Talk:homosexual
Adjective
I have removed the ' {{ en-adj-more }} ' part of this entry because it is not grammatically correct to thus decline the word : an organism is either completely homosexual or heterosexual, or else bisexual, pansexual, or asexual, etcetera -- but it is immpossible to be grammatically correctly described as 'more homosexual' or 'most homosexual' in comparative degrees because one is either homosexual or one is not. It is similar to 'present', one is either present for a meeting or one is not present : one cannot be 'more present' than another. But, if any one disagrees, let's indeed discuss this. Beobach972 18:55, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
- I think they can be used. e.g. "John is way more homosexual than me. In fact John is the most homosexual person I know." Regards Andrew massyn
- Hmm ... well, feel free to change it back if you want. Perhaps we should include that declension, and then add a usage note about it? Beobach972 19:35, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
- When you're unsure of such a usage, try Google Print, e.g. search: "more homosexual". I reverted the declension and added a quote to support the comparative. Rod (A. Smith) 00:18, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
- On reflection, I think I retract my usage above. In the sense I used it above, I think homosexual would relate to the milieu rather than to the proclivities of the individual? Andrew massyn 08:37, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
- I think I agree ... I don't know, it seems to me that in that usage (and the usage cited in the entry, from the 'Sex Studies' paper), the phrase more homosexual is being used in place of more openly homosexual or more prominently homosexual, with the missing word implied. But, at that point, the question must be asked : if more homosexual (and most homosexual) are in common usage, even with that implied additional qualifier, should wiktionary have a dictionary entry/explaination for it, eg should they go ahead and decline the word, as it was? Beobach972 15:01, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
- On reflection, I think I retract my usage above. In the sense I used it above, I think homosexual would relate to the milieu rather than to the proclivities of the individual? Andrew massyn 08:37, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
- When you're unsure of such a usage, try Google Print, e.g. search: "more homosexual". I reverted the declension and added a quote to support the comparative. Rod (A. Smith) 00:18, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
- Hmm ... well, feel free to change it back if you want. Perhaps we should include that declension, and then add a usage note about it? Beobach972 19:35, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
- (User:Rodasmith) reminded me of the Kinsey scale, which qualifies degrees of homosexuality. Thus the word is being used in the sense of the disposition rather than environment. Andrew massyn 16:40, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
Additional notes
(Additional notes) : A) if it needs to be specified, the Greek translation I added is Modern Greek (as opposed to Ancient). B) I added the caution that the term 'fag' is American (similar to the caution that the term 'moffie' is South African) so as to avoid confusion due to Commonwealth English usage of the word 'fag' to mean cigarette. C) I added cautions to a few of the other synonyms due to the fact that they are pejorative or derogative. Beobach972 19:35, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
Synonyms
My thanks to User:Paul G for clarifying the rest of the 'synonyms' for homosexual, by the way; as to which are used only of males, which of females, and which are derogatory. Although, the pronunciation section now seems cluttered, but that's probably necessary in order to fit all the information in. Beobach972 15:01, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
Arabic translation
User:Agari has kindly corrected our Arabic translations. I'm sure no-one would blame me for checking up and making sure both words meant what they're supposed to though; and in case anyone else wonders, I'll go ahead and cite some sources here so that we can all be reasonably certain we have the correct Arabic translations, since most of us (me included) don't speak Arabic : (for the word homosexual:) use in an actual document (Google archive), another document (archive), a QWords link; (for the word that we now know means filthy:) QWords link (which states that it is highly offensive derogatory slang for homosexual). Beobach972 01:28, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
Adjective vs. attributive noun
Adjective sense 3 strikes me as an attributive use of the noun, rather than as an actual adjective use; I don't think you can say, for example, ?"We went to a few clubs, of which one was homosexual." Thoughts? —RuakhTALK 02:14, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
Mixed-sex/other-sex?
In the antonym section of the page, the words "mixed-sex" and "other-sex" are listed. Personally, I've never heard of either of these terms being applied to indicate the sexual preferences of straight people, and a cursory Google Books search doesn't turn up any usage relating to sexual preference. In addition, both links are red, indicating that neither of those terms are part of Wiktionary. Unless someone objects, I'm going to remove those two terms from the antonym section. EvanKroske 21:01, 24 September 2009 (UTC)
- Red links here are not an indication that a word is not valid. We use red links as a way to invite the writing of an article. If you disagree with a word or sense, you have to discuss it at WT:RFV. —Stephen 12:46, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
The following information has failed Wiktionary's verification process.
