Does anyone know when and where the term "gay" was coined in reference to homosexuals?
606910
Wasn't sure myself, but found this reference:\nhttp://www.wordorigins.org/wordorg.htm\nhttp://plateaupress.com.au/wfw/gay-gone.htm\n\nBoth seem to indicate usage as early as the 1930's, but as we can see, it's popularity among queers wasn't until the late 70's and early 80's.
1135503
Gay means happy.  Yes.\n\nGay also means homosexual--this just depends on your point of view.
159432
Ten percent is probably a huge exaggeration, though it somehow became the standard figure for a while. This may date back to the 1950s, when Alfred Kinsey published his books about sexuality. Because many people who didn't identify as homosexual had had homosexual experiences nonetheless, some people read these data and concluded exclusive homosexuality was much more common than it probably is.\n\nThere are SO many variables involved in determining the underlying conditions behind your very good question. Gender identity is so fluid and flexible that people don't always fit easily into categories "homosexual," "heterosexual," "bisexual," and the like. \n\nAnother complication is that, although you ask the question very broadly, a given percentage of any specific population - a self-selected or self-identified one, for example = won't necessarily have a constant statistical proportion of people of any given sexuality represented within it. And variables that may not seem to correlate at all with sexual behavior of the members of a group may be better determinants of what those people identify themselves as. \n\nIn some cultures, the concept of "gay" or "homosexual" in the Western European & American senses of those terms don't really exist. Other social constructions of same-sex relationships under different conditions, with rituals, subdialects, and patterns of secrecy exist that it would be unfair to characterize in the same terms that we use in the West.\n\nSo, I haven't given you a percentage, but I hope this helps a little.\n\nBy the way, I'm about 90% gay myself. The other ten percent vacillates between being curious and being sleepy.
874742
actually its not the stick gatherer, its the bundle of sticks. In the bible gay people are also refered to as firebrands, the bundle of sticks reference became popular when gays were burned together with witches. I'm told they burned up quite well and thereafter  were refered to as faggots
136854
Using Gay for Homosexual has been traced as early as the 1920s, possibly earlier. Some of the sites below give these summaries:\n\nLighter also indirectly cites an 1868 song by female impersonator Will S. Hays titled, Gay Young Clerk in the Dry Goods Store. The lyrics do not explicitly link the word with homosexuality, but they can be interpreted that way, especially if sung by a man in drag. \n\nThe most likely explanation [for the usage meaning homosexual] is that it derives from gaycat or geycat, a slang term for a tramp or hobo who is new to the road. Gaycats were commonly in the company of older tramps, implying a homosexual relationship. The term, according to Lighter, dates to at least the 1890s. Gaycats were employed as lookouts while other hoboes committed crimes. The OED2 cites the 1935 Underworld & Prison Slang by N. Ersine as defining geycat as a homosexual boy. The origin of gaycat is unknown. Green, however, says a gay cat was a tramp who offered sexual services to women.\n\nRawson ["Wicked Words"] notes a male prostitute using gay in reference to male homosexuals (but also to female prostitutes) in London's notorious Cleveland Street Scandal of 1889.\n\n\nThe term Gay did not cross over into usage by the general heterosexual population until the 1960's/early 70's.
38922
1178, "full of joy or mirth," from O.Fr. gai "gay, merry," perhaps from Frank. *gahi (cf. O.H.G. wahi "pretty"). Meaning "brilliant, showy" is from c.1300. OED gives 1951 as earliest date for slang meaning "homosexual" (adj.), but this is certainly too late; gey cat "homosexual boy" is attested in N. Erskine's 1933 dictionary of "Underworld & Prison Slang;" the term gey cat (gey is a Scot. variant of gay) was used as far back as 1893 in Amer.Eng. for "young hobo," one who is new on the road and usually in the company of an older tramp, with catamite connotations. But Josiah Flynt ["Tramping With Tramps," 1905] defines gay cat as, "An amateur tramp who works when his begging courage fails him." Gey cats also were said to be tramps who offered sexual services to women. The "Dictionary of American Slang" reports that gay (adj.) was used by homosexuals, among themselves, in this sense since at least 1920. Rawson ["Wicked Words"] notes a male prostitute using gay in reference to male homosexuals (but also to female prostitutes) in London's notorious Cleveland Street Scandal of 1889. Ayto ["20th Century Words"] calls attention to the ambiguous use of the word in the 1868 song "The Gay Young Clerk in the Dry Goods Store," by U.S. female impersonator Will S. Hays. The word gay in the 1890s had an overall tinge of promiscuity -- a gay house was a brothel. The suggestion of immorality in the word can be traced back to 1637. Gay as a noun meaning "a (usually male) homosexual" is attested from 1971.
550940
...I believe it started in England....not sure. It DOES not mean that a person is gay.It is proper etiquette...it looks better than if you held a tea cup like a baseball....
1142500
in the bible, God says no. if he wanted gay people, he wouldn't have created adam and eve, it would have been adam and bob, and eve and lisa. it just ain't natural!!!!
