millines@fortune.UUCP (Trish Millines) (08/27/84)
THIS IS FOR THE LINE EATER*****************************************
I would like to know why straight people always think of males when
they speak of homosexuals? Lesbians are homosexuals too you know!
Most of the articles I read in the news papers and on the net usually
refer to male homosexual behavior, but the word "homosexual" itself does not
mean "male".
Take for example AIDS. Now that is a male homosexual disease, but until
recently, most of the articles didn't point that out. People always say the
words "faggot" and "queen" when they're trying to be smart. I'm not a faggot
or a queen, but I am a homosexual. Get my point?
I'm tired of being grouped in with male homosexuals when someone is talkingabout gays. There are alot of things that go on in the male homosexual
community that lesbians don't approve of and would never practice. This is not
to say that I don't like male homosexuals, but if I'm going to be put in a
category, I'd like to be put in the one I belong in.
So to repeat my question, why to straight people always think of males
when they speak of homosexuals?msimpson@bbncca.ARPA (Mike Simpson) (08/28/84)
In article <4061@fortune.UUCP> millines@fortune.UUCP (Trish Millines) writes: > > I would like to know why straight people always think of males when >they speak of homosexuals? Lesbians are homosexuals too you know! > > Most of the articles I read in the news papers and on the net usually >refer to male homosexual behavior, but the word "homosexual" itself does not >mean "male". > > .... > > I'm tired of being grouped in with male homosexuals when someone is talking >about gays. There are alot of things that go on in the male homosexual >community that lesbians don't approve of and would never practice. This is not >to say that I don't like male homosexuals, but if I'm going to be put in a >category, I'd like to be put in the one I belong in. > > So to repeat my question, why to straight people always think of males >when they speak of homosexuals? Laziness and/or unintendended ignorance, I guess; it's much easier to deal with a group as a group than to separately acknowledge the various sub-groups within the group. It would be easy (to use an analogy) to say that 'Black people do this' in discussing certain behaviors that are practiced almost exclusively by Black males. Of course, this is not meant to condone the behavior you describe in any way. I am aware that the proportion of lesbian AIDS victims to male homosexual AIDS victims is very low. However, if perhaps the lesbian community were to become more visible (both to male homosexuals and to heterosexuals), then this tendency to lump the lesbian community in with the male homosexual community would decrease. Comments? -- Mike Simpson,BBN Communications, Cambridge MA -- -- your obedient servant, Mike Simpson, BBN msimpson@bbn-unix (ARPA) {decvax,ihnp4,ima,linus,wjh12}!bbncca!msimpson (Usenet) 617-497-2819 (Ma Bell)
woods@hao.UUCP (08/28/84)
> So to repeat my question, why to straight people always think of males > when they speak of homosexuals? First of all, since by your own admission, you are not a straight person, what makes you an expert on what straight people think? Secondly, it's not clear to me that you are right. Thirdly, if your observation *is* correct (let's assume it is for the moment), it may not be due to malice or bias against lesbians. It may just be that in straight relationships men and women are much more similar, by which I mean every straight relationship involves a man and a woman. There isn't such a dicotomy in straight relationships as there is in gay ones, where there are two distinct classes (male and female). Straights maybe aren't used to the idea of two distinct types. --Greg -- {ucbvax!hplabs | allegra!nbires | decvax!stcvax | harpo!seismo | ihnp4!stcvax} !hao!woods "... the heat come 'round and busted me for smiling on a cloudy day..."
labelle@hplabsc.UUCP (WB6YZZ La Belle) (08/28/84)
Homos, Fags, Queers, Fruits, whats the difference! There all the same.
GEORGEandyb@dartvax.UUCP (Andy Behrens) (08/29/84)
> I would like to know why straight people always think of males when > they speak of homosexuals? Lesbians are homosexuals too you know! Why do some people think "homosexual" implies "male"? I can think of two reasons. I suspect that the word may have become specialized in the same way as "man", which originally referred to any human being -- and for the same reasons. +----------------------------------------+ | HOMOSEXUAL (= gay person) | | +-----------+ +-------------+ | | | HOMOSEXUAL| | LESBIAN | | | | (= gay | | (= gay | | | | man) | | woman) | | | +-----------+ +-------------+ | +----------------------------------------+ +----------------------------------------+ | MAN (= person) | | +-----------+ +-------------+ | | | MAN | | WOMAN | | | | (= male | | (= female | | | | person) | | person) | | | +-----------+ +-------------+ | +----------------------------------------+ A second possibility is that people confuse the Greek root "homo-" with the Latin word. (And are ignorant of the fact that the Latin means "person" rather than "male"). Andy Behrens andyb@dartmouth.csnet {astrovax,dalcs,decvax,cornell,linus}!dartvax!andyb
heiser@cca.UUCP (Bill Heiser) (08/29/84)
I think there are a couple of reasons for the phenomenon you mentioned
where most (many) people think of males when they think of homosexuals.
