The word "homophobic"

Well for one thing, I think its homophobic because saying homosexualphobic is just a long word.

 

Hate stems from fear. Homophobes and racists share that much in common. But with education and growing awareness, some of their negative thought processes and behavior can be remediated.

 

Words are merely symbols of interpretation. There a many words that, by etymology, have meanings that no longer make correlative sense ^.^

 

Indeed. And there are words that are etymologically correct, but they aren't used. Language is weird.

 

"Homophobia" is easy and sort of technical-sounding, but it is the scientific term for "being the particular kind of dick who hates gays." They may have some sort of revulsion to gayness, but it's not like any other phobia. It's one people decide to have.

 

Hydrophobic compounds aren't actually afraid of water.

 

But they do push it away so are afraid in a poetic sense. They also happen to be wicked awesome.

 

Well no different to homophobia then .

 

I myself do not like the term homophobic because people do not fear us...it's not a phobia people are just ignorant assholes...simple as that! honestly I wish that term didn't exist because it is incorrect.

---------- Post added 6th Nov 2013 at 08:14 PM ----------

[/COLOR]

"It's one people decide to have" :eusa_clap couldn't have said that better myself!

 

This problem actually did arise in class.

One day, we were talking about the word homophobic (the group I'm in needed to explain a word ending with phobic, don't ask why homophobic ) and the definition of homophobic, and mt friend 'B' explained fear of Gay people. I had later pointed out fear OR hatred of Gay people.

The story is pretty irrelevant, but just kinda amusing. :lol: Long story short, homophobic means fear or hatred of Gay people.

 

I think that homophobia has just become a generalised term when people say negative or just take negative action against homosexuals. In most cases it is not that people are scared to death or anything.

I think all the stereotyping, discrimination and other negatives all go back to this term: homophobia

 

Only if you're speaking Greek.

 

Actually, think about it. Most straight men (the largest demographic who are homophobic) are actually scared.

Insecure about their status as masculine, worried that they'll be outcasts if they fail to fill the social criteria, fearing their world being turned upside down if the male/female boundaries aren't obeyed.

Scared


To put it more accurately, most homophobia is an extension of misogyny. So "gynophobia" might be the best term: the fear of femininity/women.

 

I agree "phobic" isn't the best suffix for the word. The more accurate ending would be "ist" as in racist or sexist to donate someone who discriminates against a particular group. But alas, homoist just doesn't have the right ring to it.

 

It wouldn't fit the pattern anyway. You don't say 'womanist', you say sexist, so the more appropriate term would be sexualityist, but that doesn't sound any better anyway. And in fact, I think 'ist' means in favor of.

More to the point, we can't get a word to describe every connotation of homophobia. Words don't do that. They aren't long enough. They're just labels. We associate certain words with certain concepts and we're in agreement about what the word homophobia means. No one is going to argue that 'homophobia' means fear of things that are the same, because we all know it means hatred of those who are attracted to the same sex.

 

I think it might have come from a time when people were more understanding of homophobes and instead of calling them arsehole haters decided to describe them as just scared of gays.

 

That sounds so...groovy.