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Underground > Head Shop >

Gay, and not in a good way: the use of "gay" as a pejorative term without overt reference to homosexuality.

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ONLY NICE THINGS

00:53 / 29.12.02

Elsewhere, defending the use of "gay" to mean "bad":

it can be hot.

a hot day is good.

it can be badly hot.

when you die of heat exhaustion.

Now, the logical extension of this is apparently:

One can be gay

Being attracted to people of the same gender is good

One can be badly gay

When one is attracted to people of the same gender to death

I'm big enough to admit when an argument leaves me utterly bewildered.

However.

The general argument subsequently advanced appears to be that the word "gay", meaning homosexual, is not connected to the word "gay", meaning bad, lame (a useful precedent, as it is not presumably connected to the idea of a turned ankle) or poor.

The opposing view is that the latter usage is a development of the former, and cannot be separated from the suggestion that there is something basically bad about being gay (that is, being homosexual).

The first school (if school is not unfairly genericising) thus sees no complexity in the use of the word "gay", to describe something bad, and might go so far as to suggest that the best ting to do would be to drop "gay" as a term describing homosexuality out of usage entirely, or otherwise effect a clear separation between the pejorative term "gay" and the state of being attracted to people of the same gender. The second, assuming that they do not believe the state of being attracted to people of the same gender to be bad, would presumably discourage the pejorative usage of the term and suggest that it be avoided as potentially insulting, intentionally or not.

So, what does the Head Shop think about this one?

01:35 / 29.12.02

I'd look at the precedent word: in its original usage, someone who is "lame" is worse (at walking) than someone who is not. This value judgement has since been applied to things other than walking.

It's pretty clear to me that the same thing has happened with "gay": someone who is "gay" is clearly worse (just inherently--I mean, %duh%) than someone who is not. This value judgement has similarly reapplied.

Oddly enough, I was hanging around people who use "gay" as a pejorative (unthinkingly rather than actively homophobically) enough that I caught myself using it as such; since "lame" has the same vowel sound, I found it to be the easiest replacement word. Which means I discriminate against the disabled. Ah, hell.

Tryphena Absent

01:43 / 29.12.02

I would suggest that there is a third school that sees the connection between the two terms and uses the perojative term as a cynical comment on everyone else who uses the word. This school does not wish to differentiate between the terms as it feels the word refers to some illness within Western middle class society.

A

02:01 / 29.12.02

Clearly, the pejorative use of the word "gay" dates back to less sensitive, more homophobic times, when some people actually believed that to imply someone was homosexual was to insult them (alas, we are far from rid of this today, as Eminem, Everlast and countless others constantly remind us). Insults that initially only apply to people can soon find themselves being applied to just about anything, therefore it is only a short step from saying "that guy is so gay" in an insulting sense, to saying "that movie is so gay, or that toaster is so gay" in an insulting sense.

Many folks today who use "gay" as an insult seem to believe that, because they have no homophobic intent in using it, and are just saying it to be cool because they heard it on South Park, that this somehow nullifies any anti-homosexual sentiment inherent in the pejorative use of the term, and that they can use it freely, without fear of censure. These people are living in a fantasy world, with fairies and pixies. Maybe they should try using the word "nigger" as a "non-racist" insult and see where it gets them.

Then there are the folks whose argument is something like "Dude, gay is already accepted as an insult, so, like, I can use it if I want and that's cool." These people clearly have no idea that relatively common usage of a term does not actually infer upon that term any degree of non-stupidity, and deserve to have some sense slapped into them with a rolled-up newspaper.

Bottom line- you use "gay" as an insult, and you are saying that it is "bad" to be gay, whether you intend to or not. There are many, many better insults out there- use one of those, or make one up yourself.

(post no. 500 for me. Bammm!)

Murray Hamhandler

02:27 / 29.12.02

I can't quite form my side on this issue in the way that I'd like to. Which probably means that I should leave it alone until I can...but what fun would that be?

It seems to me that there is a potential usage of the word "gay" as a descriptor of something bad wherein the usage has little to nothing to do w/homosexuality. The usage of "lame", mentioned by Tommy above, seems to have the same value. It does not refer to that which it originally referred.

At any rate, whether you accept or reject the usage, "gay" as a negative descriptor does indeed seem to be the new "bastard" (using Duncan's terminology) in that its usage is becoming more widespread all of the time. Which you can lament, sure, but I don't think that this spread is necessarily in cahoots w/a spread of homophobia. I don't believe that the usage in question and homophobia are necessarily linked, in other words.