The first reason is the fact that, although there, as you say, many female
homosexuals (i.e. lesbians), they do not make themselves as visible as
males tend to. Often, gay males are very "flowery", and anyone (such as
myself) who is straight doesn't have a very difficult time of determining
who is and who is not a "fag" (as they say). I am not criticizing them;
to each his own. If they want to act that way, that is their problem.
But that is not the point of this article.
Another reason for people thinking only of males when they discuss
homosexuals is the fact that females have traditionally been allowed to
be "closer" to each other. People think nothing of seeing two women
holding hands, kissing (within reason), and just generally being
affectionate. Therefore, people usually don't even think of women as
being gay, because even straight women are "allowed" to be "close".
If men were to act the way (even straight) women do, they would
definitely be subject to much criticism. I guess many homosexual
males do act this way (as I mentioned in the first part of this article),
which is why people do criticize them and associate homosexuality with
them. I guess there probably are "normal acting" gay males, but people
don't know about them, because they "blend in" with everyone else.dag@tellab2.UUCP (Donald Graft) (08/29/84)
There is a word for a female homosexual (= lesbian). There is no word (at least in common usage) for a male homosexual. Is this relevant to the question? Donald Graft ...ihnp4!tellab1!tellab2!dag
miller@nlm-mcs.ARPA (Nancy Miller) (08/29/84)
Frankly, the only reasons I can think of are habit and visibility. It does seem as though male homosexuals are more talked about. Habit is because of this and because of the misconception Trish stated that "homosexual" is taken to refer to only males. Correct me if I am in error, but I heard some years ago that there are more male homosexuals than female ones. If true, this may also contribute to people's impressions. I must add that I, too have used "homosexual" in context where I felt it would be taken as referring to a male, whereas I usually refer to female homosexuals as lesbians. However, I believe that most people realize that "homosexuality" can describe the persuasion (I couldn't think of a better word for it, offhand) of both men and women. In sum, I think people don't mean to offend by the usage of the word. You have the right to correct people on this. Nancy Miller (miller@nlm-mcs.arpa)
chabot@amber.DEC (Lisa S. Chabot) (08/29/84)
Trish >> >> So to repeat my question, why to straight people always think of males >> when they speak of homosexuals? Greg > > First of all, since by your own admission, you are not a straight person, > what makes you an expert on what straight people think? This is silly: because lots of them make so much noise about it. They make noise by talking, by using words, and, according to what Trish sees, the noise mostly equates "homosexual" with "male". [I think "lesbian" is a much nicer sounding word; I don't know, it has a nice long "z". And it only refers to women--kind of neat!, where "homosexual" can mean women or men.]{But then, I can't go around saying people should like being called something just because I like to say the word, and that's not what I'm trying to express when I say such.} Growing up, I hear a lot more taunts about male homosexuals than female homosexuals: "lesbo" was only a spook word to teach us we were no longer allowed to touch each other in junior high (no more running holding hands on the playground :-( ), but we'd hear a lot more of "homo", used not only for no-touch, but also for any boy who was behind in other aspects of development, or who didn't act down to all the tough-guy norms (and there are many more possibilities for "defects" and therefore name-calling here)[hey! and don't forget all those long-hair hippy males suspected by >30ers of not-macho behavior]. Perhaps since boys didn't have their own word, but girls could (and I would hear "homo" referred to girls too), when we get older and use the long words (and maybe not even as a taunt! :-) ) we've by now gotten "homosexual" tied to some sort of applies-to-men-mostly feeling. I found some lost memory, faded and listing no references, kicking around in the dust here in the cave that refers to Queen Victoria declaring that women don't do such awful (her coloring, not mine!) things, and therefore influencing legistlation against homosexuals so that it explicitly referred to not-women (==men :-)! ). Anyway, I didn't think that all straights always mean "male" when they say "homosexual". But it is interesting that this is Trish's observation, and it is worthy of thought that homosexual women find this aggravating. We can think about our hidden context next time we say "homosexual". "Ssssmile when you sssay that, ssssssstranger." L SssssssChabot UUCP: ...decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-amber!chabot ARPA: ...chabot%amber.DEC@decwrl.ARPA USGrail: DEC, MR03-1/K20, 2 Iron Way, Marlborough, MA 01752
