homosexual

Definitions

homosexual rate this definition:

(Adult / Slang)

2. A person who is sexually or romantically attracted only to people of the same gender.
ETYMOLOGY: Coined in 1869 by a Hungarian physician named Karoly Maria Benkert from the Greek homos and the Latin sexus, meaning same sex. It entered the English language in 1892 through C. G. Chaddocks translation of Krafft-Ebings Psychopathia Sexualis. The term first appeared in US medical journals in the 1890s, and began appearing in general usage in the 1920s. Historical trivia: In 1973, the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from its list of mental disorders.
Usage: Homosexual(ity) has long been regarded as etymologically incorrect and confusing being based on the Greek homos , meaning same as, and the Latin homo , meaning man, in which case it excluses women. For this reason but also because of the prejudice attached to it, many terms have been suggested as gender-neutral substitutes for homosexuality including: controsexual, herosexual, homogenic, homoism, homophile, homophylophilia, intermediate sex, intersexual, isosexual, simulsexual. Other words are gender-specific: androtrope (male homosexual), gyneotrope / gynaeocotrope (a female homosexual), feminosexual (a lesbian, as opposed to homosexual , male homosexual).SEE ALSO: hypothalamus.

QUOTES:

(1) Mae West: ' A homosexual is a female soul in a male body.'

(2) Gay slogan: ' Homosexuality is not a four-letter word.'

(3) Boris Grushenko (Woody Allen) in Love and Death (1975): ' Some men are heterosexual, and some men are homosexual, and some men don't think about sex at all. They become lawyers.'

(4) Russell (Harold Ramis) to the recruiting sergeant in Stripes (1981): ' No, we're not homosexuals, but we're willing to learn.'

(5) Opal Gilstrap (Raye Dowell), a lesbian in She's Gotta Have It (1986): ' You're not born a lesbian or heterosexual. Both traits are within us. We all have the potential to go either way.'

(6) Murray (Donald Faison) to Cher Hamilton (Alicia Silverstone) about her friend in Clueless (1995): ' Your man Christian is a cake-boy. (...) He's a disco-dancing, Oscar Wilde-reading, Streisand ticket-holder friend of Dorothy. Know what I'm saying? '

homosexual rate this definition:

Add or improve a definition