According to the dictionary "homosexual" means sexually attracted to the same sex. "Gay" is just a less clinical-sounding and sex-specific synonym. That's the way psychologists defined the word, and how gays and lesbians themselves understand it. It's a useful word because it describes the experience of a lot of people - like me.

I have never, ever, in my entire life, been the slightest bit sexually attracted to a woman. At the same time, I've been getting crushes on cute guys ever since puberty. That's a very typical experience for a gay man.

Now of course the bit about not being attracted to women is typical by definition. There are plenty of guys who have opposite sex attraction as well as same-sex attraction, but you don't normally call them homosexual or gay because there's a more specific word: bisexual. I'm just not going to try to speak for them because it's not been my experience.

A lot of people, especially conservative religious types, don't use that definition because they can't make sense of it. All they know or care is that gay sex is something their religion forbids. They have no use for a word describing sexual attraction. Motivation is irrelevant at best. You're just not supposed to have gay sex - end of story. So to them a homosexual is a person who has gay sex. If you've never had gay sex you're not gay, and if you give up gay sex you're no longer gay.

You can e-mail me at maaku at attglobal dot net.
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