Gays: Do You Find "Gay" as a Synonym for "Lame" Offensive?

[HeyHomie]

Back in The Day, whenever I or my friends would find something not to our liking, it was perfectly reasonable to say it was "gay." As in, "Ghostbusters 2 was gay, don't see it." Or, "I got a parking ticket for parking in the teacher parking lot. That's gay."

Of course, this was the 80's and the whole gay-tolerance thing wasn't really that much of a thing (at least, among my peer group of teens in central Illinois), and attitudes have changed.

Of course, the usage still goes on. Ferinstance, on a recent episode of Family Guy a character expressed disdain for a situation by saying "Well that's gay."

So what's the deal nowadays? Do gays generally regard this as a bad thing, or is it understood as a relic of older slang?

FWIW, a gay friend in my fantasy football league will himself say things like "I lost last weekend because of Cutler's interceptions. That's gay."

Poll to follow.

[miss elizabeth]

I didn't vote because I'm not gay, but I think its indisputably a slur. I don't use it for that reason. There are other words I can use that serve the same (or, better, actually) purpose. Once you try, you'll find it isn't that hard to drop.

[levdrakon]

I'm gay but I couldn't vote because there wasn't a "all of the above, depending" option.
:)

[antonio107]

I'm a terribly uncouth person. I will say something is "gay," provided the person I'm slurring isn't actually a homosexual. I've had gay friends call me out for it before, however, and so I'm more careful not to use it as reflexively as I once did.

My gay friends, however, reserve the right to call something gay. One of my colleagues from school who is gay was sick and tired about me whining about an assignment, and told me to "buck up, faggot." But I think we had just seen a stand-up routine where this was used ironically (Louis CK?), so there's a context.

[Miller]

Intellectually, I know I should be offended, but I can't really work up an emotional response to it.

[whereismymind]

ok.so it is like donald trump saying 'blacks".....back in the day that would not be offensive but NO it is......so what "term" do we use if not 'gay" to be correct and nonoffensive??

[Teacake]

I also know disabled people who object to "lame" being used pejoratively....

I always challenge my students when they call something gay to mean that it's bad, and I don't use it myself.

[Inner Stickler]

I do not believe in forbidden words or words that are restricted to one group. To that end, as a gay man, I don't use gay to mean bad, nor do I call myself a faggot or queer, because I don't want to hear others call me that. The words we use shape our opinions and values and I respect their power.

[Czarcasm]

ok.so it is like donald trump saying 'blacks".....back in the day that would not be offensive but NO it is......so what "term" do we use if not 'gay" to be correct and nonoffensive??The OP isn't about using the word "gay"-it's about using the word "gay" as a synonym for "lame. The solution is obvious, of course.
If you want to say something or someone is "lame", just use the word "lame."

[Simplicio]

If you want to say something or someone is "lame", just use the word "lame."

Except "lame" is also a class of people.

[Contrapuntal]

Except "lame" is also a class of people.And horses. And dogs. And such.

[Czarcasm]

Except "lame" is also a class of people.But don't the handicapped hate being called "lame"? Why don't we buy the word from them and give it a new official definition?

[Ibanez]

I'm a straight male and I find it offensive.

[Bambi Hassenpfeffer]

Offensive. It stings when I hear it, and I automatically think less of the person who's said it.

[Guinastasia]

Straight female, and I find it offensive. I used to use it when I was in high school, but this was back in the early to mid 1990s. C'mon, people, grow up and find another word.

[Lisa Ann]

Do bisexuals get to vote? :)

My fiance uses the term but I do not. I know he doesn't mean to cause offense, however, my favorite niece is a lesbian and I choose to not to use it no matter the context.

[boytyperanma]

I guess I fall into It's offensive and distasteful; don't do it.

I don't get upset over it but will usually correct people when they use it.

'That's so gay'

You really think so? I'm not sure how that lame event and me are connected.

[Markxxx]

I'm gay and it doesn't really bother me, so I voted "meh"

But then again, I'm not easily offended. My parents used to call cigarettes fags, so when someone uses that word, I instantly think of cigarettes, not a slur.

I guess it's just what you get used to.

[enalzi]

Not gay, so I'm not offended, but whenever I hear somebody use that word, I think of them as a 14 year old. I won't lie, I used it when I was a teenager, but pretty much everyone I know grew out of it by the time they graduated high school. And there wasn't even that much of a backlash back then.

[MyFootsZZZ]

I don't like it, and find it offensive. Straight male.

I also don't like that's something's "retarded".

[Eyebrows 0f Doom]

I wouldn't say I would be offended, but it's distasteful and I would think the person who said it was behaving like a idiot teenager.

What is funny is there is another thread going on right now where someone is trying to argue that the word "faggot" is not a slur against gays. :rolleyes:

[Chessic Sense]

Is it just me, or have there been more tears on the SDMB than usual these days? Where's the option for "It's offensive and distasteful; That's why you should use it."?

[typoink]

I'm bisexual, so do I half count?

In my eyes, it's context sensitive, but generally frowned upon. From the teenager demographic, it generally strikes me as ignorant and lazy. From folks older than that, it's sometimes ignorant, sometimes offensive.

That said, I say it semi-frequently and have several friends who do as well. In our use, it's generally used when you're trying to sound a little bit ignorant, and the fact that we can all trust each other not to have a homophobic bone in our bodies helps.

[Mosier]

Not gay. Absolutely not offensive. Usually.

