Philip Pilkington wrote:
>
> As I pointed out in my
> first post the word pansy was tied up with the word "pensive", which is not
> only an "artistic" notion but a highly effeminate one.
The problem here is that almost certainly whoever used "pansy" first in its sexual sense was not a philologist, and was probably focusing on the appearance of the flower or the sound of the word _in English_. How long has the colro lavendar been associated with homosexuality. Also, many of the terms for gays could only come into existence after homsexuality and heterosexuality were invented as social categories in the late 19th century. Byron was very probably a sodomite, but he wasn't a homosexual, because the category didn't exist then.
There may be some slang terms the coinage of which related to the word's etymology, but I doubt it.
Carrol