Before trying to find out how many homosexuals there are in a community it is helpful to define what is meant by a homosexual. To many psychiatrists, a homosexual is a person erotically attracted to a member of the same sex, the implication being that the sexual passion is largely or entirely physical. Such a definition omits the emotional component of eroticism felt by most homosexuals. Perhaps a better definition is that a homosexual is a person who prefers the continuing company, the emotional and physical contact of persons of his or her own sex, and preferentially responds erotically to a person of the same sex. Homosexuality, in the words of Dennis Altman, himself a homosexual, is ‘as much a matter of emotion as of genital manipulation’.
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