Gay jokes and "that's so gay".

Well, it looks like our minds are all currently on something similar to this subject, so I'll thrown in a friendly spanner and see what pops.

Gay people (i.e. me) make jokes about gay people amongst each other all the time. This is possible because we are gay and know, basically, that our audience "gets it" and is not going to start conflating homosexuality with other human characteristics, desirable or undesirable.

"Cool straight people", (which is actually *most* straight people these days, thankfully), if you'll forgive the term, *also* "get it" and so it's widely seen in the gay community as basically okay for them to make gay jokes too... up to a point. It's going to be easier to hear from a friend who has already explained their position on homosexuality or has at least signalled in some other way, like their interests, the company they keep and the like, if not through words, that they aren't in the habit of making baseless assumptions about homosexuality. I've been gay for a long time and have loads of straight friends who take the royal piss out of me and each other in exactly the same way as I take the piss out of them and my boyfriend.

But it's always a little bit more difficult, because it gets very rapidly to the stage of us gay people thinking "Um, did you *mean* that?", mostly giving the benefit of the doubt, but not always rally wanting to. It gets awkward, particularly if you don't know the person, more so if you can't *see* them because they're posting anonymously on an Internet message board and more so still if they get antsy about being called on it.

There are a lot of people out there who appear to think they're amazingly cool with respect to homosexuality that ALSO seem to burst into hysterics at the least mention of anything actually to do with homosexuals, anal sex, dating, whatever... prison rape's the favourite one, actually, which I don't think is very funny at all, particularly as you're much more likely to get raped in prison if you're gay than if you're a quivering heterosexual Republican hypocrite.

These people are NOT cool, and it's almost impossible to point out to them that they aren't. They aren't necessarily homophobic, in fact, they probably aren't. What they're often doing is operating from an assumption that we know all live in a basically gay-friendly society, that homosexuality has been normalised and that what they're really laughing at is probably not what they understand to be "normalised homosexuality" but... something ELSE, and I have to say I don't really understand what the something else is. I could hazard a guess, though I could well be completely wrong. A thing missing from the debate is the idea that not only is it often difficult for heterosexuals to understand what it's like to be a homosexual in current society (I'm talking about "western" democracies here, as I know nothing about homosexuality in other cultures beyond headlines announcing executions, torture and hideous persecution) it's also difficult, sometimes, for homosexuals to understand what it's like to be heterosexual in the same society, not least because most heterosexuals don't generally consider their orientation as regularly or as deeply as people outside the traditionally "normal" relationship structures, they don't really have to.

Many eminently sensible heterosexuals make a conscious attempt to consider their orientation AS an orientation, in its own way, as part of the evolutionary mechanisms that support us all, distinct from other aspects of their personalities or culture, as an approach in itself with qualities and eccentricities every bit as bizarre as homosexuality rather than simply "the way things are", but by no means do ALL "cool" straights do this, as is evidenced by the propensity of some to remark upon some lame thing somewhere or other as "gay".

I'm sure many will leap to the defense of the use of that word in that way. It irritates me. I often feel, in the company of strangers, that I am required to simply "go along with it" for the sake of social harmony whilst also harbouring secret concerns regarding the motivation behind its use. Not that these strangers are homophobes, almost never.

Trey and Stone, the South Park boys, were instrumental in getting that particular word to where it is now. I wonder how they would feel if at some film launch party they were attending someone derisively dismissed the feature thusly: "The whole thing was so 'South Park'!" And how would they react, upon expressing annoyance with this, to be told they were being oversensitive, or that of *course* South Park is cool, but come on guys, the whole film was so SOUTH PARK?

It doesn't make any sense unless you've actually been involved in South Park production, does it?

So, finally, guys, what are you laughing at? Are you laughing at yourselves and your own excessive reaction to homosexuality? If so, er, you know, could just stop reacting excessively to homosexuality? I know you're down with it and all and wish the best for me and my kind, and I've no desire to limit whatever mechanisms you deem fit to release whatever bizarre tensions in your souls there may be that make you wish to make a public comedy of the fact that you have to get used to the idea that your dick isn't the world's only dick... it's just that occasionally, if I'm to take your downness with the faggots seriously, it might be nice, occasionally, to hear: "that's so black", or "that's so spic", or "that's so kike", or "that's so spack", or "that's so woman".... particularly if I don't know you, less so considerably if I do and you're not an asshole.