342171
Sexual customs have varied greatly over time and from one region to another. These, as well as the orientation of particular pre-contemporary figures continue to be studied. Modern Western gay culture, largely a product of 19th century psychology as well as the years of post-Stonewall Gay Liberation, is a relatively recent manifestation of same-sex desire. It is generally not applicable as a standard when investigating same-gender sex and historical opinions and beliefs held by other people.\n\nIt is generally accepted that the lives of historical figures such as Socrates, Lord Byron, Edward II, Hadrian, Julius Caesar, Michelangelo, Donatello and Christopher Marlowe included or were centred upon love and sexual relationships with people of their own gender. Terms such as gay or bisexual have been applied to them, but many regard this as risking the anachronistic introduction of a contemporary construction of sexuality foreign to their times.[citation needed] Variations from modern standards of beauty, social roles, sexual positions, and age disparities are of such magnitude so as to render meaningless any projection of modern roles onto historical personages. This does not mean, however, that people in the past experienced the physical phenomenon of homosexual attraction any differently than people experience it today.\n\nWhile some premodern societies did not employ categories fully comparable to the modern homosexual or heterosexual dichotomy, this does not demonstrate that the polarity is not applicable to those societies. A common thread of constructionist argument is that no one in antiquity or the Middle Ages experienced homosexuality as an exclusive, permanent, or defining mode of sexuality. John Boswell has criticised this argument by citing ancient Greek writings by Plato, which he says indicate knowledge of exclusive homosexuality.[citation needed]Michel Foucault and historians following his line of thought have argued that the homosexual is a modern invention, a social construct of the last 100 years.[citation needed] While true of homosexuality as a scientific or psychological category, there are examples from earlier ages of those viewing their sexuality as a part of a human identity and not merely a sexual act. [citation needed] One cited example is the 16th century Italian artist Giovanni Antonio Bazzi who adopted the nickname "Sodoma", which is viewed by Louis Crompton as something analogous to the modern gay identity.\n\n\nThe earliest western documents (in the form of literary works, art objects, as well as mythographic materials) concerning same-sex relationships are derived from Ancient Greece. They depict a world in which relationships with women and relationships with youths were the essential foundation of a normal man's love life. Same-sex relationships were a social institution variously constructed over time and from one city to another. (See Pederasty) The practice, a system of relationships between an adult male and an adolescent coming of age, was often valued for its pedagogic benefits and as a means of population control, and occasionally blamed for causing disorder. Plato praised its benefits in his early writings, but in his late works proposed its prohibition, laying out a strategy which uncannily predicts the path by which same-sex love was eventually driven underground. (See Philosophy of Greek pederasty)\n\nThe Roman emperor Theodosius decreed a law, on August 6th, 390, condemning passive homosexuals to be burned at the stake. Justinian, towards the end of his reign, expanded the proscription to the active partner as well (in 558) warning that such conduct can lead to the destruction of cities through the "wrath of God." Notwithstanding these regulations, taxes on homosexual boy brothels continued to be collected until the end of the reign of Anastasius I in 518.\n\nDuring the Renaissance, cities in northern Italy, Florence and Venice in particular, were renowned for
832771
'Greek', in regards to gay people, refers to anal sex.
311418
Many people associate homosexuality as something negative, thus they use the word "gay" as a general perjorative. Anything they dislike gets called "gay" not because it's homosexual, but because it's bad.\n\nThat's a very immature way of speaking, but it's out there.
274006
Hi there ... here are a couple of great links that have some very interesting facts, and viewpoints:\n\nhttp://www.newdirection.ca/a_biol.htm\nhttp://www.boston.com/news/globe/magazine/articles/2005/08/14/what_makes_people_gay/
10638
1382, "males or females collectively," from Latin sexus "state of being either male or female, gender." "Commonly taken with seco as division or 'half' of the race" [Tucker], which would connect it to secare "to divide or cut" (see section). Meaning "quality of being male or female" first recorded 1526. Meaning "sexual intercourse" first attested 1929 (in writings of D.H. Lawrence); meaning "genitalia" is attested from 1938. Sexy first recorded 1925 (as an Eng. word in Fr.), originally "engrossed in sex;" sense of "sexually attractive" is 1932. Sex appeal first recorded 1924; sex drive is from 1918; sex object and sex symbol both first attested 1911, the former in ref. to Jesus. Sexpot is from 1954. Sexpert "sex therapist" is from 1924. Sexploitation is attested from 1942.
909047
what people use it for now is calling someone homosexual in a mean way. saying faggot instead of gay is supposed to be meaner. faggot used to mean a bundle of wood. not sure how it went from that to and insult, but whatever.
21225
Many people may use gay as a slang term referring to someone being idiotic or stipid\n\nAnother definition is to be happy, and light-hearted\nYet another definition is having sexual orientation to persons of the same sex
973576
It basically means "extreme happiness".  It has nothing to do with the more modern meaning of "gay".
122111
Men do not GO gay. Homosexuals are born that way. There are no more or less homsexuals living in this world then there were 100 years ago. They are in all countries. People just had to hide their sexual preferences a long time ago but thanks to a wider understanding of homosexuality, most no longer have to keep it a secret. It's 'out of the closet'.