New Words

[poliphilo]

I love new words. New words mean new ideas. They mean you can talk sharply about something that was all fuzzy before.

I guess these words have been used by academics for a while now, but they're new to me.

So, I pull the chord, the curtain slides back, and here they are:

Homosocial

Heterosocial

Mainly they're used as adjectives, but they can be nouns as well. The words homosociality and heterosociality also occur.

To be homosocial is to dig the company of your own sex. To be heterosocial is to dig the company of the opposite sex.

And to be autosocial is to wish that everybody else would go take a running jump.

Google "homosocial" and you'll find theses with titles like "Male Homosocial Desire in Thomas Hardy" and "Homosocial Intimacy in the Old West."

Homo and hetero sociality have nothing to do with sexual orientation. Many homosocials are heterosexual and many heterosocials homosexual. Sorry, it gets a bit tonguetwisty after a while.

And now I'm going to play with my new toys.

This is a homosocial society. It regards heterosociality as aberrant. I found that out when (aged 11) I chickened out of crossing over from the boys' side of the aisle to go sit with my girlfriends. I am profoundly heterosocial. The rituals of male homosociality- talking about cars, playing golf, drinking and messing about in packs- have always disgusted me.

Look ma; not only new words- I got a new identity as well!

Comments

[sorenr.livejournal.com]

YAY! New toys!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

It seems like these words have been in use since the early 90s. Why wasn't I told earlier?

[sorenr.livejournal.com]

Because you live on a remote island?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Ah, that must be it....

[glitzfrau.livejournal.com]

SO DO YOU. How often do I have to remind you, eh?

[sorenr.livejournal.com]

I never claimed I didn't!

[glitzfrau.livejournal.com]

Bitch magazine (no. 25) had a fabulous article on "the new homosociality", arguing that affective friendship between men, as exemplified by Frodo and Sam's dewey-eyed bond, is experiencing a come-back. It was an excellent article, and I have a lot of illinformed stuff to say on the subject, because it's fascinating. Yay new words!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Hmm. "retro-sexuality"! Tasty! I can't wait to read your postings on the subject.

[catvalente.livejournal.com]

Of course, I don't see a similiar cultural support for female homosociality. We're still supposed to be catty backstabbers and compete over men.

[glitzfrau.livejournal.com]

Didn't Sex and the City do a small amount to demolish that stereotype in the popular media? Although, of course, men always came first.

[catvalente.livejournal.com]

I think you've got it there. Their friendship was always about "comparing notes" and revolved around the men in their lives.

[ksp24.livejournal.com]

Sounds great!

I like the comments provided, and appreciate your discussion.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I love it how new words create new possibilities.

[idahoswede.livejournal.com]

Oh god, now to figure out the next possible moment to work those into a conversation. I wonder if they translate into Swedish or stay the same?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

They're great, aren't they!

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the nifty new words!

I am still trying to get over "prioritize."

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

The more new words the better.

They allow us to think things we haven't thought before.

[pickwick.livejournal.com]

Oh, this just made me think of a quote I had to post, from The Boomer Bible:
Speak to me of your love of Language,
You who were raised to use four-letter words,
To express all your deepest emotions.
And have you ever read something aloud
just to savor the way that it sounds?
Have you hungered and hunted for words that give life
to the subtlest distinctions you feel,
and felt your conscious space expand
because now there were more ways to feel?
Have you prowled through the jungles of syntax and grammar
to see just how much one sentence can say?
Have you felt the power that language can give
to the building and thinking of thoughts?
Have you ever once felt that you said it just right
and conveyed your full thought to another?
Have you felt brand-new worlds take shape in your mind
from no other source than the spinning and spinning of words?
Have you acquired a different taste of life,
By trying another world's tongue,
and felt a new timbre enter your voice,
echoing Rome or the steppes or the Seine?
Have you seen how language, all by itself,
can alter the nature of truth
and twist and distort, or distill and reflect
the innermost essence of things?

I just love it. And your new words reminded me of it. I'm mostly heterosocial, myself...

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

The Boomer Bible is new to me.

Obviously I need to explore further....

Thanks.

[archyena.livejournal.com]

I'm a largely homosocial homosexual, but I think that's my own psychological problem.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

And I'm a heterosexual heterosocial.

I don't actually like straight men all that much. But I like gay men. Go figure...

[idahoswede.livejournal.com]

Sounds like that would actually fit in quite nicely, since most gay men of my acquaintance manage to avoid the testosterone-loaded, beery conversations about the game last night!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I wonder sometimes whether "real" men really enjoy all that beer and sports or whether they're just desperately conforming to the homosocial norm.

[ibid.livejournal.com]

Extremely likely. I often think society is very cruel to litle boys, right from the start they treat them in a much rougher way than little girls, not supposed to cry, not allowed to play with dolls while female can play with guns and it goes on. I think we need to start not treating the 2 sexes differently from the word go. I long to live in a genderless world.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I share that longing.

I didn't have dolls, but I had a lot of stuffed animals- and these were my favourite toys up until the onset of puberty.

And I always hated "rough" games like football. I couldn't see the fun in rushing half dressed about a open field in winter with other people hacking at your shins.

[barbarakitten-t.livejournal.com]

And to be autosocial is to wish that everybody else would go take a running jump.



*kitten*

(wipe V-8 juice off monitor)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

LOL.

I believe "autosocial" is a real word. And if it wasn't it is now!

[halfmoon-mollie.livejournal.com]

This is a homosocial society. It regards heterosociality as aberrant. I found that out when (aged 11) I chickened out of crossing over from the boys' side of the aisle to go sit with my girlfriends. I am profoundly heterosocial. The rituals of male homosociality- talking about cars, playing golf, drinking and messing about in packs- have always disgusted me.

Seems there isn't a lot of different between male homosociality and female homosociality , at least in the youth of both sexes.

I find this all very confusing. I just discovered the world metrosexual. Sheesh.

Oh, I was going to say when I started this that I would certainly have found you more interesting at age 11 than the male homosocials you chose not to mix with. I think, though, that I would decribe you as bisocial.

That's supposed to be a compliment. Somehow it doesn't sound so complimentary...

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Mertosexual is a good word too.

I wonder whether pre-pubescent kids are homosocial of their own accord or whether society pushes them into it?

[catvalente.livejournal.com]

Ok, I'm sorry, I love you but...

Metrosexual is not a good word. Unless you're fucking office bulidings and municipal sewage plants, I don't even want to hear it.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Ok, Ok, but it makes me smile. It's a cheeky little word.

But I'll try not to let it slip out again.

[arielstarshadow.livejournal.com]

I think what I find so fascinating is that in these largely homosocial societies, there is still so much homophobia.

-blink-

[glitzfrau.livejournal.com]

Oh, man. I WISH I could remember whether or not it was Judith Butler who said that homosociality in patriarchal societies is an elaborate fiction masking homosexual impulses. Many of the rituals of male bonding - locker-room chat, slaps on the back, nudity, whatever - have a profoundly homoerotic element, and only a large amount of homophobic conversations and jokes can help to mask it.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Many homosocials are terrified of being mistaken for homosexuals. I think it's often difficult to say where one ends and the other begins.

In homosocial society the acceptable norm is to shag the opposite sex but socialise with your own.

Pretty silly, eh?

[geodesus-christ.livejournal.com]

What makes it a "new" word? Use by the mass media? Can't you take any number of Latin roots and shuffle them around to make any word you want?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Well yes, I guess you can create new words as you please. The test of whether they're "real" or not is whether people use them. From my (very limited) researches "homosocial" and its kin have been in academic use since the early 90s.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Not only sublime, but mischievous.