There was a brief period just at the end of the really energetic phase of my involvement the gay rights movement in the early 90s just before South Park turned up and made everything "lame" = "gay" when there was almost no homophobia in my life, covert or overt among my friends, at my work, on television or anywhere else.

It was short, but sweet.

I don't have anything to add so I'll just kick it.

I may have written it too "neutrally" for it to do anything but sink, ironically! :D

>>I may have written it too "neutrally" for it to do anything but sink, ironically! >>>


Can't let that happen.

It strikes precisely the right note, imho. Thank you. :thumbsup:

Of all the disturbing stuff I've read all week, the Craig-related discussions have been the most disturbing. One minute we're discussing Craig, and in the blink of an eye the discussions morph into enormously discouraging territory. It's terribly sad and enraging that the word "gay" so often unleashes a cascade of vile (and very often, frankly, nutty) subthreads: gay -> pervert -> "secret" escort services -> alleged White House pedophile rings, etc.

I've been trying to take a break from it all, but I'm poking my head up to thank you for this thread. :hug:

xxxx

:hug:

I haven't read most of the threads that have been referenced elsewhere as I'm sure it would merely send me into a rage. I'm not in the mood for rage this morning!

I don't find it anywhere near as offensively artificial and nauseating as garbage like "Queer eye for the Straight guy", which just makes me want to puke, but it's not exactly gay positive.

I'm sitting here barefoot in scruffy jeans and an old fleece with cigarette burns. Most of the time I'm about as far from the stereotypical bitchy, cosmopolitan, queeny fag as you can get, but if you don't develop a talent for channelling Queenie Poos, people think you're a *weird* gay person, unlike those lovely camp gay people who have no problem talking about their sex lives, other people's sex lives, their numerous exes and their exes sex lives, peppering their vocabulary liberally with "whatever," and "SO don't go there", and "scary mental image" and other such phrases.

Don't get me wrong. They're hilarious! I just get tired of constantly being expected to fill this role for other people when a lot of the time I want a beer, not a gin and bitter lemon, a hike up a mountain, not extra-kinky rubber-room sex, a steak pie, not truffles in white wine, or some time to talk about things other than other people's relations as a special relationship counsellor because I'm gay and obviously I'm going to know gallons more than they are about their own relationships (???). It's weird, i's flattering and insulting at the same time...

Amos 'n' Andy
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Amos 'n' Andy was a situation comedy popular in the United States from the 1920s through the 1950s. The show began as one of the first radio comedy serials, written and voiced by Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll and originating from station WMAQ in Chicago, Illinois. After the series was first broadcast in 1928, it grew in popularity and became a huge influence on the radio serials that followed.

Amos 'n' Andy creators Gosden and Correll were white actors familiar with minstrel traditions. They met in Durham, North Carolina in 1920, and by the fall of 1925, they were performing nightly song-and-patter routines on the Chicago Tribune's station WGN. Since the Tribune syndicated Sidney Smith's popular comic strip The Gumps, which had successfully introduced the concept of daily continuity, WGN executive Ben McCanna thought the notion of a serialized drama could also work on radio. He suggested to Gosden and Correll that they adapt The Gumps to radio. They instead proposed a series about "a couple of colored characters" and borrowed certain elements of The Gumps. Their new series, Sam 'n' Henry, began January 12, 1926, fascinating radio listeners throughout the Midwest. That series became popular enough that in late 1927 Gosden and Correll requested that it be distributed to other stations on phonograph records in a "chainless chain" concept that would have been the first use of radio syndication as we know it today. When WGN rejected the idea, Gosden and Correll quit the show and the station that December. Contractually, their characters belonged to WGN, so when Gosden and Correll left WGN, they performed in personal appearances but could not use the character names from the radio show.