If "gay" does ultimately become widespread as a negative descriptor, I'm not really convinced that berating those who use it as such is the way to go. Like "lame", there are a lot of words in regular usage that have questionable origins. But these words are no longer explicitly tied to their origins. It would seem more befitting of ones energies to focus on ridding the world of homophobia rather than trying to get people to stop saying "that's gay". Attempts at halting the organic flow of language have not often met w/success in the past.

I dunno. I know this is a controversial position and I'm honestly not trying to be obtuse. Like I said: a half-formed opinion, at best. And probably a bit wide-eyed, but there you go.

07:58 / 29.12.02

I don't even use it very often.

But checking my dictionary we have: lively, bright, sportive, merry, dissipated, of loose life, whorish, showy, spotted (dial.), in modern use - homosexual (orig. prison slang), great, considerable (Scot.; usu. gey), unduly familiar (U.S.), pertaining to or frequented by homosexuals.

Didn't know about 'gey', which is pronounced 'guy', being related. Very North-east, that one - Aberdeen area. Synonymous with 'affa' (awful) which strangely means great and considerable, too. Or very.

As a descriptor, I can't think of a way I've used 'gay' that particularly relates to the homosexual section from above - rather, meaning excessive or overly showy (which can of course be related to a stereotype of homosexual behaviour - there are very gay homosexuals, and there are homosexuals who are not. But I've never used 'camp' as a pejorative.)

However, every time I have used it I have had the homosexual context in mind. I've used it because I oughtn't. This is very juvenile, isn't it? Or is it?

Count Adam - how about black as non-racist negative descriptor? It's become a bit cliche these days, but on the sliding scale I think 'nigger' is rather closer to 'faggot', in that both are hate speech.

And Deric, I think the widespread use of the word is (connected or no) concurrent with a social downturn in homophobia (a word I find, in itself, somehow lacking, sounding as it does, pseudo-medical.)

10:51 / 29.12.02

This is a really good question, Haus, and I'm still wondering about it.

One the one hand, I don't think I'm homophobic and "some of my best friends...", &c.

On the other hand, that's exactly what people like Trent Lott say about blacks.

And I wouldn't use "niggardly" as a pejorative. I mean... I can say that things are "white bread" objections. I can say "could you get any whiter?" to my friends. And I don't feel like I'm a self-hating caucasoid.

But I'm not gay.

So, is it really okay for me to decide that I'm allowed to use "gay" as a pejorative term? In a weird sense, I feel like maybe it's not my word to make decisions about. Other people have to live with and within that word, and its usage impacts on them much more viscerally than it does on me.

But which people? And how do I decide? A phone survey? Check-box postcards at S&M clubs? At Ethan Allen? At K.D. Lang concerts? Whose opinions do I listen to? If I'm going to surrender control of the usage of the word gay to that portion of the population to whom it pertains, then I have to decide who counts as "really gay." And then, you know, I could end up being, like, "Well, you don't coint. You're just bi." Or, "Trannies aren't really gay."

I... yeah. It's a sticky issue. I think a coin-toss might be the best way to solve it. Heads, 'gay' is usable by anybody who wants to use it, in any sense they want to use it. Tails, gay can't be used as a pejorative term. Yes, a coin toss is arbitrary, but I think fairness may be beyond our reach here, and...

"As one judge said to another: 'Be just and if you can't be just, be arbitrary.'"

Matthew Fluxington

11:37 / 29.12.02

I think Count Adam is pretty right-on about this. To me, I think that it is a lot worse for people who are perhaps not actively homophobic to use a word like "gay" in a casually negative way - I think most people really ought to know better than that. It's lazy and thoughtless, and it's not as if they don't have a good variety of other words to use instead. There's a lot of folks who are fond of using the word "ghetto" as a negative descriptor and I'm just as wary of that, too. I think that it is a pretty good policy for people to avoid using insensitive language when it's completely unnecessary, if just to err on the side of caution. The odds are still pretty high that if you're going to throw around that kind of language you are likely to be judged negatively for doing so, and many people may rightfully believe you to be more homophobic than you actually may be - why risk that just because you can't think enough to use a more neutral word?

ONLY NICE THINGS

11:56 / 29.12.02

How about black as non-racist negative descriptor?

