In Germany the first term accepted by recognized scientific
authorities was "contrary sexual feeling" (Kontraere
Sexualempfindung). It was devised by Westphal in 1869, and used
by Krafft-Ebing and Moll. Though thus accepted by the earliest
authorities in this field, and to be regarded as a fairly
harmless and vaguely descriptive term, it is somewhat awkward,
and is now little used in Germany; it was never currently used
outside Germany. It has been largely superseded by the term
"homosexuality." This also was devised (by a little-known
Hungarian doctor, Benkert, who used the pseudonym Kertbeny) in
the same year (1869), but at first attracted no attention. It
has, philologically, the awkward disadvantage of being a bastard
term compounded of Greek and Latin elements, but its
significance--sexual attraction to the same sex--is fairly clear
and definite, while it is free from any question-begging
association of either favorable or unfavorable character. (Edward
Carpenter has proposed to remedy its bastardly linguistic
character by transforming it into "homogenic;" this, however,
might mean not only "toward the same sex," but "of the same
kind," and in German already possesses actually that meaning.
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