When WMAQ, the Chicago Daily News station, hired the team and their WGN announcer, Bill Hay, to create a series similar to Sam 'n' Henry, they offered higher salaries than WGN and the rights to pursue the "chainless chain" syndication concept. Amos 'n' Andy began March 19, 1928, on WMAQ, and prior to airing each program they recorded their show on 78 rpm disks at Marsh Laboratories, Orlando R. Marsh, owner.

Initially, Gosden and Correll portrayed all the male roles. Between the two, they voiced over 170 distinct characterizations in the show's first decade. With the episodic drama and suspense heightened by cliffhanger endings, Amos 'n' Andy reached an ever-expanding radio audience. It was one of the earliest success stories of radio syndication, and at least 70 stations besides WMAQ carried the program using prerecorded records.

More:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amos_'n'_Andy

I wish that I had grown up with at least SOME positive shows about gay people. It would have helped when I learned, in 1977, that my dad (still married to my mother) was gay. All week I've been begging people here not to use words like "pervert" and "deviant" with regard to Craig because those words have a long history of use as slurs against gay people in general. For that, I've been called homophobic myself. "You're the one making that connection," they say -- "WE don't think of gays as perverts -- only those deviants who troll bathrooms for sex." Unfortunately, that includes the majority of gay men who were closeted through the 50's, 60's, and 70's (who, if they weren't in the tea-rooms, patronized bathhouses or cruised dark corners in parks.) Were they all perverts? Were they perverts then, and recovered perverts now?

To most people born much before 1980, or who grew up later than that in certain parts of the country, underneath their now rosy, supportive view of gay people is a societal mind-frame that viewed all gays as mentally ill -- or worse, criminals. That was the general view in pre-AIDS U.S. It wasn't until 1973 that homosexuality was taken off the official list of psychiatric diseases, and it took longer than that before the new understanding trickled down to the masses (and before gay people weren't at risk of arrest for having sex in their own homes.) There wasn't a single show on TV that featured a gay character, much less a popular show like Will and Grace. A mainstream film like Brokeback Mountain would have been inconceivable.

It's different for my children's generation, and so they use the phrase "that's so gay" without any consciousness that there is any connection to gay people. It's just a word, they say, it just happens to be the same word. But when I've explained to a teen why that expression can hurt, and compare it to: "that's so Catholic" or "that's so black," etc., I've never had a teen react defensively, and they've always changed their behavior. Why continue to say something that might hurt someone else when there are so many alternatives?

But I've had less luck here, among the "progressive" "adults."

when the DA was running for re election, they would raid the bars (in NY age was 18, and I was in them at 15) Thank you for your understanding of the way things were. in addition Sen Craig is from Idaho, so it's still 1950 for him.I prefer the terms desperate and pathetic to those other ones being used. As for 'it's so Gay" I am in a generatio where that term is not used, but my natural response as an early fighter for Gay Lib would probably be on the order of "yo mama is Gay". I ake it as an insult, and would respond accordingly.

--- Homer Simpson

... virtual invisibility to *stereotypical* visibility. In other words a necessary phase thru which the culture had to pass. (Amos and Andy served an analogous role in the post WWII, 'Jackie Robinson' era.)

At least the larger culture acknowledged we existed. Next step is to shed the stereotypes, seems to me.

Man - the english language, it is fraught with traps. I am old enough to remember and have used the word "gay" to mean happy and enthusiastic. In fact, I even went to school with a girl whose name was Gay, I've often wondered how she dealt with it as she grew older and the meaning changed. Also, in our childhood was the Flintstones as in "When you're with the Flintstones, you'll have a yabba-dabba-doo time, a dabba-doo time, we'll have a gay old time."

It's always been a bit confusing and difficult to me to have to scrub a word from my vocabulary because the meaning has changed - but you know, you do and it's not THAT hard to do. I have also scrubbed "oriental" when referring to people from China or the region and now consistently use "Asian". Oddly, though, when I hear someone say "That's so gay", my brain simply doesn't cannote it as "that's so homosexual", my brain interprets as oh, I guess the word is changing meanings again.

Anyway, posts like yours help educate, and I thank you. Because I'd like you to understand that sometimes we use phrases that are supposedly hip, not realizing that it IS a slur.

TBH, I just think it's a bit unfortunate.