Well, yes. On one level, we have the usual - black books, black days, black moods - which can certainly be defended as having noting to do with relation to Africa or Africans, as can "niggardly", for that matter, which I think crops up in Chaucer long before the term "nigger" is in general usage. However, we also have "black" asa way of describing cowardly, superstitious, lascivious, weak-willed, deceitful and other traits associated in particular with black people in a particular age and in a particular place - specifically, IIRC, the United States of America before the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, and in many places after. Would this be an acceptable usage?

Essentially, the same thing happened to "black" as happened, or at least attempts have been made to make happen, to "queer" - a pejorative usage being reclaimed by the people it had been applied to. What seems interesting about "gay" as a peorative is that, contra Count Adam, as far as I can tell the pejorative usage has developed after the term was appropriated as a new and non-pejorative term for "homosexual"...

13:19 / 29.12.02

you use "gay" as an insult, and you are saying that it is "bad" to be gay, whether you intend to or not.

What about gay people who use "gay" as a light insult for films, events, Trent Lott etc? Are we to assume they are self-loathing, or simply that they are using a modern definition of a word that has already been redefined once before in the past hundred years?

Can you say something you don't intend to say? Isn't intent the relevant thing? If someone thinks it's fine to be gay, and then calls Swept Away gay while exiting the theater, it's going to be very difficult to make the case that that person is "saying that it is 'bad' to be gay." Or even, "That film is homosexual."

How do we account for the rising common use of "gay" in contexts unrelated to homosexuality with the general lowering levels of homophobia in our culture?

13:43 / 29.12.02

There's 'denigrate' as well. Which always bothered me as a youth.

ONLY NICE THINGS

13:46 / 29.12.02

Isn't intent the relevant thing?

Very good question, this. For example, elsewhere on this board Moby was described as a "pansy", and the user of the term promptly upbraided. It appears that the poster had no idea that the word was used as an insult to gay men. Therefore, although the term was identified by various people as offensive to gay men, the original user apparently meant no offence *to* gay men.

At another point in the same continuum, of course, there is the question of whether, if the act of not being homophobic gives one carte blanche to use terms such as poof, faggot, or gay (meaning bad, assuming we accept the linkage betweenthe two), theact of not being racist allows one to use terms such as nigger, paki, coon and so on with the same impunity, or not being sexist alows one to use terms such as bitch, whore and cunt as synonyms for "woman". How can one demonstrate that one is not sexist/racist/homophobic, and that these words are therefore not offensive, as without intent to offend? A small but distinctive lapel badge?

Of course, if "gay" meaning homosexual and "gay" meaning bad are as distinct and unconnected as "gay" meaning homosexual and "gay" as in "Wha's like us? Gay few, and most o'em dead", then that's a different question again...

14:06 / 29.12.02

How can one demonstrate that one is not sexist/racist/homophobic, and that these words are therefore not offensive, as without intent to offend? A small but distinctive lapel badge?

I suppose another question might be: Does society have an obligation to ensure that its population is not offended? If some people are offended by calling a film "gay" and others are not, and some people claim the use of the word "gay" is linked to homosexuality and others claim it is not, and so on, how do we decide which group "wins?"

I believe the fact that many people use the word "gay" without an intended link to homosexuality proves that society has created a new definition and use for the word. That some people do not yet accept this and are therefore offended doesn't change this fact. The example of "lame" offered upthread is a great example of this happening in the past.

ONLY NICE THINGS

14:15 / 29.12.02

I suppose another question might be: Does society have an obligation to ensure that its population is not offended?

Very good question. For example, at the moment there are various laws against incitement to racial hatred, which to he best of my knowledge include the use of certain terms in certain contexts. Is it actually the job of the state to police the use of language? If not, is it any business of the individual to do the same?

yawn - thing's buddy

14:15 / 29.12.02

I think it's fairly obvious that if a word is used often enough within a certain context it will eventually stick and become a definitive term for whatever phenomena it now describes.

As has been highlighted by the dictionary definition, 'gay' meant something else entirely until fairly recently.

I just think it's funny that a word which was used to describe things which were good, attractive, pleasant etc. could end up meaning the opposite in less than 50 years of usage.

Wicked!

14:34 / 29.12.02

'Paki', and there was a court case about this a couple of years ago which the user of the word won, is arguably a descriptive diminution. 'Chinky' likewise.

It's just that the people who tend to use these two words are often prefixing them with 'Fucking...'

Is anyone actually offended by 'poof'(excluding aforementioned prefix?) It's such a jolly word.

14:41 / 29.12.02

Is it actually the job of the state to police the use of language?

I suspect most of us here would say no, but it's always fun to watch the logicial contortions that develop when we try to explain how the only language that should be policed is the language we want policed.