Failure to be verified means that insufficient eligible citations of this usage have been found, and the entry therefore does not meet Wiktionary inclusion criteria at the present time. We have archived here the disputed information, the verification discussion, and any documentation gathered so far, pending further evidence.
Do not re-add this information to the article without also submitting proof that it meets Wiktionary's criteria for inclusion.
Two antonyms for the adjective homosexual seem dubious to me: other-sex and mixed-sex. I've never heard either of those used, and a cursory Google book search turns up no instances of that usage. EvanKroske 19:02, 26 September 2009 (UTC)
- I can imagine that homosexuals speak of homosexual marriages and mixed-sex marriages. I’m not sure that it qualifies as a term according to CFI, but it sounds like reasonable English to me. Likewise, other-sex as an adjective seems like something that some people might say. I think they fall into the category of colloquial usage, if they are used, and so probably would not find their way into formal print. —Stephen 10:42, 30 September 2009 (UTC)
- I didn't realize that was the standard for inclusion in Wiktionary. I took the lack of entries on those words to mean that nobody has heard those words used in that sense. I believe the antonyms were added for the reason you just described: they sound reasonable. Could you point me to Wiktionary's standard of inclusion so that I can check it for myself? EvanKroske 23:29, 1 October 2009 (UTC)
- In any case, other-sex and mixed-sex are actually used as words: just try Google to find examples! Lmaltier 18:23, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
- It's true that mixed-sex is used as a word, but I still haven't seen it used to denote sexual preference. All the examples I found use "mixed-sex" to describe a group of both men and women or male and female organisms. I couldn't find a single example of mixed-sex being used as an antonym to "homosexual". EvanKroske 14:53, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
RFV failed, antonyms removed. —RuakhTALK 18:48, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
English etymology older than 1892?
Doing a little research into some Biblical-passage translations, I was trying to find the oldest English usage of "homosexual". This entry currently implies it dates to 1892, but I've come across quite a few mentions (via Google Book Search (GBS)) of an excerpt of a work titled:
- Sodomy (Homosexual Behavior) 24. The Tryal and Condemnation of Mervin, Lord Audley Earl of Castle-Haven. At Westminster, April the 5th 1631...
The GBS list includes a lot of noise (modern issues of ancient journals; misdated books; bad OCR, especially of Latin texts), but I found many English works that appear to include it, like these:
- Aristotle (pseudonym); Aristotle's Compleat Master Piece (1694), p. 221
- Marten, John; A Treatise of All the Degrees and Symptoms of the Venereal Disease, in Both Sexes (1708), p. 157
- Seaton, Thomas; The Conduct of Servants in Great Families (1720), p. 317
I couldn't readily find any of these containing works available in area libraries. A WorldCat search, however, yielded what appears to be the original document:
- The Tryal and Condemnation of Mervin, Lord Audley Earl of Castle-Haven. At Westminster, April the 5th 1631. For Abetting a Rape upon his Countess, Committing Sodomy with his Servants, and commanding and countenancing the debauching his daughter. With the learned speeches of the Lord High-Steward, the arguments of the King's-Councel upon that occasion, and the Lord Audley's speech at the place of execution.
(They sure liked long titles back then.) This is listed as part of the Early English Books Online collection, but EEBO doesn't seem to offer access to anything before the 18th century to anyone but their partner institutions. Also, this title doesn't include "homosexual", so whatever common work the GBS-listed books are excerpting may be yet another work which includes this "tryal" as an example (number 24?), and the trial document itself may not include "homosexual". (But those quoters are still 17th-18th century.)
Now that I've run out of time on this side project, I thought I'd ask here to see if anyone can locate any of these works and confirm the idea that the term "homosexual" has a considerably longer English history. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 23:07, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
Illustrations
Erm. Why does this entry need illustrations of homosexual males and women? Does the entry on 'heterosexual' have images of 'heterosexual men and females'? No! If there's no legitimate reason I hear within 30 days, I'll delete those.
Draumr (talk) 12:23, 14 April 2015 (UTC)
organisms
Homosexual organisms are referred to as "homosexuals" also ? Leasnam (talk) 15:48, 29 August 2017 (UTC)
- (Assuming you mean non-human organisms,) yes, I would expect that "homosexual(s)" and "heterosexual(s)" etc would also be used of animals at least sometimes (when context clarified that the more common, human sense wasn't meant). I would have expected that it might even still be current to do that, whereas referring to humans as "homosexuals" has come to be disfavored. OTOH, I poked around Google Scholar and didn't find any papers that did refer to animal "homosexuals", although some papers speak of "human homosexuals" as if they think the term could also refer to same-sex-attracted animals and needs clarification. - -sche (discuss) 16:54, 29 August 2017 (UTC)