I think it's just that a lot of the wised up people have leapt ahead of themselves a bit and assumed that everything's okay when it isn't yet, really. Sometimes when I overhear guys in the pub calling some disliked, absent colleague a faggot", I already know that if I ask them what they mean, they'll assure me that they don't mean me cos I'm okay, but it's impossible in these situations to point out they wouldn't be using that word in that context unless they're buying into a some sort of construct of homosexuality that's negative. What's so special about the word "faggot" that it gets to be used to describe me and be okay and someone else and not be okay?

I just get tired of belonging to a class of people that's somehow always a special case. Before the legalisation of male homosexuality there were any number of other sexual acts between consenting adults like adultery, lesbianism, and non-monogamous relationships that weren't illegal, male homosexuality was a special case. During the liberation of the concentration camp victims in Nazi Germany post-war, everyone got to go back home except the homosexuals, they went straight to jail because they were criminals. They were a special case. Even IN the concentration camps, the other concentration camp VICTIMS didn't want to be near them, their pink triangles were larger than everyone else's symbols. The Nazis kept them separate from everyone else in the camps.

And now, after the 60s and the 70s and 80s and 90s and all the hard work done by everybody to try and get silly ideas about minorities out of the public consciousness, we're STILL a special case, allegedly there's no REAL homophobia left, of course there isn't, oh, no, it's just that, um, it so happens that suddenly "gay" has another new, different meaning that, um, isn't about homosexuals and it so happens to mean "lame".

:-/

Whatever it is that's making this happen is really, really reluctant to let go.

As an aging 50+ year old overweight, cigarette smoking female in a pencil-thin youth is everything, non-smoking society, I can relate somewhat. I overheard some teenagers say that someone "like me" should not be allowed to wear a bathing suit on the beach.

"Whatever it is that's making this happen is really, really reluctant to let go."

I wonder what it is. Is it the desire to categorize and measure? Or is it more sinister, the desire to be able to point and say "they are less than"?

Sadly, I think it IS the latter. Live and let live seems to be the real dead phrase these days.

Noses everywhere int everything, what's that celebrity doing, what's that politician up to in bed, what's her angle, what's his fetish, blah blah, blah...

Those kids sound damn rude. A lot of this is just not being brought up to value common courtesy and mind your own business.

And all that "is HE gay, is HE gay, what about HIM" stuff that goes on about every single celebrity in the entire world, blech. WHO CARES I want to shout at these nosey bastards.

I've lately run into lots of people who are.

:)

There's percentage in that, Ian...

"O.M.G. That is SO GEORGE."

K&R:thumbsup:

...from the other side.

I swear, you are such sensitive people.

;)

This still summons it up as far as I'm concerned:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=1707048&mesg_id=1711198

And remember, you can't go through life without being stereotyped from time to time. We all fall in some category and some of us are Sammy Davis Jr.

It's the absence of any possibility of communication outside the stereotype that's irritating. At least the gay stereotype is a well-liked one...I suppose...

And often, so wrong. My dad had zero fashion sense, for example, and I've never noticed that his partner does either. And my dad's sensitivity and empathy was rather less than the average American male.

As I've tried to tell people many times, there is just as much of a range in behavior and personality among gays as among straight people. That should be obvious to progressives and liberals, but it isn't always. But their idealization of gay people doesn't help anyone, certainly not gays. They need to be accepted and appreciated for the full human beings that they are -- warts and everything -- or they aren't really being accepted at all.

I find myself channelling the stereotype, not cos I'm so very good at it, necessarily, or because it's somehow integral to my nature but because it just makes everything *easier*. And once you start a running joke, it's pretty much okay to keep it running... but not to the exclusion of all other aspects of your personality.

(1) They're dehumanizing, commoditizing, objectifying approaches to dismissing the unique and special attributes of each person. That's an ethically gross midemeanoer, imho.
(2) Far too many of us succumb to the tyranny of a stereotype and abdicate our individual birthright to our unique and special place in the world, surrendering our equitable kinship to every other human on the planet.

We are NOT 'types' - stereo or monaural.

K&R so others can be enlightened by your words...

