Ha yes ?homophile? is a new term for me- I will have to try and use it more

There was an attempt to replace the clinical homosexual with homophile. Before the phrase Gay Liberation was taken from the Women?s Liberation Movement the very tiny out and proud gay activists were known as the Homophile Movement. At least when not called those damned faggots. Eventually gay won.

I?m not sure that ?gay? won. I think it?s interesting that ?gay? is the big word for us these days, considering that I don?t think it?s important to be ?happy? in life.

I agree that its a better word than fa**ot. Or the other slurs and so forth, yet I?m not afraid of this sort of hate. It?s familiar and we?ve grown ammune to it.

?gay? is a word our oppressors don?t mind calling us. Which is probably why they?ll call us something else in a 100 years or so. I don?t think they?ll treat us with so much disrespect in the future. They might one day get the message. Although, here in America, one wouldn?t want to hold ones breath.

I was only minimally aware of the word gay or homosexuality itself when I discovered my own sexuality. By then gay was the commonly accepted term and like most people my age or younger have always felt comfortable with it. Homophile was a word I saw a few times in print. I?ve actually never heard someone use the term.

When kids started giving gay a nasty inflection I wished for a moment homophile had succeeded but realized we?d just be hearing ?homo? more often. Can?t imagine some of the proposed words like Uranist having ever prospered.

Probably from selling queer theory books I?ve come to call myself gay or queer interchangeably. I kind of miss the loss of the earlier meanings of the words, particularly queer.

My recolection of the term ?homophilic? is that it and ?invert? were in competition with ?homosexual? among early alienists (psychologists) for acceptance as a label for same sex attractions. The interesting difference is that homophilic suggests that the emotional attraction is more important that the sexual.

I?d forgotten same-loving was implied. I?d forgotten that was the most appealing aspect of homophile.

Invert I never cared for, though what use I remember of it was by kindly disposed psychiatrists. Havelock Ellis maybe?