I must confess to having a hard time understanding the motives behind threads like this, because it seems fairly apparent that there isn't a sizeable homophobic contingent on Barbelith (in fact, I've not seen anyone here at all who is "against" homosexuality) and yet this topic inevitably ends in factionalizing and ill feeling among a group that feels the same on the broader issues (already we're playing the "respond to certain questions but not others" game, and I doubt it will be long before we begin trading issues for post deconstruction and pedantry). Wouldn't we be better off working on the root problem instead of a (perceived) symptom? Shouldn't we focus on working together to stamp out homophobia instead of dividing and factionalizing over vocabulary?

re: Yawn's "wicked." Hah!

ONLY NICE THINGS

14:59 / 29.12.02

Good point again - this thread is devoted to sorting out a question of linguistics with a possible impact on social ethics. If you feel it is an unprofitable thread, it is yur right both to say so and to abstain from it. Another thread, perhaps on "practical solutions to stamp out homophobia", might be a very useful and good thing.

I don't see any ill feeling here - might I suggest that we take the lessons of Deric's Conversation thread on infighting and Byron's recent experiments in Non-Debate threads, and try not to see things as quite so adversarial? This isn't about personalities...

ONLY NICE THINGS

15:03 / 29.12.02

So, if it is not the job of the state to police language, then whose is it? What recourse should somedy have if they feel they are being subjected to abusive language based on their sexuality (or for that matter their gender or race)? Shuld it be down to the inividual to remonstrate with the abuser, as a conflict of two neutral ideologies (I ike to descrbe this person as x and I do not wish to be described as x), with their respective friends joining in if it comes to fisticuffs? Should employers enforce codes of behavour in order to maximise the efficiency of their workforce?

Duncan - new thread!

15:43 / 29.12.02

I don't see any ill feeling here

No, I don't either. But experience tells me it'll probably arrive somewhere on the second page. I'd like to avoid that...

So, if it is not the job of the state to police language, then whose is it?

That's a good question, but I think it's a follow-up to the real question, which is Should language be policed? Another follow-up to this would be, What is the impact of policed language on freedom of speech? and perhaps Which is paramount, the right to offend or the right to not be offended? I don't know the answers to these questions. However, I am against any policing of language - even hate speech, even yelling "Fire!" in a theater - on the grounds that absolute freedom of speech is an inalienable human right.

What recourse should somedy have if they feel they are being subjected to abusive language based on their sexuality (or for that matter their gender or race)?

The key word here is "feel," and that's the word that makes it impossible to develop to an objective solution. In many ways this is a perceived problem, or at least a problem of perception, and we are forced to weigh the rights/feelings of those who feel a word is negative, and those who don't. The short answer (and I say this as someone who endured the sort of verbal abuse you describe for years at school) is that we are all adults and "shit happens." Life does not (and probably should not) come with some sort of "happiness guarantee."

But your point about the workplace is a good one, and we probably both agree that in the context of the workplace speech is rightfully subservient to the goal of the job ... which raises the issue of speech in the context of Barbelith.

--

16:25 / 29.12.02

wow, I'm gay and I've never thought about this much.

Myself, I like the term queer a lot. Most of my gay friends use that word too. In fact on Oct. 11 2 years ago (National Coming Out day) we chalked the campus' quad with pro-gay pro-love no-hate messages etc. and we used the word queer a bit, but then we got complaints in the school newspaper from straight students who thought the use of the word queer was homophobic! I found that humerous for some reason.

I don't like faggot at all, mainly because I'd rather not be compared to something that burns wood (or whatever it actually means).

16:43 / 29.12.02

I don't know how I feel about policing speech - I find the French attitude sort of laughable (After all, if there'd been an Academie Romaine, we'd all be speaking Latin), but I'm not sure we need to decide whether or not language should be policed, or whether it's even policeable.

What this thread has imparted to me, thus far, is a sudden doubt as to whether I'm qualified to decide that my usage of gay as a pejorative term is non-homophobic. And, with that doubt, I'm left wondering whether there's actually anyone capable of making that kind of decision.

Unfortunately, I have a feeling my logic is pointing towards a result of "If anyone, anywhere,is offended by a word, then the word is offensive." And from there, well, it's a hop, skip and a jump to newspeak, Orwell, and nuclear armageddon.

But in the other direction, we've got the freedom to be as much of a bigot as you want, as publically as you want. And I'm not really comfortable with that - speech can be performative, &c, &c.

