'Homosexualism' vs. 'homosexuality', Russian gay linguistics

[Arnold M. Zwicky]

On Oct 24, 2006, at 6:24 AM, Robert Fojtik wrote:

> ... 1) In English, "homosexualism" was used to describe same-sex
> love early in
> the 20th century and at some point shifted to "homosexuality."

so far as i can see, the OED has entries for neither "homosexualism"
nor "homosexualist".  rather a lot of google webhits on
"homosexualism", though, many of them recent.

> I am curious
> as to the semantic differences of the two. I suspect that that the
> [-ism]
> suffix suggests a belief system ( e.g. Buddhism, Marxism,
> Liberalism) as
> opposed to the [-ity] suffix which I suspect has the meaning of an
> innate
> quality (e.g. individuality, spirituality, commonality). Does
> anyone know of
> any literature that specifically addresses this question?

i dimly recall havng seen discussions of -ist vs. -ite and -ism vs. -
ity in several places, but can't at the moment retrieve these.  the
connotation of a belief system in -ist and -ism was certainly part of
these discussions.

arnold

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