dotinthesky | The 4-minute post

I'm unprepared for today's cold spell, my lips are chapped, and I'm wondering why perfectly intelligent ~~breeders~~ straight people insist on using the word gay in a derogatory form:

Did you see her outfit last night? She looked sooooo gay!

Oh my God! Backstreet Boys are soooo gay!

I was, like, on the phone to my friend Chad and he said the gayest thing!

We are not amused. By "we", I mean gay people who have grown up knowing that something was slightly different about them, who had effeminate voices (like myself) and had to put up with other kids calling them names. Why do you want to squash us like that? In any case, "gay" means happy - so why try to bastardize the word and make it negative?

Are you one of those people that reads Vice magazine because you are soooo cool, and you feel soooooo post-modern and above caring? The people who I've seen using the word "gay" in a pejorative form are people who have gay friends. Maybe everyone is so sophisticated and beyond caring. Maybe I'm guilty too because I've made mix tapes for my friends with Patti Smith's song "Rock and Roll Nigger".

Should you and I not care about words anymore?

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I have long gone by the motto that words have no meaning until you give them meaning. So I find people getting insulted by words to be the bigger offence. I could sit here telling you to fuck off in a language you don't understand and you could perceive what I'm saying to be anything, but then if I told you the meaning of what I was saying would you then take offence at the same words you had previously assigned no meaning to? If so, then the offence is all in your head.

This is one of the problems with American (and to some extent Canadian & British) society today. There are now words that are verboten. Why? Because some ignorant fools wish to take insult from them? Well they are the one choosing to get insulted, why should I be denied hearing language spoken to satisfy what is going on in some moron's head. Trust me when I say this. If I really want to insult someone, I can do a far more effect job of it, by using articulate language above crass terms & expressions like: Fuck you, nigger, faggot, tub-of-lard, asshole, etc, etc. Those stupid words and expressions are meaningless. It is the audience that chooses to assign the derogatory meaning and take offence.

I am sick and tired of a politically correct world where our freedom of speech is slowly being chipped away at because any number of groups of people choose to get offended. When will it stop and who has the right to decide what is kosher? If someone uses a term that upsets you, you can simply choose to discount them as a person, but words by themselves can not be offensive. Only the individual is capable of making them offensive in their own head.

I am reminded of what Dee Snider (singer of rock group Twisted Sister) once said. "people kept calling me a sick motherfucker. But I like who I am as a person and if they are calling me a sick motherfucker that must be good, because I'm a cool person. So I must be a sick motherfucker and that's just great. I'm proud to be a sick motherfucker." I think these are words to live by!

So true!

This is a really cool thing that you just wrote, and it's funny Ollie, that you mention this because I was just thinking about the word slut, and what it means and then I read, and posted that article by Mark Morford. And it's really what we define the words as. I mean I swear, and I swear a lot, but that's just me, I don't do it to be shocking or offend people. To me they are just extreme words to express my emotions. Like wow that song is so fucking good. I mean that's something I say all the time and think really nothing much of it. But other people would be shocked and offended that's part of my regular vocabulary. I don't know.

I agree that our society had definatly swung too far the other way, and our language is becoming so santized to make sure that we dont' offend anyone. It's part of life, we can't just go through always feeling good about everything and everyone. Sometimes things shock and offend, sometimes they disgust us, and sometimes they make us happy. I just think that we are losing a lot, by being afraid that we may or may not offend someone with the words or phrases that we use.

But shouldn't we try to not hurt others if we can? I've never been called a faggot, and I'd like to believe that I wouldn't care if somebody did... but I think I'd probably be very hurt and find it to be an attack on my person.

I totally understand what you are saying hun, and I mean that's the whole thing. It's how we take the words. I don't think that being called a slut is a bad thing, because I choose not to let it bother me. I know what i am all about. And I don't care what anyone else thinks of what I do, and how I carry myself. I think the most important thing to realize is that someone that says something like that is doing it either because a) they don't know you or b) they do know you and they are just doing it to hurt you. Don't be controled by others and what's in their hearts or minds.

I agree with you. But going back to my original point, using the word "gay" for a negative meaning - then turning around and using it to describe a friend - seems to be very contradictory and juvenile. It's perhaps not even offensive, but just plain lame. Perhaps it's just too easy a word to use for putting down others or things. If someone calls you a slut, they aren't being ambiguous about it - same if they call you a bastard, a whore. I guess I'm not really upset with people using the word gay like that because most of my livejournal friends, for example, do so. I was merely curious because I wanted to know if it was a conscious decision to link the word gay (which represents homosexuals) with being negative... and by the looks of it, I think people do it without much thought on that.

:( well that sucks, but don't be hurt by it. It's unintended I suppose. I am sorry

No! Don't worry... I guess my post sounds a bit huffy-and-puffy, but I'm really not that much concerned about it. It irritates me a bit because when I read the word gay I think "oh that's me!" then I'm slightly let down if I notice that the word is being used to describe J-Lo's latest movie.

:)

awwww that's so cute! I totally understand what you are saying. I think this is something that is personal, and peoples feelings and the way they percieve things is going to factor into it.

I dont' know I feel that life is 10% what happens to you, and 90% how you react to it.

I just feel the need to state again that I love you Ollie

Aww.. I ♥ you too.

:)

Good points. Still, I think certain derogatory words are used more often than others because they bring less risk to the person who is using them.

For example, you might not feel undeterred at all about using the word "faggot" because deep down you know that if a gay person is around, they aren't going to call you on it or try to beat you up (most likely.) But would you be as comfortable swinging the word "nigger" around a room with big black guys? It's not about their ignorance in seeing your words as just words - it's about a historical link to the word which brings pain to their experience, which brings shame. Words can create images in our head which are quite strong. Try calling your grandfather a pedophile and see how he reacts.

As human beings, we have to agree on a decent form to address each other - so we can live in peace. Being a shit disturber might be good fun for a while, and it's certainly the "punk" thing to do, but it doesn't contribute to a peaceful world.

Though I understand what you're saying I have to disagree. To say we simply choose to assign meaning to things is to ignore the kind of conditioning many people recieve in their childhood. For many people the words "nigger", "fag" etc. have direct emotional connections to ostracism and physical abuse that dates back to childhood. Plus, these words have histories of mass murder.

I'll be honest too, maybe I'm an overly sensitive person, but that's the way I am, I've tried to change but I can't. Any term of hostility no matter how flaky, innacurate or even if it's something I'm proud of hurts me. The sense of hostility itself hurts me.

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