Anyway - point being: whether or not we police it doesn't change whether or not it's an offensive term. But what does?

17:18 / 29.12.02

What this thread has imparted to me, thus far, is a sudden doubt as to whether I'm qualified to decide that my usage of gay as a pejorative term is non-homophobic.

Well, I think we probably ought to clarify what we mean by homophobic.

19:25 / 29.12.02

Elsewhere, defending the use of "gay" to mean "bad":

it can be hot.

a hot day is good.

it can be badly hot.

when you die of heat exhaustion.

Now, the logical extension of this is apparently:

One can be gay

Being attracted to people of the same gender is good

One can be badly gay

When one is attracted to people of the same gender to death

I'm big enough to admit when an argument leaves me utterly bewildered.

well, i suppose i should try to help with your bewilderment, seeing as it was my words that caused it.

at what point did i lose you to the idea that gay meant bad? hot doesnt mean bad. nor should it. the 'badly' qualifier is what makes the pejoration.
likewise, being 'gay' does not to me connote bad. nor should it.

if you were summing up being gay as just the actual sexual acts one, as a gay person partakes in, then i think that might have been where your logical workthrough fell on its well tailored yet underdeveloped arse. or possibly the idea that i actually felt that one would die from exposure to 'gayness'. the basic meaning behind my point was that the original shirt was 'so gay it hurt', a phrase which with the sexual preferrence changed to straight seems less offensive. i have often heard people called so straight it hurt. haven't you ever?

ps
perhaps i should have, instead of die of heat exhaustion, said stick to the plastic car seats. a little less contentious as it doesnt involve death, perhaps. would it be okay if i were to find excessive camp to be mildly irritating, like a piece of hot vinyl against my slightly moistened summer thigh?

pps
does that make me gay?

ONLY NICE THINGS

22:48 / 29.12.02

As I believe we have all established before, bread makes you gay.

So, hot does not mean bad. But too much hotness makes you die. Or stick to seats. Does too much gayness make you die? Or stick to seats?

I am assuming that what you actualy mean is that "gay in a bad way" has nothing to do with "gay" as a descriptor of people who are sexually attracted to people of the same gender, just as "hot" in a bad way has nothing to do with the action of increased temperature on the human body. Erm. Or are you confusing gay, as a descriptor of the state of being sexually attracted to peple of the same gender, with camp, which is a set of behaviours which may or may not occur in the same body as somebody who is attracted to people of the same gender? Because I for one know a lot of people even within Barbelith who are camp but are primarily interested in people of a different gender, sex-wise.

02:34 / 30.12.02

well, hell, kylie is camp, and she is straight. or at least, so i hear.

but its not about gay as a bad thing, more a bad gay. like luck, good or bad. like heat, good or bad. its more like the bad aspects of gay are emphasized when i say the word pejoratively, as the bad aspects of 'fucked' are when i am puking.

if it were 'too much gay will kill you', that would be a different argument/discursion for me.

ONLY NICE THINGS

02:40 / 30.12.02

So, too much gaying is like too much drinking?

02:54 / 30.12.02

again, my example is weak...

but you can be that drunk and love it, or that high, and then the next week, the same makes you hurl...

being gay is like being straight. when it is all you are or see, or even can be, it is bad.

all gay men and women must to some degree embrace their heterosexist conditioning, just as all those with instinctive heterosexism must fight to lose it.
its only fair.

i suppose what i was trying to say is that for a thing to be bad, it need not be a bad thing...it might just be the wrong tme or place, or even the wrong pectorals, to be wearing that vest.

04:26 / 30.12.02

Prior to being used as a descriptor for homosexuality, gay meant more "happy, jolly, light hearted, joyful." Why then did it come to be used for homosexuals?

First, it was used for homosexual men. Not so much because of their actions, but becuase the idea of homosexuality in men was thought of as an act of femininity. One is gay because one is effeminent, and therefore must be a homosexual. Much of the hate towards homosexual men by hederosexual men stems from a challenge to manhood or ideas of "maleness" in a chovanistic society. To be homosexual is to be less than a man, to be like a woman, and therefore to be weak.

Thus, gay is used to signify weakness, as inherent in femininity, and so synominous with "lame" in modern usage. The real link between "gay" and "lame" is the sense of weakness or lessening inherent in the condition by cultural standards. Try replacing perjorative uses of "gay" with "weak" and you'll see it stands up to most any usage you'll find on South Park. In most such uses, chances are the user is not thinking of the homosexual meaning at all, so much as this one.

