Poof

Homosexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction, or sexual behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality is "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions" to people of the same sex. It "also refers to a person's sense of identity based on those attractions, related behaviors, and membership in a community of others who share those attractions."

Along with bisexuality and heterosexuality, homosexuality is one of the three main categories of sexual orientation within the heterosexual–homosexual continuum. Scientists do not yet know the exact cause of sexual orientation, but they theorize that it is caused by a complex interplay of genetic, hormonal, and environmental influences and do not view it as a choice. Although no single theory on the cause of sexual orientation has yet gained widespread support, scientists favor biologically based theories. There is considerably more evidence supporting nonsocial, biological causes of sexual orientation than social ones, especially for males. There is no substantive evidence which suggests parenting or early childhood experiences play a role with regard to sexual orientation. While some people believe that homosexual activity is unnatural, scientific research shows that homosexuality is a normal and natural variation in human sexuality and is not in and of itself a source of negative psychological effects. There is insufficient evidence to support the use of psychological interventions to change sexual orientation.

The most common adjectives for homosexual people are '' lesbian'' for females and '' gay'' for males, but the term ''gay'' also commonly refers to both homosexual females and males. The percentage of people who are gay or lesbian and the proportion of people who are in same-sex romantic relationships or have had same-sex sexual experiences are difficult for researchers to estimate reliably for a variety of reasons, including many gay and lesbian people not openly identifying as such due to prejudice or discrimination such as homophobia and heterosexism. LeVay, Simon (1996).
Queer Science: The Use and Abuse of Research into Homosexuality
.'' Cambridge: The MIT Press Homosexual behavior has also been documented in many non-human animal species, though humans are one of only two species known to exhibit a homosexual orientation.

Many gay and lesbian people are in committed same-sex relationships. These relationships are equivalent to heterosexual relationships in essential psychological respects. Homosexual relationships and acts have been admired, as well as condemned, throughout recorded history, depending on the form they took and the culture in which they occurred.Sexual Orientation
. ''American Psychiatric Association''. Since the end of the 20th century, there has been a global movement towards freedom and equality for gay people, including the introduction of anti-bullying legislation to protect gay children at school, legislation ensuring non-discrimination, equal ability to serve in the military, equal access to health care, equal ability to adopt and parent, and the establishment of marriage equality.

Etymology

The word ''homosexual'' is a Greek and Latin hybrid, with the first element derived from Greek ὁμός ''homos'', "same" (not related to the Latin ''homo'', "man", as in ''Homo sapiens''), thus connoting sexual acts and affections between members of the same sex, including lesbianism. The first known appearance of ''homosexual'' in print is found in an 1868 letter to Karl Heinrich Ulrichs by the Austrian-born novelist Karl-Maria Kertbeny. arguing against a Prussian anti- sodomy law. In 1886, the psychiatrist Richard von Krafft-Ebing used the terms ''homosexual'' and ''heterosexual'' in his book '' Psychopathia Sexualis''. Krafft-Ebing's book was so popular among both laymen and doctors that the terms ''heterosexual'' and ''homosexual'' became the most widely accepted terms for sexual orientation. As such, the current use of the term has its roots in the broader 19th-century tradition of personality taxonomy.

Many modern style guides in the U.S. recommend against using ''homosexual'' as a noun, instead using ''gay man'' or ''lesbian''. Similarly, some recommend completely avoiding usage of ''homosexual'' as it has a negative, clinical history and because the word only refers to one's sexual behavior (as opposed to romantic feelings) and thus it has a negative connotation. ''Gay'' and ''lesbian'' are the most common alternatives. The first letters are frequently combined to create the initialism LGBT (sometimes written as GLBT), in which ''B'' and ''T'' refer to bisexual and transgender people.

''Gay'' especially refers to male homosexuality, but may be used in a broader sense to refer to all LGBT people. In the context of sexuality, ''lesbian'' refers only to female homosexuality. The word ''lesbian'' is derived from the name of the Greek island Lesbos, where the poet Sappho wrote largely about her emotional relationships with young women.

Although early writers also used the adjective ''homosexual'' to refer to any single-sex context (such as an all-girls school), today the term is used exclusively in reference to sexual attraction, activity, and orientation. The term '' homosocial'' is now used to describe single-sex contexts that are not specifically sexual. There is also a word referring to same-sex love, '' homophilia''.

