homosexuality
the desire for sexual relationships with persons of the same biological sex. Usually, however, the term is used to describe social relationships between men, while LESBIANISM is used to denote such relationships between women. A distinction needs to be made between homosexual behaviour, found in most known societies, and homosexuality as a particular role around which individuals construct identities, and communities or subcultures are formed. Weeks (1977) points out that the term ‘homosexual’was first introduced into the English language in the 19th-century and that it was during this period that the social and historical factors involved in the development of homosexuality as a specific role occurred. The criminalization of male homosexuality in England and Wales in 1885 was an important part of this process. Moreover, the medical and psychiatric professions pathologized homosexuality, establishing it as a sickness open to their ‘expert’ intervention, and thus successfully medicalizing an area of social DEVIANCE. Homosexuality remained on the World Health Organization's list of pathologies until the 1970s.
According to Mort (1980), the legal reforms in England and Wales (1967) acted as an important catalyst for the emergence and radicalization of ‘gay politics’. Alongside FEMINISM, gay liberation movements challenged the essentialism of 19th-century sexology, and the medicalization of homosexuality, stressing the political and social dimensions of sexuality. Counter-ideologies were developed to challenge the stigmatization, discrimination and oppression encountered by lesbians and gay men. The term ‘gay’ was adopted, particularly by homosexual men, to challenge the negative labels attached to homosexuality by mainstream culture. Within the newly emergent and visible lesbian and gay subcultures, human sexuality has come to be seen as a combination of social forces, personal choice and sexual politics. The emphasis on choice was particularly evident in political lesbianism, which stressed woman identification as a political strategy against patriarchal relations. The implicit desexualization of lesbianism found in political lesbianism has highlighted divisions of an ideological nature within the lesbian community, and criticisms of sexist practices within gay male culture by lesbian feminists have given rise to the demand that the oppression of lesbians be theorized differently from that of gay men.
Kitzinger (1987) has challenged both the essentialist arguments and those which regard homosexuality as a matter of individual preference or political choice. In doing so, she has placed a renewed emphasis on social constructionism.
Whilst the 1960s and 70s may be regarded as a period of relative radicalism in Western societies for both lesbians and gay men, the socioeconomic conditions of the 1980s have engendered a moral backlash, exemplified by the growth of the New Right. and a series of MORAL PANICS over AIDS, lesbian motherhood and positive images of homosexuality. Sec also COMING OUT, PINK ECONOMY.
Collins Dictionary of Sociology, 3rd ed. © HarperCollins Publishers 2000
Homosexuality
Albertinediscovery of her promiscuous lesbianism breaks up her impending marriage to Marcel. [Fr. Lit.: Proust Remembrance of Things Past]
putative singer of Sapphic lyrics. [Fr. Lit.: Les Chansons de Bilitis, NCE, 1621]
farce, with serious overtones, about a night-club owner and his homosexual lover and employee. [Fr. Cinema: La Cage aux Folles]
fails to conceal his homosexual relations with a young tailor and a talented violinist. [Fr. Lit.: Proust Remembrance of Things Past]
magazine for homosexuals. [Am. Pop. Culture: Misc.]
portraying a young gay separated from “normal” people. [Am. Lit.: The City and the Pillar]
aging successful author loses his lifelong self-discipline in his love for a beautiful Polish boy. [Ger. Lit: Death in Venice]
weak English king whose love for Gaviston, Earl of Cornwall, so arouses the anger of the nobles that he loses the crown and is murdered. [Br. Drama: Marlowe Edward II in Magill II, 286]
beautiful shepherd entrances Jupiter. [Rom. Lit.: Metamorphoses]
organization that supports equal rights in jobs, housing, etc. for homosexuals. [Am. Pop. Culture: Misc.]
Greek letter adopted as symbol by gay liberation movement. [Am. Pop. Cult.: Misc.]
loved by two writers, his uncle Edouard and Count Robert de Passavant. [Fr. Lit.: Gide The Counterfeiters in Magill I, 160]
his sexual preference causes marital problems. [Am. Lit.: The Manhattan Transfer]
poetess from Lesbos; hence, lesbian. [Gk. Hist.: Brewer Dictionary, 962]
insisted on having sexual intercourse with angels disguised as men. [O.T.: Gen. 19]
his homosexuality and morbid fascination with vice are revealed by a witness to his horrible death. [Am. Drama: Tennessee Williams Suddenly Last Summer in Weiss, 448]
novel about female homosexuality; once banned, but defended by eminent authors. [Br. Lit.: Barnhart, 530]
his first homosexual fulfillment at seventeen, adheres to his erotic life-style. [Am. Lit.: Gore Vidal The City and the Pillar]
Allusions—Cultural, Literary, Biblical, and Historical: A Thematic Dictionary. Copyright 2008 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
Homosexuality
(dreams)Sex in many different forms is frequently the topic of dreams. Sexual dreams don’t always have sexual meaning. They are at times about power, control, identity, and other non-sexual issues of life. If you are homosexual, dreams regarding this particular sexual orientation are not atypical. They are simply the extension of your thoughts and feelings in the form that is the most familiar and meaningful to you. If a heterosexual person is having a homosexual dream, it may have a variety of connotations. The interpretation of this dream, as with all others, is very personal and generalizations are difficult to make. This dream may be about loving yourself, especially if the other individual in your dream is a stranger. The dream may be about integrating ideas and attitudes, and in a few rare cases may be about sexual orientation.
Bedside Dream Dictionary by Silvana Amar Copyright © 2007 by Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.