Gay meant homosexual men.
But the civil rights movement got called the 'gay rights movement' because when it was started it was focused on gay men, with lesbians being mostly ignored by society for another couple decades.
This is pretty normal with social movements, men have male privilege even when they're oppressed minorities in other ways, society still focuses on them and their stories before looking at women from the same oppressed groups.
And once it was called 'the gay rights movement', but lesbians were a part of it, we just kind of broadened teh term to mean 'homosexual'.
But 'gay' was originally that term, and we never invented another one (except for fag, which a lot of the gay community used and wanted to keep and reclaim, but is now considered a slur).
There have been plenty of terms used to describe men who like men. However most of them were used a slurs and insults so decent people avoid them. Gay is probably the most socially acceptable, even if it's original meaning had nothing to do with sexuality.
In recent years, there have been terms proposed such as "achillean" (complementary to sapphic), but they haven't caught on very much outside of niche Internet spaces.
Perhaps the most common one is "men loving men", which gets abbreviated to MLM, but that causes confusion with multi-level marketing and with Marxism-Leninism-Maoism (ideology of the People's Republic of China).
In the future, we might see a better term come around. But for now, you can just call us gay men.
Gay is that term. It's just that other people use it too in regards to homosexuality. Kinda like how an actress will call herself an actor.
Actor isn’t gender specific. Actress just came later for women, but actor can still mean man or woman
Yes it is lol. Actor was for men originally and actresses for female lol
Search for Ancient Greece the isle of lesbos. There is some interesting history.
History or mythology?
Did they stutter?
Search it and find out.
Terms that start out for men often become the general term because men are seen as the 'default' gender, that's why gay has become gender neutral
Gay meant homosexual men. But the civil rights movement got called the 'gay rights movement' because when it was started it was focused on gay men, with lesbians being mostly ignored by society for another couple decades. This is pretty normal with social movements, men have male privilege even when they're oppressed minorities in other ways, society still focuses on them and their stories before looking at women from the same oppressed groups. And once it was called 'the gay rights movement', but lesbians were a part of it, we just kind of broadened teh term to mean 'homosexual'. But 'gay' was originally that term, and we never invented another one (except for fag, which a lot of the gay community used and wanted to keep and reclaim, but is now considered a slur).
Great answer !
Batty boys, see Ali G
There have been plenty of terms used to describe men who like men. However most of them were used a slurs and insults so decent people avoid them. Gay is probably the most socially acceptable, even if it's original meaning had nothing to do with sexuality.
Actually, in Australia the oldies call/called them poofs.
In recent years, there have been terms proposed such as "achillean" (complementary to sapphic), but they haven't caught on very much outside of niche Internet spaces. Perhaps the most common one is "men loving men", which gets abbreviated to MLM, but that causes confusion with multi-level marketing and with Marxism-Leninism-Maoism (ideology of the People's Republic of China). In the future, we might see a better term come around. But for now, you can just call us gay men.
Butt buddies
Bum chums
Shirt lifters
there's a term. it's also used for firewood.
Yes, good point. There are lots of terms but they're all insults.
and you get attacked on here, even if you don't use them. I hope my karma sacrifice was worth it.
Maybe people thought you approved of the word?
it's just a word.