Thank you for your thoughtful words.

While I think people can be overly sensitive to words and how they are used-I personally hate to hear dumb blonde jokes(and Miss Teen South Carolina certainly didn't help much recently on that front)- I think you've made some excellent points, especially about the use of the word "gay" and about the Larry Craig threads.

After the story broke and the particulars of what happened became known, I made an effort to avoid all of the threads that started up after that. I avoided them for the same reasons I avoid all the Ann Coulter posts. The comments in them were unfunny and some down right cruel, whether the posters meant to be or not. I understand the anger and hypocrisy against the right-wing dumb-asses in this country, but we as Liberals and/or Progressives shouldn't use racial epithets or stereo-types just to make a point. Someone always gets trampled on in that mad rush just to make a point and I think that is what has happened here on DU of late.

As you correctly pointed out, posting on the net is an anonymous affair and it's hard to judge the posters real meaning or intentions. That's the good and the bad of the internet I guess.

On a side note, I noticed that you are from Edinburgh, Scotland, I love Scotland, especially Edinburgh. I was fortunate enough to visit twice in the '80s during the Edinburgh Music Festival. So much fun. I stayed with a friend the first time for six weeks and we went to the festival. I was also able to indulge my love of history by visiting some of the castles and palaces around Scotland. You have a beautiful country and some lovely people.

I agree that it's a "mad rush" and that it's mostly unintentional. I just feel like I'm in a crowd with a happy grimace plastered on my face waving a flag rather limply going "uh, yay, I guess" whenever these Republicans get skewered for having sex in a non-Republican way. It's like, why should *we* have a double standard just because they do?

It's an American thing. The derision aimed at Republicans who run on "family values" creates one more fissure in their cynical platform of scapegoating gays. It helps to destroy their holier-than-thou claims to the moral higher ground. It damages their argument that Democrats are the party of moral relativism. It exposes their hypocrisy and Machiavellian machinations in a grassroots, viral way that will resonate for years.

I can relate to you in that, over the years (and for me, after working through many painful obstacles) I have created an environment where my family, friends, colleagues and neighbors are deeply supportive of my relationship in a way I never could have envisioned 35 years ago. Times are changing, to the point where my family, who wouldn't talk to me on my 21st birthday when I came out to them, now cheerfully acknowledge that my partner and I have the best marriage in the family. My colleagues go to gay networking functions and gay bars with me and other gay employees in my company.

The slang use of gay is a major annoyance, though. My partner and I do whatever we can, usually using humor, to make the point that it is not "okay" with us. If there is any advice I could give to DU parents it would be to teach their children how to be respectful of other people in their words and actions. It's the right thing to do and the best way to prepare your kids for getting along in a diverse and changing world.

It mostly seems to just get them fired. Does it change anyone's ideas? Or just it simply reinforce the prejudice?

The thing that worries me is that you can twist prejudice into almost any sort of shape you like with a bit of propaganda. It wouldn't suprise me if all this achieved were the cementing of the idea that the "gays you know" are kind of okay as deviants but politicians aren't allowed to be gay because they're supposed to represent "normal" society.

Over time, it works. It seems like we're standing still at times but we have made unbelievable progress over the past three decades.

Social change comes more slowly to the heartland of the USA. I spent a lot of time there and I know that blatant hypocrisy makes people start thinking. When people start to think, progress starts to be made.

Look, when I see somebody step over the line at DU I will tell them. I am a "long-time DUer" as well, and I am forming my opinion of this particular situation based on the context of being a long-time reader here.

Oops, I said a no-no. Sorry about stereotyping Scots as cheap (but yet a stereotype starts somewhere). New Englanders are tightwads, too. Oops again. I guess there really are no good stereotypes. I do hate WASPS, though. Those people deserve to die.

Some of my best friends are wasps! They ask for advice on nest interior design. I say, "honey (sorry, bit insensitive I know you can't make any) paper is so EIGHTIES."

and i object to the word faggot -- especially in ''mixed'' company{though i sometimes use it} -- i will kick this as a positive piece.

hypocrisy threads often give our hetero folk and excuse to blow off some pent up unflattering steam.

it's very, very difficult to see.


last -- people both gay and straight really need to understand that sex is like steam -- it will ooze out all over the place -- and those you least suspect will indulge in letting off said steam in the Most Unusual places -- they always have and they always will.