rlr@pyuxn.UUCP (Rich Rosen) (08/29/84)
> I would like to know why straight people always think of males when > they speak of homosexuals? Lesbians are homosexuals too you know! > Most of the articles I read in the news papers and on the net usually > refer to male homosexual behavior, but the word "homosexual" itself does not > mean "male". > Take for example AIDS. Now that is a male homosexual disease, but until > recently, most of the articles didn't point that out. People always say the > words "faggot" and "queen" when they're trying to be smart. I'm not a faggot > or a queen, but I am a homosexual. Get my point? It's related to the notion that men is *supposed* to mean "men" and/or "men and women", that he is *supposed* to mean "he/she" on occasion, etc. The linguistic purists will be quick to claim that using masculine words as pseudo-neutral nouns and pronouns is an accepted part of English language. Yet one can see the results of this. Since "he", when used to mean "he or she" (unknown third person neutral), is often thought by the listener to mean just what the word implies ("he", a third person male), androcentric assumptions abound when other words (like "homosexual") are heard by such listeners. Naturally (?) they assume the speaker is talking about male homosexuals, or else the speaker would have specifically said "female homosexuals", right? ("Assume the speaker means male if no gender is specified.") This is why many people push for job descriptions free of gender bias (fireFIGHTER, police OFFICER, instead of fireMAN, policeMAN), precisely to avoid having people assume that they refer to males. Insisting that "a policeman can be a woman" doesn't hold much water if people interpret the word (even subconsciously) to mean policeMAN. Notice that even a word like homosexual (which one would think is neutral in gender implication content) gets interpreted to mean "male homosexual". (Thus it may not be just in particular words like "fireman", but in ingrained conditioned assumptions that if no gender is specified, we're talking about males.) Also, of course, there are other factors. (Like assuming that the words homosexual and lesbian are mutually exclusive. I seem to remember that a lot of homosexual organizations refer to themselves as the "Gay & Lesbian ..." specifically to make sure that lesbians are included.) But if you think about it, it all boils down to large groups of people assuming that if you say a word that may not even have ANY gender implication, you're implying "males". -- WHAT IS YOUR NAME? Rich Rosen WHAT IS YOUR NET ADDRESS? pyuxn!rlr WHAT IS THE CAPITAL OF ASSYRIA? I don't know that ... ARGHHHHHHHH!
sharp@aquila.UUCP (08/30/84)
> So to repeat my question, why to straight people always think of males > when they speak of homosexuals? I guarantee it's terminology - there is no word which means specifically male homosexual, in the way that lesbian means female homosexual. Therefore, most people will assume that, if you meant women, you'd use lesbian: using the so-called generic "homosexual" leads most people to conclude lesbians are not included. Now, if someone would like to invent a male equivalent word .... -- Nigel Sharp [noao!sharp National Optical Astronomy Observatories]
chabot@amber.DEC (Lisa S. Chabot) (08/30/84)
GEORGE >
> Homos, Fags, Queers, Fruits, whats the difference! There all the same.
Well, if we're going to get into cheap name-throwing here, ...let's see...
Old-fogeys, Brain-dead, Money-grabbers, Potato-heads, what's the difference!
They're all the same.
:-)?
L SssssssChabot
UUCP: ...decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-amber!chabot
ARPA: ...chabot%amber.DEC@decwrl.ARPA
USKale: DEC, MR03-1/K20, 2 Iron Way, Marlborough, MA 01752
What'sssssssthe difference between a duck?nonh@utzoo.UUCP (Chris Robertson) (08/31/84)
[Line-eaters of the world, come out of the closet and unite!]
Regarding the growing practice of using "homosexual" to mean only "male
homosexuals", I think one of the problems here is that there isn't any
word in English (that I can think of, anyway) to refer to just male
homosexuals.
"Lesbian" quite clearly refers to just women homosexuals, so there's no
problem here. But what do you use when you want a word for just male
gays? "Gay" won't really do, because it has acquired generic meanings
too, and is often used in forms such as "gay women".
So I guess what we need is a new word, so female homosexuals won't
get lumped in with the male ones wholesale.
