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No, Lawrence, but you are describing a different speech act, as again you are when talking about BiP's family using terms that, from a different person in a different context, might offend them. I am positing a situation in which somebody from outside the group (Asian, homosexual, you name it), denies being in any way "-ist" while continuing to use the term to describe his or her interlocutors despite their requests that he or she refrain from doing so because they are finding it upsetting. Are they justified in doing so because, as we know, the words are not in themselves offensive and if they are non-racist/non-homophobic, clearly their intent is not racist or homophobic, so it is unfair of their interlocutors to object, thus attemtping to stifle their freedom of speech (man).
Intent and context, yes? You are comparing apples and oranges, or more correctly apples and bacon.
(Incidentally, so far I have upbraided you, Toksik, Persphone, BiP, myself and, as of the end of this post, Sypha Nadon and FHTB for going off-topic. I really don't see that you are being singled out. You were in fact not accused of being "off topic". Your attention was drawn simply to the fact that the use of "gay" to mean "bad" with no link to homosexuality is a) not relevant, since we are talking about the use of words with a clear link to other descriptors (a level of wandering from specific "diminution", while retaining "descriptive" that IMHO is acceptable within the terms of the thread), and b) being covered in another thread. As I say, I don't think you mean to, but you are dragging the discussion athwart both by the tone and content of the personal parts of your posts (which *are* off topic, btw), and I would suggest that you could profitably have queried this by PM).
Oh, and Sypha Nadon, FHTB, could you tie those personal reflections into the topic? For example, "breeder" is not a dimunutive description (if we assume that that involves the same letters but fewer of them, which also complicaates chinky), but instead describes a specific thing that heterosexuals are being represented as doing. Of course, many heterosexuals do not have children, and for that matter a fair few gay men and lesbians have produced children, so the boundaries are already permeable. If I was accused of being a breeder, I could very easily respond that, to my knowledge, this was not accurate. As FHTB says, there's nothing terribly offensive about being accused of reproduction (or anythiong terribly complimentary as far as I can tell).
Its usage is presumably intended to summon up images of dull, pedestrian, conventional lifestyles, but again the insult here is based on what you *do*, and even more vaguely on your general lifestyle, rather than what you *are*; maybe the act of heterosexual sex cannot easily be made abnormative, as the act of gay sex, or indeed (arguably, o' course) the act of being non-white in a country where either the majority or the representatives (think apartheid South Africa for an extreme example of the latter - lots more non-whites than whites, but kaffir still a handy term of abuse, because political, military and cultural power held by the whites) are white, hein? |
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