As I get older and understand my sexuality and identity more, I have made a distinction between "gay" and "homosexual".
For me, the latter is a universal truth, meaning people who have sex with members of their own sex. This practice occurs all over the world and even in non human species.
Gay is, and is increasingly so, a matter of identity. How you fit into your culture. With the "gay" label comes a whole host of cultural associations and expectations, both from within the gay "community" and from those outside the group. More than simply camp stereotypes; there's an expectation on ones political outlook, humour, friendship circle, likes/dislikes, etc.
What we understand as gay or LGBT is culturally specific to the developed western world. Yet homosexuality has been and is still practiced in many ways globally where LGBT culture is not a part of the wider culture.
I've never felt any want to belong to a community simply based on my attracted to the same sex.
(Incidentally, I resist all culturally belonging because of an unstable and international childhood with numerous, diverse, mixed cultural influences).
My impossible dream is to have a partner who also doesn't recognise himself as "gay", rather a man who enjoys the company of, and physical intimacy of men.
People who don't understand this may lazily call me an internalized homophobe, or a closet case, but that could not be further from the truth. I came out at 15 and have been in a same sex relationship for 14yrs.
When I fantasize about men, I always fantasize about men who enjoy men, not gays.