Tag: kinsey

Originally posted 2022-06-22 15:00:05.

It has become fashionable, in the West, to ascribe certain meanings to the word homosexual that were not intended when it was coined. This began with the publication of the Kinsey Reports in 1948. Originally, the term meant ‘an unmasculine male who is receptive in sex with other males’ and so conformed exactly to Asian terms like bakla and kathoey, and to similar terms globally, for example travesti in Brazil. It also was a direct equivalent to terms like catamite, as well as others. Today we might usefully use the word bottom in the vernacular.

It was coined in the late 19th century by an Austrian-born Hungarian psychologist, Karoly Maria Benkert and was quickly adopted by others. The term applied exclusively to a type of person. It did not refer to a set of acts, as there were already terms for those, such as sodomy and buggery. Indeed, many homosexuals did not even engage in these acts, as Freud noted. The crucial issues were the subjects’ rejection of masculinity in themselves and their unreserved attraction to it in others.

 

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