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 1953. Originally, the term meant ‘an unmasculine male’ and so conformed exactly to Asian terms like bakla and kathoey, and to similar terms globally.
The term ‘homosexuality’ was coined in the late 19th century by an Austrian-born Hungarian psychologist, Karoly Maria Benkert and was quickly adopted by others. The term ‘homosexual’ 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.
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