropinIn the years from 1946 to 1966, homosexual activist Kurt Hiller published a number of poems and articles in Swiss journal Der Kreis (The circle). In one of them he joined the ongoing debate on terminology by suggesting the terms "Androtrop" and "Gynäkotropin" for male and female homosexuals, respectively. Hiller coined these German terms from the Greek words "tropos" (turning [to]) combined with "andro-" (male) and "gynaiko-" (female), with the addition of the German feminine ending "in." Neither term was adopted, though the first briefly gained some favor. GayQueerLGBTSlang or pejorative terms
Many of the following terms are considered acceptable in a casual register when used by queers and their allies, but are considered pejorative or inappropriate when used in formal contexts or by outsiders. Many also imply masculinity in women (e.g. "bull dyke") or effeminacy in men (e.g. "fairy"). English
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See alsoReferences
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