I am not a homophobe. Which has nothing whatsoever to do with my feelings towards homosexuals. Let me explain.
Classics scholars (of which I am not one) will be aware that the word homophobe has its origin in two Greek words, homos meaning 'one and the same' and phobos meaning 'fear'. As a word, homophobe appears to be a lazy 1970s offshoot from homosexual, some etymological anarchist simply adding the phobia suffix without bothering to think about the derivation of the original word. As such he or she created a word which means not fear of homosexuals, but fear of things which are the same.
This is where I come in. I have a great deal of time for things which are the same. I am a big fan of symmetry. It borders on obsession. The lengths of shoelaces, that sort of thing. You know, when you're tying your shoelaces and the amount you have in one hand differs from that in the other? That's intolerable, is it not? There are other, myriad examples I could present. Most of them are extremely trivial, although there's a part of me that thinks it is not coincidence that I have an even number of children. Anyway, my point is that anomalies are anathema to me, which by my understanding makes me about as far from a homophobe as it is possible to be. In fact I'd go so far as to say that I am a homophile, and am toying with describing myself as such in the future. I'm tired of getting nonplussed looks from people who are not sure how to react when I tell them that I am mainly interested in the apparently incomprehensible combination of jazz and football, so from now on I think I will declare myself openly as a keen homophile and see how far that gets me.
2008-04-25 @ 22:01