More than Physique or Desire: Feeling Constituting Identity in Homosexual Nomenclature

Laburpena

This is a preliminary report of work by a Domain Analysis Clinic formed in 2021 to examine homosexualnomenclatures. Prior studies have suggested that self-naming and self-classification in the domain of male gayness andalternative sexualities emerge as a form of resistance against the hegemonic. So, the postulated research question is:what are the reasons, characteristics, and consequences of this type of knowledge organization using as an example theself-representation of gay men in social interaction applications? Our principal methodology was to seek self-identifyingnomenclature from social media websites, from each of which we gathered sets of categories or labels used foridentifying content uploaded by members. As a form of preliminary analysis all of the data were sorted as keywords orphrases to generate frequency distributions, which can be compared, to some extent, across the sites. Analysis of theterms suggested three classes which also can be considered as facets: sexual desires, physical characteristics and sexualroles or performances. The terms demonstrate how users understand themselves in their individuality, aligningthemselves with the social reproduction that occurs in the analyzed social network. The present study corresponds to afirst approximation to the development of a classification of male homosexuality, following a pragmatist or domainanalysis approach.