The steam metaphor I get, but don't quite understand how it works with the Republican hypocrisy? I could be getting totally the wrong end of the stick here, but are you saying that, um.... the hets that 'buke the hypo 'pukes with teh gay are really using the issue as a lightning conductor for their own sexual, er, frustrations? Cos, you may be right or wrong, I wouldn't know but for sure I'd think it'd be thiiiiiin ice to start skating on. That would make ME a bit of a hypocrite to start accusing accusers of hypocrisy of being hypocrites themselves...

regardless -- there is some truth in your OP.

and that's all i wanted to underline.

beautifully written - thank you.

The only thing I'd take issue with is the notion that South Park popularized "gay" as a synonym for lame: I think that was just a case of art imitating life. I'd heard it used by many people that way before I ever heard it on South Park. However, that certainly doesn't justify SP's use of it that way.

I love Trey and Matt, but they always want to have their cake and eat it, too. They would say they're friends of the gay community, but they induldge in the same juvenile stereotyping that so many others do. The fact that they trash EVERYONE does help a little.

The only time I was TRULY offened was when Mr. Garrison got a sex change. Here was a character who up til now had been portrayed as a closeted gay man who was contempuous of women, then later an openly gay man who was still contemptuous of women, and now all of sudden he wants to become a woman. It demonstrated a profound lack of understanding (not to mention empathy) for the distinctions between a gay man and a transexual woman, and was insulting to both. I almost quit the show after that. But I'm sure there are black people, asians, mexicans, or women who would turn to me incredulously and say, "You weren't truly offended til THEN???"

Sorry...didn't mean to go off on a South Park rant. Please resume thread.

High praise from as articulate and clear-headed a poster as yourself!

TBH, I get really annoyed with South Park. I don't think there's anything useful to be gained by being an "equal opportunity" piss-taker. Sometimes it's absolutely hilarious and other times it's just offensive...

It's funnier and more true. :)

I hate it when people use the term "gay" as an insult or perjorative. Hate it! It's in the same class as calling men something female because that automatically is an insult. I hate that, too. I'm not a second-class citizen because I don't have a Y chromosome, and no one should be a second-class citizen because of his or her sexuality.

Making fun of someone by calling him "gay" or a "bitch" is sooo snakes on a plane.

i just like that you threw the "spanner" in there. Seriously though, good work... "that's so gay" is not only wrong, but terribly passe.

Does anyone ever use "gay" to mean happy and lighthearted anymore?

Was used to describe a carefree, sociable young man - what we would call a "party animal" these days. Nothing was implied about his sexual orientation. Sheesh, am I showing my age!

The meaning of words changes over time, though. Today most African-Americans would be insulted if you called them "colored people", though that was the polite term in my childhood (and still persists in the name of the NAACP). One does need to keep relatively current to avoid offense.

I never liked the gay=lame expression. It always struck me a mean-spirited. If fact, I have my doubts about "lame", which could be offensive to people with disabilities. From now on, I think I'll use "That's so Rove!" or "Come on! That's really Billo!" when referring to something that's stupid or offensive.

It's easy to make fun of "P.C.", but it's nothing more that the advice my mother gave me as a child "Always call people what they want to be called". And there's nothing wrong with good manners.

Vicious, hey why don't you swallow razor blades
You must think that I'm some kind of gay blade
But baby, you're so vicious

:hug: :loveya:

As always... :D :D :D

I hope you can come to Scotland one day...

They have NO RIGHT to equate gayness with anything bad. Their bigotry does not go unchecked, no matter how progressive they think they are.

i play a lot of video games, with other kids on the internet and i am CONSTANTLY telling kids that "'gay' is not a synonym for 'stupid'"

also, and interesting thing: last winter break i was home from school and saw one of my friends at a party. I asked her how she was doing, and she said "I'm straight". I asked her to repeat what she had said, and was shocked to find that "straight" was the new "good", "fine", and "cool". I had heard the gay=bad or stupid remark, but never this straight=good. needless to say i was blown back...she hasn't used it around me since, but if she does i will be sure to remind her its not a proper use of the word :)

Syd:toast:

Language isn't a one way thing. In a sense it defines you as well as you defining it...