--Chris {decvax, linus}!utzoo!nonh
"Know thyself; but don't try to explain thy knowledge to anyone by mail..."rcd@opus.UUCP (Dick Dunn) (08/31/84)
> I would like to know why straight people always think of males when >they speak of homosexuals? Lesbians are homosexuals too you know! They don't. -- Dick Dunn {hao,ucbvax,allegra}!nbires!rcd (303)444-5710 x3086 ...I'm not cynical - just experienced.
rcd@opus.UUCP (Dick Dunn) (08/31/84)
> Homos, Fags, Queers, Fruits, whats the difference! There all the same. > > GEORGE Yeah, sure. And straights, honkies, rednecks, jocks, what's the difference? They're all the same. -- Dick Dunn {hao,ucbvax,allegra}!nbires!rcd (303)444-5710 x3086 ...I'm not cynical - just experienced.
twiss@stolaf.UUCP (Thomas S. Twiss) (08/31/84)
> Homos, fags, queers, friuts, what's the difference? They're all the same.
I really hope you are kidding. If not, I think you could refrain from
printing such bombastically obnoxious things in these newsgroups.
Tom Twiss
{decvax|ihnp4}!stolaf!twissag5@pucc-i (Henry C. Mensch) (09/01/84)
Well, it seems obvious to me that (at least for most gay men
and women that I know) gays have a general idea of how straights think
because they are raised as straights. Unfortunately, we aren't blessed
with a society whose parents might consider that their children might
not be heterosexual. From my experience, children on this planet tend
to be taught to grow up, get married and (maybe) have children of their
own. Since some of the children who are so indoctrinated are gay, it
makes sense that they would have a pretty good handle on how straights
think.
As for straights thinking of men only when considering
homosexuals, I suspect that original writer may be right. Ask
any ten friends of what they picture a homosexual to look like. The
odds are against it being a pretty woman, and the odds are for someone
who wears leather, or abuses small children, or someone who may be a
transvestite. Even when various cities have their Gay/Lesbian pride
celebrations, few women are seen. Perhaps if lesbians were more
visible to the outside world, they might become part of the stereotype
(if, indeed, this is desirable).
NAME: Henry C. Mensch
UUCP: {decvax, ucbvax, allegra}!pur-ee!pucc-i!ag5
{seismo, harpo, teklabs, ihnp4}!pur-ee!pucc-i!ag5
ARPA: pur-ee!pucc-i!ag5@ucb-vax
i.ag5@purdue-mordred
CSNET: i.ag5@mordredjoe@fluke.UUCP (Joe Kelsey) (09/01/84)
_________________________________ From: garret@oddjob.UChicago.UUCP (Trisha O Tuama) Female homosexuals can be called "homosexuals" as well as "lesbians." Male homosexuals can be called "homosexuals" and what else? --------------------------------- Personally, I have always used the term *homosexual* to indicate *both* sexes. I use *gay* for male and *lesbian* for female specific references. Somehow, I had the impression that this was a generally accepted and understood usage. Admittedly, most of my homosexual acquaintances have been males, so I could have biased opinions. Actually, I haven't really had a *lot* of contact with either male *or* female homosexuals, so I can't say that I have a great deal of experience to draw upon. /Joe
garret@oddjob.UChicago.UUCP (Trisha O Tuama) (09/05/84)
***** Female homosexuals can be called "homosexuals" as well as "lesbians." Male homosexuals can be called "homosexuals" and what else? It is obviously not accurate useage, but seems to be easier for most people to describe male homosexuals as "homosexuals" and female homo- sexuals as "lesbians." Personally, I much prefer "lesbian" to "homosexual"; the former has a distinguished history, the latter sounds so clinical. This reminds me of endless debates in library school about whether a dictionary is supposed to reflect "correct" useage or "common" useage. Trisha O Tuama
julian@deepthot.UUCP (Julian Davies) (09/06/84)
I doubt that gays are more numerous than lesbians. [Each term used in
the obvious single-gender sense.] Gays are just more 'visible'. For
instance, if two women walk down the street holding hands, they would
not routinely be assumed to be lesbians, whereas two men might well be
assumed to be gay in those circumstances.
Perhaps also in the last few years, until quite recently, there has
been more opublic awareness of gays but not especially so much of
lesbians. Actualy, I found it very interesting to read the magazine
"Spare Rib" (from the UK) for gaining new perspectives. I recommend
it to anyone who can track down a copy. (Spare Rib is a quite long
established feminist monthly. It has 'special issues' on various
topics from time to time, just like your favourite computer mag does!)
Julian Davies
{deepthot|uwo}!julian