Term "lesbian"

Personally I never really liked the word "lesbian" because I feel it implies that there is a difference between gay men and gay women.

 

Yeah. Why is it that both men and women can be straight or bisexual, but homosexual people need two different words between the genders?

I don't mind "lesbian" but I do think It's odd.

 

I hate the term lesbian. I think it's vile.

 

Yeah, I don't like to be called lesbian too. No yays for me because in my native language you can't call female gay because this term grammatically belongs to males and lesbian - females... it's a bit sad.

But actually, I feel normal about term lesbian as long as people don't start to call it "lesbo" or something... I just want to punch that person in the face when I hear it, sorry but it sounds horrible to me. Maybe that's just for me ;?

 

I dont really mind it i hate the word dyke

 

Queer is just sort of a broader term. I guess it could apply to anyone who's not straight

 

No prob! To be honest I don't care much for labels at all, but I prefer "gay" over "lesbian". Of course, though, people are allowed to call themselves whatever they want

 

Gets kind of confusing to say your straight/gay when trans, so I just prefer to be more specific with it. I admit, it does feel weird to think of people calling me a lesbian...dunno why.

 

Well, there are words that describe your sexual orientation without specifying your gender. For example, a person attracted to women would be gynephilic

 

I personally like the word lesbian. It's derived from the name of the Greek island Lesbos, home of the famous poet Sappho, who was well known for her girlxgirl work. It's a referance to history. Plus, it has a pretty feel to it, to me anyway. I actually like the terms sapphic and Daughter of Sappho a little more, but I use lesbian since it's more well known.

I go BATSHIT CRAZY whenever someone calls me a dyke, though. Dyke comes from the word dike, meaning dam or ditch. At least lesbian has an elegant feel to it.

I do understand your point, though. I do think it's a bit weird that homosexual males and females need to have separate terms, while straight/bisexual males and females can both say straight/bisexual. Sometimes I use the word gay to describe myself, out of laziness.

 

I think the word lesbian is important. There really are different things that gay women deal with and different things that gay men deal with and it is OK for women to want and use their own word for their own experiences. If you don't care for it, that's fine, but please understand that some people use the word lesbian to express themselves and their experience of sexuality so saying that it's some kind of awful word that no one should use is offensive.

 

I was never fond of the word lesbian and rarely refer to myself as such. I don't consider it a bad word. I don't know, it's such an attention grabbing word and I'm used to hearing it in negative context in conversations. "Gay woman" sounds much better.

 

I guess my point is that straight men have forcibly over-sexualized lesbian relationships and sex. I agree that 'gay woman' sounds better compared to the pornographic idea of lesbianism, but I don't think we should just abandon the term because of it. The media is going to over-sexualize women, and especially women who love women, regardless of what gay women call themselves.

'Gay women' often sounds better because 'gay' gets more respect as a term (in terms of sexualization, that is. not saying anything about general homophobia) than 'lesbian' does, but what I'm saying is that the over-sexualization of lesbians is not connected to the word lesbian, it will continue even if all queer women stop using it. It's connected to misogyny.

 

I prefer to be called gay, and refer to myself as that. The only problem I have with 'lesbian' is men get the idea of porn and over-sexualization when I tell them as opposed to saying I'm gay, and 'gay' is just easier to say. Other than that I don't care much.

 

I don't like the word itself. It sounds very weird to me. I don't have an issue with the difference between men and women or whatever but I don't like the sound of the word. But then, there are lots of words I don't like the sound of. This isn't the only one So I just use it because that is the word for a homosexual female. My feelings about the word don't change its meaning.