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From: deb5@midway.uchicago.edu (Daniel von Brighoff)
Subject: Re: the word homophobia
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References: <ftn_2.200.427.47_319bea3a_Johan.Olofsson@magnus.ct.se> <4ohlo6$glf@phgasos.softlab.ece.ntua.gr> <4p20kk$9rg@globe.indirect.com> <177A0B41DS85.UZSD78@ibm.rhrz.uni-bonn.de>
Date: Sat, 8 Jun 1996 20:01:52 GMT
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In article <177A0B41DS85.UZSD78@ibm.rhrz.uni-bonn.de>,
Thorsten Franz <UZSD78@ibm.rhrz.uni-bonn.de> wrote:
>In article <4p20kk$9rg@globe.indirect.com>
>stevemac@indirect.com (Steve MacGregor) writes:
> 
>>  The fact that "homo" means "man" in Latin is irrelevant, since this is
>>a Greco-Greco compound:
>>
>>  * homo = "same"
>>  * phobia = "fear"
> 
>I see no problem in understanding "homosexual" as "sexually attracted to the
>same (gender)" and "homophobia" as "fear from the same (gender in a sexual
>context)".
> 
>Females who love males are not homosexual; females who love females are.
>Likewise, homophobic females are not afraid of homosexual males, but of
>females approaching them sexually.

NEWS FLASH:  Anita Bryant was not homophobic!

Sorry, but this just isn't the way that the word is currently under-
stood.  A man who rapes a lesbian because her rejection of male attentions
threatens his machismo is manifesting "homophobia" as surely as a man
who murders a gay man because his revelation of having a secret crush
on him threatens his masculinity.  I, too, think the word should be viewed
as a contraction of *homosexualophobia.

On a similar note, the derived word "homophobe" is often shortened to
"phobe" in colloquial speech.  I imagine this is possible because terms 
for persons suffering from other phobias are derived from the adjectival
form.  I.e., a sufferer from agorophobia is an agorophobic, not an
*agorophobe.  I have heard "xenophobe" used before, further proof of
an opposition between the denotations of -phobia in combination with
xeno- and homo- and in combination with all other components (e.g. agoro-,
claustro-, hydro-, etc.).


-- 
	 Daniel "Da" von Brighoff    /\          Dilettanten
	(deb5@midway.uchicago.edu)  /__\         erhebt Euch
				   /____\      gegen die Kunst!
