dotinthesky: (Default)
Dot in the Sky ([personal profile] dotinthesky) wrote2004-06-21 01:26 pm

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?

[identity profile] commonpeople.livejournal.com 2004-06-21 09:02 am (UTC)(link)
See, I agree with you. I think to myself: "why would someone intelligent choose to use that word when they can say it with so many better ones?" Using the word gay, for example, just strikes me as facile and juvenile - something kids do in 5th grade because they don't understand what the "gay" experience is.

Sure, people can say whatever they want, but that doesn't mean that they should say anything! If they are intelligent, they should think it through first and put it as a challenge to themselves to try to be witty and smart without stooping to such easy insulting words.