Some synonyms for same-sex attraction or sexual activity include ''men who have sex with men'' or ''MSM'' (used in the medical community when specifically discussing sexual activity) and ''homoerotic'' (referring to works of art). Pejorative terms in English include '' queer'', ''faggot'', ''fairy'', ''poof'', ''poofter'' and ''homo''. Beginning in the 1990s, some of these have been reclaimed as positive words by gay men and lesbians, as in the usage of queer studies, queer theory, and even the popular American television program ''Queer Eye for the Straight Guy''. The word ' occurs in many other languages without the pejorative connotations it has in English. As with ethnic slurs and racial slurs, the use of these terms can still be highly offensive. The range of acceptable use for these terms depends on the context and speaker. Conversely, ''gay'', a word originally embraced by homosexual men and women as a positive, affirmative term (as in gay liberation and gay rights), came into widespread pejorative use among young people in the early 2000s.

The American LGBT rights organization GLAAD advises the media to avoid using the term ''homosexual'' to describe gay people or same-sex relationships as the term is "frequently used by anti-gay extremists to denigrate gay people, couples and relationships".

History

Some scholars argue that the term "homosexuality" is problematic when applied to ancient cultures since, for example, neither Greeks or Romans possessed any one word covering the same semantic range as the modern concept of "homosexuality". Nor did there exist a distinction of lifestyle or differentiation of psychological or behavioral profiles in the ancient world. However, there were diverse sexual practices that varied in acceptance depending on time and place. In ancient Greece, the pattern of adolescent boys engaging in sexual practices with older males did not constitute a homosexual identity in the modern sense since such relations were seen as phases in life, not permanent orientations, since later on the younger partners would commonly marry females and reproduce. Other scholars argue that there are significant continuities between ancient and modern homosexuality. The author has made adapted and expanded portions of this book available online a
''A Critique of Social Constructionism and Postmodern Queer Theory''
.

In a detailed compilation of historical and ethnographic materials of pre-industrial cultures, "strong disapproval of homosexuality was reported for 41% of 42 cultures; it was accepted or ignored by 21%, and 12% reported no such concept. Of 70 ethnographies, 59% reported homosexuality absent or rare in frequency and 41% reported it present or not uncommon."

In cultures influenced by Abrahamic religions, the law and the church established sodomy as a transgression against divine law or a crime against nature. The condemnation of anal sex between males, however, predates Christian belief. Condemnation was frequent in ancient Greece; for instance, the idea of male anal sex being "unnatural" is described by a character of Plato's, though he had earlier written of the benefits of homosexual relationships.

Many historical figures, including Socrates, Lord Byron, Edward II, and Hadrian, have had terms such as ''gay'' or ''bisexual'' applied to them. Some scholars have regarded uses of such modern terms on people from the past as an anachronistic introduction of a contemporary construction of sexuality that would have been foreign to their times. Other scholars see continuity instead.

In social science, there has been a dispute between "essentialist" and "constructionist" views of homosexuality. The debate divides those who believe that terms such as "gay" and "straight" refer to objective, culturally invariant properties of persons from those who believe that the experiences they name are artifacts of unique cultural and social processes. "Essentialists" typically believe that sexual preferences are determined by biological forces, while "constructionists" assume that sexual desires are learned. The philosopher of science Michael Ruse has stated that the social constructionist approach, which is influenced by Foucault, is based on a selective reading of the historical record that confuses the existence of homosexual people with the way in which they are labelled or treated.

Africa

The first record of a possible homosexual couple in history is commonly regarded as Khnumhotep and Niankhkhnum, an ancient Egyptian male couple, who lived around 2400 BCE. The pair are portrayed in a nose-kissing position, the most intimate pose in Egyptian art, surrounded by what appear to be their heirs. The anthropologists Stephen Murray and Will Roscoe reported that women in Lesotho engaged in socially sanctioned "long term, erotic relationships" called '' motsoalle.'' The anthropologist E. E. Evans-Pritchard also recorded that male Azande warriors in the northern Congo routinely took on young male lovers between the ages of twelve and twenty, who helped with household tasks and participated in intercrural sex with their older husbands.

Americas

Indigenous cultures

As is true of many other non-Western cultures, it is difficult to determine the extent to which Western notions of sexual orientation and gender identity apply to Pre-Columbian cultures. Evidence of homoerotic sexual acts and transvestism has been found in many pre-conquest civilizations in Latin America, such as the Aztecs, Mayas, Quechuas, Moches, Zapotecs, the