Some examples from my life:

Mark, my roommate, and I routinely call each other "FAG" and "HOMO" and we each know exactly what we mean by it (both gay). I'd be pissed off if anyone outside my circle of friends and family did the same though.

My ex-girlfriend's daughter won one of the top awards at her school. It's the tolerance award and it is given to the student who shows the most comfort with those very different to them. In her case, there is absolutely nothing different about her gay friends, compared to her straight ones, yet she routinely says, "that's so GAY". Drove me crazy forever but I stopped grumbling because I saw how much her heart was in the right place.

Just some observations and I thank you for your great use of the English language to make your points.

and in my adolescence, we used the 'that's so gay' phrase quite a bit in regard to things that were lame. except cripples. and 'tards.

More words I use myself mostly through habit. I may just stop altogether. I don't *need* to use them, and I'm not convinced that using them benefits anything.

didn't really know what it meant. Just said it because other's around us said it and it was meant to be an insult. I think we need to be careful what we say to our children and around our children. They pick up on it... that's how the "that's gay" or "your gay" is still around. If you ask anyone what they really mean in that instance or usage, it could mean a thousand diff. things.

And when did gay turn into a bad thing... Happy is a good thing to be.. So be Happy people.

and one I'm very pleased to recommend. It addresses several issues I often think about, and about which I hope much more dialogue will open here.

At or near the top of these issues, as I see them, is that the word "gay" has so much power — particularly in forums such as DU, with its eclectic mix of opinions and emotions — that one becomes afraid to use it except (forgive me) in a straight-forward context.

There are a handful of gay folks here whom I can kid a little bit — I think — because they know what's in my heart. At least, I wouldn't feel uncomfortable dropping a gay stereotype on them with humorous intent — something like, "You're bored? Why don't you go re-decorate the living room?"

The rub lies in that, while I wouldn't feel uncomfortable saying such as that to them, I would feel uncomfortable knowing that someone else would be likely to misunderstand my meaning and the relationship between the "target" and I, twist it out of context and start a flame war. I also hate to think that someone might take it to mean I'm homophobic; that's happened here.

I hate that aspect of DU.

One of my most treasured friends is a black man. When we worked together, there was often kidding between us along these lines. If we were going to lunch and he said, "Where do you want to eat?" I might say, "Well, you want to get some fried chicken and watermelon, right?" He'd laugh, and shoot a "white" joke back at me. I think it brought us closer because he knew what I was doing — making fun of a stereotype.

OTOH, I don't know for certain that he was never offended, even slightly, by something I said. I've thought about asking him, but we have such a light-hearted friendship that I hesitate to bring such seriousness into it. But, if I ever have offended him, even slightly, I'd be devastated.

I'm not sure why I wrote those last two paragraphs. Maybe I wanted to make some sort of establishment about where I'm coming from.

I was picked on a lot in my life by those better at positioning small chunks of leather wrapped around air-filled bladders, and subsequently called just about every euphemism for homosexual ever uttered by a letter-jacketed asshole with a small prick.

Sure, it hurt my feelings back when I was in high school, about a hundred years ago. But now, fuck 'em, they are just words.

Yeah, words "hurt" but they do not puncture. They can degrade and humiliate, but unless the asshole spewing them decides to follow up with a closing argument containing a towel wrapped around a baseball bat, you get to go home later and get on with your life. We have all had those moments, gay or straight.

Granted, I am not gay, even though I brush my teeth regularly and shave most of my body hair, so who am I to complain about the usage of the word "gay" in non-homosexually related situations? I am not personally affected by it. But the whole premise that this word is "good" and that word is "bad" smacks a little too close to First Amendment restrictions for my taste. Above all else, I hold the Constitution sacred.

Would I knowingly say something was "gay" in front of someone I knew to be homosexual? Probably not, because that is just being polite. I certainly would not say the word "pedophile" in front of a Catholic priest, either, no matter how much fun it would be.