A

05:20 / 30.12.02

Interesting argument, cusm, but, from what i can gather, "gay" was not a word that was originally used in an insulting sense. Rather, i believe it was first adopted as something of a euphemism by homosexuals (or perhaps it may have first been applied to them from "outside", i don't know). In any event, i don't think it's a word like "queer", or "dyke" (or "nigger" for that matter) that has been "reclaimed" from it's original pejorative usage and made into a value-neutral term. I believe it's usage to mean homosexual has always been value-neutral, or even positive.

Because of this, the word "gay" has not generally used to describe homosexuals in an insulting sense (like, say, "faggot"). Rather, the "insulting" nature of it stems from the fact that, by calling someone "gay", you are accusing them of being homosexual, which of course has often been viewed by certain dimwits as being wrong, bad, sinful, morally inferior, whatever. I believe it's popularity among these dimwits stems from the fact that it is a whole four syllables shorter than "homosexual".

So, "gay" may indeed be used to signify weakness, but only because this is a quality typically ascribed to heomosexuals by bigots. If it had not originally been used to describe homosexuals, the word "gay" would have no pejorative use whatsoever, and would still be used to describe a pleasant kite-flying outing in the park, or whatever. You don't hear people using words like "jolly" or "merry" as insults.

05:55 / 30.12.02

Actually, I remember hearing "merry" as a perojorative descriptor with similar effeminate/homosexual implications back when I was in school (in Oxford, which would put it at somewhere around 1988). It may have only been a local thing, but it had precisely the same usage as "gay" recently.

Okay, one can reason that there is a root construction for this usage of "gay" that doesn't relate to homosexuality...a sarcastic or snide inversion of the usage of the word in its sense as "festive", etc., OED-cakes.... However, I don't think that this is the pathway by which most people come to the perjorative sense of "gay."

Thinking about it, doesn't the usage of "gay" as synonym for homosexual relate to that initial denotation...that "gay" expressed states of activity and emotional display that were deemed unacceptably not-masculine? Hence such prior euphenisms (all playing upon descriptor elements ) as "festive," "a bit lavender"
and "pansy"?

06:09 / 30.12.02

This is all what I was getting at, that gay was not perjorative originally, but has become so with more modern usage. It seems the term has evolved something like this:

Happy, homosexual, homosexual as effemenite, homosexual as perjorative, perjorative.

And now people want to reclaim it again as simply "homosexual". I think the word is hopelessly tainted by adolescent usage at this point. I heard it extensively in grade school as a perjorative, and only recently noticed that it has also come into popular use this way by adults, for which I largely blame South Park, but you'll have that. I think you'd be better off going with "queer" at this point, as less likely to be contaminated in the same way.

16:17 / 30.12.02

Philip Hensher in The Independent was promoting 'Sodomite' as a gay man denominator. I quite like that.

I say 'good' as a negative, sometimes - it can be used to mean 'shit', an exclamation of disgust, or 'bullshit', an exclamation of disbelief. Depends on the emphasis.

20:32 / 31.12.02

Nestling the pedants hat onto my new festive hairdo, may I point out that the crime of the people of Sodom was that of rape. Therefore 'sodomite' maps to 'homosexual' only if all homosexuals are rapists, or possibly if you link 'sodomite' to 'sexual criminal' to 'homosexual'. Either way its hardly a usage void of negative connotation.

Of course, I may be making a complete arse (sorry, negative usage, I'm very ill and dislike that orifice at the moment) of myself as I've no idea who this Philip Hensher is. He may well be a Quentin Crisp for the new century, but even if it is reclamation, would the phrase 'the stately homo of England' be funny if it didn't utilise the diminutive as an insulting self-deprecation?

My flatmate and I use 'dutch' as a shorthand for anything we dissapprove of. Frankly, the people of the Netherlands are not a regularly oppressed group and this only proves that we are hopelessly unoriginal and easily influenced by Austin Powers. However, if this became universal could you really say that they had nothing to complain about as we use it 'divorced' from any reference to our orange brethren?

02:39 / 02.01.03

I have in the past been involved with disability activism (I worked with WESTCOD), and am interested in the comparison between the use of the word "lame" and the use of the word "gay". Excuse me if I am wrong, but it seems to me that some people find the pejorative use of the word "lame" more acceptable that the pejorative use of the word "gay". Has anyone thought to complain about the pejorative use of the word "lame" here, aside from in connection with this issue about the word "gay"? If not, this is an interesting double standard.

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