This thread is inspired by another: view original post
I Said to myself that if I saw this word a set number of times I'd finally ask about it to get rid of my confusion. What is my confusion you ask? My confusion is the very word itself, it just doesn't make sense to me in regards to what it's used for. Out of all the words that end with phobia, homophobia has just never made sense to me.
Maybe it's because I tend to be a bit pedantic, nonetheless here's why I don't get it:
The Greek meaning of homo is "same" while the Latin meaning is "man". The definition of phobia: [i]A persistent, irrational fear of a specific object, activity, or situation that leads to a compelling desire to avoid it[/i]. Given all that, it seems more like homophobia is actually a fear of same or a fear of man, depending on which meaning you're going by. Homo by itself isn't a word meaning homosexual obviously (Albeit it has a common use as an abbreviation for it) it needs to be paired with the sexual part first.
So with all that said, why is that word continued to be used as something to describe people who don't like homosexuals? Not liking something=/=Fearing something in the first place. I can't tell if I have it all convoluted or if my logic holds water, so please, someone explain this to me so I can have a better understanding and not be a pretentious fool.
Sorry for the Great Wall of Text btw.
Edit: I appreciate the informative answers given be Wyld and God (Primarily the latter) but I'm still not satisfied, so I await more answers by the other insightful users.
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Origins Although sexual attitudes tracing back to Ancient Greece (8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity (ca. 600 AD)) have been termed homophobia by scholars, the term itself is relatively new.[9] Coined by George Weinberg, a psychologist, in the 1960s,[10] the term homophobia is a blend[11][12][13] of (1) the word homosexual, itself a mix of neo-classical morphemes, and (2) phobia from the Greek φόβος, Phóbos, meaning "fear" or "morbid fear". Weinberg is credited as the first person to have used the term in speech.[9] The word homophobia first appeared in print in an article written for the May 23, 1969, edition of the American tabloid Screw, in which the word was used to refer to heterosexual men's fear that others might think they are gay.[9] Conceptualizing anti-LGBT prejudice as a social problem worthy of scholarly attention was not new. In 1971, Kenneth Smith was the first person to use homophobia as a personality profile to describe the psychological aversion to homosexuality.[14] Weinberg also used it this way in his 1972 book Society and the Healthy Homosexual,[15] published one year before the American Psychiatric Association voted to remove homosexuality from its list of mental disorders.[16][17] Weinberg's term became an important tool for gay and lesbian activists, advocates, and their allies.[9] He describes the concept as a medical phobia:[15] [A] phobia about homosexuals.... It was a fear of homosexuals which seemed to be associated with a fear of contagion, a fear of reducing the things one fought for — home and family. It was a religious fear and it had led to great brutality as fear always does.[9] In 1982, homophobia was used for the first time in The New York Times to report that the General Synod of the Church of England voted to refuse to condemn homosexuality
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Ironically I was pondering this today. A more specifically accurate term might be "orientationism" but that's a mouthful. Not sure why that's the word that came about to describe those people.
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Edited by Wyldfyre: 4/25/2013 3:46:15 AMIf you actually looked up the definition in various places, you'd have learned that a [i]-phobia[/i] does not exclusively relate to fear. It is also conjunctive with a [i]negative attitude or aversion towards[/i]. The key word in the definition of a [i]-phobia[/i] is the "irrational" part, not the "fear" part. I wish more people would understand this.