h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I was gonna post this on the "cure for homosexuality" thread, but realised it was a bit off-topic...

Why do "sexism", "racism", "ageism" etc get an "-ism", but "homophobia" gets a "-phobia"? Aren't they all examples of bigotry and therefore belong in the same morphological category? I know people use "xenophobia" to mean prejudice against foreigners, but there are recorded cases of true phobic anxiety around foreign people. Does anyone know if true "homophobia" (in the sense of "fear of gay people" rather than "fear of man") has ever been recorded?

Don't any gay people object to giving their persecutors a loop-hole by saying "they're not bigots, they suffer from a phobia"? I'm sure people with real phobias don't appreciate being lumped into a category with them either - after all, true arachnophobes don't just have a "prejudice" against spiders - they have panic attacks, cold sweats etc. So would be interested to know if "homophobia" is just an abuse of the "phobia" term in it's psychopathological sense, or if there are any known cases of people having a panic attack upon meeting a gay person. No witty replies please ("my mom did when I told her etc etc")

It could be something as simple as word structure. Homoism would be fear of men, wouldn't it? Or would it be striving to be like a man? I'm confused.
Not to mention having that nasty *oi* combination, two vowels that is.

Racephobia, sexphobia, agephobia all sound like totally different things as well. We need a liguist here. (Avoids asking for a cunning one).

*linguist

Ok. I am stumped. I can't think of an adequate -ism.

Not offended by it though.

Well - homo is the prefix for 'same' - homogenic means the same or similar - as also being the title of a Bjork album

So homophobia is 'fear of the same'.

Stay ,
WD

*The word homophobia was coined by psychologist George Weinberg in his book Society and the Healthy Homosexual in 1971. It combines the Greek words phobia, meaning "fear," with the prefix homo, which means "the same." The "homo" in homophobia comes from the word homosexual.*

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homophobia

Surely 'fear of man' would be 'anthropophobia'? (Does anyone speak Greek? I don't.)

Ivan.

mainly a mark (not that we need those now the conversation lists work properly)


But I also wanted to suggest that the appropriate -ism would have to be "[sexual] orientationism", or perhaps "sexualitism". I think that's got a lot to do with why "homophobia" has stuck - there just isn't a very good word to replace it with.

I think homophobia is fine as a word. Any one who thinks that fear is not involved hasn't spent enough time around macho male culture. Personally, I think that homophobia is as much to do with the homophobe's fear and rejection of their own homoeroticism. I don't mean that they are necessarily homosexual, just that I see love of the same (as a feeling or appreciation) as being well within the normal range of human experience.

Also -phobia (according to the Concise Oxford) means denoting fear or aversion. I think the aversion bit definitely applies to 'homophobia'.

There is also the word heterosexist, which is somewhat different from homophobia. Heterosexism means one perceives heterosexuality as being the inherent option. I think it can also be that one is prejudiced in favour of heterosexualilty being right and normal and homosexuality being wrong and abnormal. It doesn't carry the malicious intent that homophobia does.


The problem with the -isms is that they don't follow a consistent pattern. Compare 'racism' with 'feminism' with 'organism'. (Actually my dictionary has 6 meanings for the suffix -ism)


Ivan, 'anthropophobia' would be fear of humans. Fear of (a) man would be 'androphobia'.

Thanks, Kea!

I think I got muddled between 'man - the species' and 'man - a male person', if that makes any sense....

That's ok, I got muddled between latin and greek - knew "homo" meant "same" in one and "man" in the other, but can never remember which is which...

First of all, trying to make sense out of how some etymology has evolved one way and some another - in fact, trying to make sense of the evolution of the English language at all in terms of 'rules' - is probably a very futile exercise.

I would say in terms of meaning that while most '-phobics/-phobias' can also be '-isms' in the sense of having the fear and aversion quality attached to it, lots of '-isms' exist on their own with no connotation of fear or aversion.

But in terms of a 'rule', it looks like '-ism' is attached to already existing English nouns while '-phobic/-phobia' is attached to bits of Latin or old Greek words.

az

It might be good news, as sometimes phobias can be cured through mental conditioning. I think solving such phobias is helped by the fact that people tend to not like having phobias.

Whereas as far as I know there is no known cure for racism or sexism.

"The Watermelon Man"?

Noggin

I do know men who are genuinely phobic about homosexuality in general and gay men. Some, though by no means all cases, it may be a case of 'methinks the lady doth protest too much.'

daSilva, male, single, not gay just hopeless with women