What Do It Mean to Be a Gay Man? | Psychology Today

Contents:

• WHY ARE PEOPLE GAY? GAY BY CHOICE OR IS BEG GAY GEIC?
• QUEER VS. GAY: HOW THE WORDS ARE DIFFERENT, AND WHY IT’S IMPORTANT
• WHAT DO IT MEAN TO BE GAY? DEFN AND MEANG OF GAY
• WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN “GAY” AND “HOMOSEXUAL"? IS ONLY BY GENR?
• WHAT DO IT MEAN TO BE A GAY MAN?

WHY ARE PEOPLE GAY? GAY BY CHOICE OR IS BEG GAY GEIC?

The Enomist specifilly ced a pair of 13th and 14th-century poets, Rumi and Hafiz, who lived morn-day Iran and often wrote about homosexual relatnships. Use of a slur that targets trans people creased 53%, while stanc of an offensive term for homosexual men went up 39% over the yearly average. Billy Eichner, noted homosexual, found himself the target of some odd gossip when a clickba article toutg his relatnship wh Noelle star Anna Kendrick went viral.

Even his lifetime, this Pssian royal was wily mored to be a homosexual, though that term wouldn’t be ed till nearly 90 years after his ath. The Amerin Medil Associatn is agast therapy that is “based on the assumptn that homosexualy is a mental disorr or that the person should change their ’s important to know that there is nothg wrong wh lovg people of the same genr as you. now sometim offensive; see age paragraph below: sexual or romantic attractn to others of one's same sex: the qualy or state of beg gay.

Outsi of those ntexts, however, the word n be seen as evokg negative stereotyp and outdated clil unrstandgs of homosexualy as a psychiatric ndn.

QUEER VS. GAY: HOW THE WORDS ARE DIFFERENT, AND WHY IT’S IMPORTANT

The term gay is equently ed as a synonym for homosexual; female homosexualy is often referred to as different tim and different cultur, homosexual behavur has been varly approved of, tolerated, punished, and banned.

Homosexualy was not unmon ancient Greece and Rome, and the relatnships between adult and adolcent mal particular have bee a chief foc of Wtern classicists recent years.

Others—om factns wh mastream Prottantism to anizatns of Reform rabbis—have advoted, on theologil as well as social grounds, the full acceptance of homosexuals and their relatnships.

WHAT DO IT MEAN TO BE GAY? DEFN AND MEANG OF GAY

Morn velopments Attus toward homosexualy are generally flux, partially as a rult of creased polil activism (see gay rights movement) and efforts by homosexuals to be seen not as aberrant personali but as differg om “normal” dividuals only their sexual orientatn.

WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN “GAY” AND “HOMOSEXUAL"? IS ONLY BY GENR?

The nflictg views of homosexualy—as a variant but normal human sexual behavur on one hand, and as psychologilly viant behavur on the other—rema prent most societi the 21st century, but they have been largely rolved ( the profsnal sense) most veloped untri. The Amerin Psychiatric Associatn, for example, classified “ego-syntonic homosexualy” (the ndn of a person ntent wh his or her homosexualy) as a mental illns 1973.

Nohels, some relig groups ntue to emphasize reparative therapy the attempt to “cure” homosexualy through prayer, unselg, and behavur modifitn. Selected theori of homosexualy Psychologists the 19th and 20th centuri, most of whom classified homosexualy as a form of mental illns, veloped a variety of theori on s orig.

Together wh a growg acceptance of homosexualy as a mon exprsn of human sexualy, long-standg beliefs about homosexuals had begun to lose crence. The stereotyp of male homosexuals as weak and effemate and lbians as mascule and aggrsive, which were wispread the Wt as recently as the 1950s and early ’60s, have largely been disrd. The Ksey report of 1948, for example, found that 30 percent of adult Amerin mal among Ksey’s subjects had engaged some homosexual activy and that 10 percent reported that their sexual practice had been exclively homosexual for a perd of at least three years between the ag of 16 and 55.

WHAT DO IT MEAN TO BE A GAY MAN?

A range of more recent surveys, ncerng predomantly homosexual behavur as well as same-genr sexual ntact adulthood, have yield rults that are both higher and lower than those intified by Ksey.

Instead of tegorizg people absolute terms as eher homosexual or heterosexual, Ksey observed a spectm of sexual activy, of which exclive orientatns of eher type make up the extrem. Although the topic of homosexualy was ltle discsed the public fom durg the early part of the 20th century, beme a polil issue many Wtern untri durg the late 20th century. This was particularly te the Uned Stat, where the gay rights movement is often seen as a late offshoot of var civil rights movements of the 1960s.

After the 1969 Stonewall rts, which New York Cy policemen raid a gay bar and met wh staed ristance, many homosexuals were embolned to intify themselv as gay men or lbians to iends, to relativ, and even to the public at large.