Are being gay and being homosexual the same thing?

I honestly believe they are not.
I am not preaching on this but looking for feedback. I define myself as homosexual but not gay. Why? I believe there is a serious difference and it is not a matter of cultural identity.

It is also not a feminine versus masculine issue. There are guys (many of them) that are not fems who I would still call gay. I do believe gay men innately (without getting into a discussion of whether they are inborn) have a series of traits that just don't apply to me.

Homosexuals are men who simply realised at some point they were attracted to men not women. Beyond that they might differ little from straight men (although they will differ).

Because the guys I define as gay were more visible and less able to fly under the radar they dominated the gay rights movement and made their sexuality the one people associate with homosexuality.

So when guys like me do come out we are then expected to conform to gay stereotypes that may not even apply to us. I wish for a day when a guy (who barely if at all differs from his straight friends) can comfortably say publicly...I prefer to have sex and form relationships with men and not need to say "I'm gay".

The masculine homosexual is still an outcast who needs hide his true essence. Let's face it older masculine homosexuals often are attracted to guys a fair bit younger. Why can't I go to a party and say "I am attracted to guys almost half my age....they may be gay, they may be bi or may be just confused"...."they may go on to marry a woman and have kids and frankly that's fine with me....I never expected to marry them myself" .... the masculine homosexual into younger guys is history's oldest worst kept secret and exists everywhere ....is there really anything to be ashamed of?

Gay guys can marry in soem places (and I am as for it as anyone), rennovate houses and share dogs. I still have to be ashamed of playing "daddy" to a twenty year old.....but that is my sexuality and the sexuality of many others.

 

i am rather aware of the gay asexual thing too, it is surprisingly common, asexuals with gay personas identifying as gay.....I personally avoid them myself as I feel their and my sexuality are not aligned at all

 

I also will refer to myself as gay often, as that is the term people expect....I just feel the word doesn't apply to me....I mean I know it is for others to judge....but there is little beyond my attraction to men that feels very gay about me....in fact I am "straighter" than most of my straight mates....

 

Putting aside the terms...what matters is if one starts sensing there is a fundamental difference between you and others lumped into the same sexual orientation...and that difference is not cultural or a matter of choice....like we are essentially talking about very different sexualities that probably need different terms applied as understanding of humans sexuality widens.

Fact is there is less difference between me and a heterosexual than me and a feminine submissive bottom in the actual sexual arena! A feminine submissive is a totally different creature to me essentially, with different emotional and sexual needs. I am more at home swapping notes with a straight mate bragging about the hot young woman he picked up and penetrated and me then bragging about the hot young guy I picked up and penetrated...different genders and (some) body parts...but similar dynamic. I could hardly have that conversation with a fem gay guy (well of course I could I suppose) so we are lumping very different types into one box and assuming we are one and the same vis-a-vis heteros.

 

My attraction to men seems very aligned to the way most (yes I realise not all) heteros are attracted to women....I seek the softer, the prettier, the younger and I seek to penetrate....my actions mirror heteros in a sexual context in so many ways...wildly different to say the feminine sub who seeks a more manly man (often) to penetrate and validate him. Sure people's perceptions of what gay means are influenced by media perpetrated stereotypes but since the term now carries those stereotypes I would rather not use it to describe me...it is simply innacurate....I have nothing against feminine guys and can sometimes (but not often) be attracted to them. In fact I am currently infatuated with a very feminine guy. Its an exception not the rule but frankly I'd marry this guy if I could.

 

To me they are the same, just homosexual sounds more serious and more like a psychological/medical/sociological terminology. In English there seems to be some kind of connotation that the word gay implies some form of feminine traits, however in other languages the word homosexual sounds much weirder than the word gay, in a sense that it might subconsciously make people think you have some sort of "condition", whereas the word gay would sound much more casual and straight to the point.

 

I do think there is semi-conscious tendency by writers to use the word gay to describe gay-acting guys and homosexual to describe non identifying men who are discovered to be into having sex with men.

 

[/COLOR]

Ideally I seek partners who are not that different than me in most respects but as you said seek to be the submissive and are usually younger and prettier (but not in a specifically gay way). Furthermore I as a younger person was a bit submissive myself, although it simply died with age. I might not classify these guys as gay either and some can be genuine bisexuals at any rate.

I was simply juxtaposing myself to the type of gay guy I see as most different to me...the very effeminate gay guy who is generally a sub bottom.