Am I guilty of occasionally using the word "gay" to describe things that I find boring, stupid, corny, or just plain awful? Yes, from time to time (although I have found watching South Park did have an impact in my usage of that word, along with "dude" and "weak" - never "sweet" though, cuz that's just gay).

For the little it is worth, homosexuality is about the FARTHEST thing from my mind whenever I use the term, just like when I call Cheney a son of a bitch; I do not actually mean he was sired by some sweaty canine in a back alley, although I would not rule out that Chaney's father ever fucked a puppy.

The English language is full of many, many words with double meanings. It's an insane goddamned language.

Evil Kumquat

:crazy:

The First Amendment guarantees the right to free speech, not the freedom from being insulted or offended.

This is one of those "I object to what you say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it" sort of arguments.

It is polite to refrain from being offensive, but walking on eggshells to not offend every possible combination of ethnic, religious, political or sexually-orientated group is no way to live.

Gary Larson once received a complaint on one of his Far Side strips that featured "William Tell's unfortunate first son", a boy whose head was larger than his whole body. The obvious joke was the fact that Tell obviously must have shot his son's enormous head rather than the tiny apple perched on top, but the complainer stated that Larson was REALLY making fun of the hydrocephalic! By this point in his career, the cartoonist was used to receiving angry letters on a lot of his strips, but this one caught even him by surprise.

If using the word "gay" as an adjective for something lame so offends the homosexual community, do the old-timers who remember when "gay" merely meant festive have grounds for being equally offended at those who use the term for their sexual-orientation?

Again, I have no personal reason to have my feelings hurt by the usage of the word, but over the years I have seen the English language being used as ammunition in the fight between ideologies. To me, it is insane to spend so much time and energy fighting words when the REAL fight (discrimination against gays in the workplace or military, the equal-marriage battle, how gays are presented in popular culture) offers so many more important battlefronts.

Besides, the English language being what it is, in the very near future using "gay" in this manner will be supplanted by some other word and a whole new generation of people will have the opportunity to be offended by whatever word is picked, and this change will have been brought about regardless of how much or how little struggle is put forth by the homosexual community to force the issue.

I mean, how many people wear "dungarees" any more?

Evil Kumquat

I'm surprised you didn't toss in "PC" a few times there.

"Grow a thicker skin you pansies."

We've heard it all. Thank you, come again.

1st amendment guarantees the right to free speech, but there are limits. Inciting others to riot. Yelling "fire" in a theater. Those are prohibited by law. Telling derogatory stories, calling derogatory names with the excuse "it was just funnin' " may not be illegal but it is very poor manners. Would you shout "Hey! Boy! Yeah, you, nigger!" if you needed help from a person with dark skin? Do you say "he jewed me" rather than "he cheated me"?

You do not need to walk on eggshells, but why use something that you know is offensive, unless you are chosing to be offensive? How about a middle road?

It was a serenade to exasperated people like you who still want to sling insulting words around, to the tune of: "Please stop that. It's insulting."

I even went out of my way to say if I can TELL you're cool, it isn't insulting.

I don't entirely understand your Gary Larson anecdote and it's position relative to the discussion. In what way did you feel it was comparable to the phenomenon I was describing?

You are obviously entirely intelligent enough to choose which words you use. This being the case, I think I speak for most gay people in requesting that you *consider the context* within which you use the word "gay", considering the history of homosexuality. This does not appear to be an unreasonable request to *me*, as *I* am more than capable of extending similar courtesy to anyone else asking *me* to refrain from using words that irritate *them* and, on regular occasions, adapt my speech accordingly, with the net loss in my ability to communicate meanings normally equaling zero, and with no real loss of my Freedom of Speech", as such adaptation normally develops in response to personal requests rather than Government Edicts, pernicious examples of which are what the Right to Freedom of Speech is for, NOT to guarantee insulting people the "right" to fling around insults without other people pointing out that they feel insulted.

I don't think you'd be very likely to get rapped over the knuckles for saying "that's so hydrocephalic." Perhaps you can work out the difference between that and saying "that's so gay," yourself, without me having to post 5000 words on the subject? My fingers are sore.