[SSgtBaloo]

Not gay, didn't vote. I don't use the phrase "that's gay" as a substitute for "that's lame", but if I were prone to do so I would probably not use it much for fear it could be misinterpreted as hostility on my part, even though none was intended.

[Daffyd]

Absolutely disgusts me as a Gay person.

[panache45]

As long as gay kids are still getting bullied and driven to suicide, it's offensive. If we lived in a world without homophobia, it wouldn't matter.

[BigT]

Is it just me, or have there been more tears on the SDMB than usual these days? Where's the option for "It's offensive and distasteful; That's why you should use it."?

No, it's not just you. This board is no longer the place many people claim it is.

I'm not gay, and my opinion matches up with the one featured on South Park. It may have originated as a slur, but, like "going Dutch," "being gypped", "welshing", or "Indian giving," no one who uses it really associates it with that anymore. It just does not seem to be correlated with homophobia.

Although "gay" as in overly feminine or prissy is still associated with homosexuality, so I understand that being offensive. Why should effeminate mean bad?

[Farmer Jane]

If we're going to complain about the use of the word gay, then we should also complain about calling people dicks and cunts. Or calling someone a boob. Why sexual organs are considered a pejorative term I'll never understand.

I've never heard anyone call someone else a gallbladder. "Listen up, you fn gallbladder!"

[uuaschbaer]

Thinking that the phrase does not express a rejection of gays is a mistake. It would betray self-loathing for me to socialize with people who've used that expression as though they had not just pre-emptively objected to the person I am. Essentially it would be like this:

Person: Hi! I hate your guts. How are you?
Me: Hey! Fine thank you. How are you yourself?

Everyone should be perfectly free not to like me but if someone feels hurt or is indignant for me interpreting his or her rejection of part of my being as a rejection of part of my being then the most reasonable solution is that they clean up their language. Why should anyone be offended that I'm offended that they've offended me? Stop doing it then.

[olivesmarch4th]

Straight female, I find it offensive.

I once delivered a ''you should know better'' lecture to my 14-year-old SIL after she publicly declared something to be gay. Her response, ''mumble mumble it's not meant to be offensive to homosexuals, it's just, like a word.''

We learned less than a year later that she is a lesbian. I'm not sure if she's re-evaluated her thinking on this or not.

[Mona Lisa Simpson]

As a straight female, who was married previously to a man with cerebral palsy (who is also bi, if not actually gay) I found lame to be horrific. My ex would use it sometimes, (using "gay" in that context pinged his offense-ometer,) but the he would write pages of "poetry" (stream of consciousness rants) about being crippled but not lame, or is he lame but not crippled.

I try to express that concept in other ways. I just asked the Beau what I say he says he hasn't heard me use that construction in the four years we've been together. I think I might use "unfortunate" occasionally.

[SciFiSam]

I dislike it very much. Simply put, using 'gay' to mean 'crap' makes it sound like being gay is crap. There's no such thing as 'just a word' and the meanings of homophones (heh) have an effect on each other - although it's not like gay for sexuality and gay for cap are unrelated - that word wasn't randomly chosen to be used as a slur.

Is it just me, or have there been more tears on the SDMB than usual these days? Where's the option for "It's offensive and distasteful; That's why you should use it."?

Eh? But it's offensive to a whole group of people. You're not really recommending slurring whole groups of people, are you?

[Walmarticus]

did gay mean lame before gay meant homosexual?

[olivesmarch4th]

did gay mean lame before gay meant homosexual?
Not according to Wikipedia. Sounds like they both came into usage around the same time.

By the end of the 20th century, the word gay was recommended by major style guides to describe people attracted to members of the same sex.[2][3] At about the same time, a new, pejorative use became prevalent in some parts of the world. In the Anglosphere, this connotation, among younger speakers, has a derisive meaning equivalent to rubbish or stupid (as in "That's so gay."). In this use, the word does not mean "homosexual", so it can be used, for example, to refer to an inanimate object or abstract concept of which one disapproves. This usage can also refer to weakness or unmanliness. When used in this way, the extent to which it still retains connotations of homosexuality has been debated.

[panache45]

Not according to Wikipedia. Sounds like they both came into usage around the same time.

I have to disagree about this. "Gay=homosexual" began in the 20s or 30s, and entered the mainstream in the late 60s to early 70s. "Gay=lame" probably goes back no further than the 90s.

[Mona Lisa Simpson]

I have to disagree about this. "Gay=homosexual" began in the 20s or 30s, and entered the mainstream in the late 60s to early 70s. "Gay=lame" probably goes back no further than the 90s.

Well, anecdote here, back in the olden days when dinosaurs roamed the earth, Ronald Regan was president, and boys wore their pants at the waist (with Jordache embroidered on the butt) I used it reflexively. When, during the Lord of the Flies type Hell that was the grade eight camping trip, stupid kissing games broke out(Stupid, because A) I wasn't involved, and B) the only guy who tried to kiss me was definitely not desirable to me at all.) When undesirable boy smacked a wet icky kiss with Dorito crumbs in it I said "EVER GAY!"

For the rest of the trip the joke was that I was really male and therefore I thought a boy kissing me was "gay". This may also contribute to my not using that expression anymore.

[Fear Itself]

Do people with walking disabilities find the term "lame" offensive as a synonym for unhip or square?

[Kolak of Twilo]

As long as gay kids are still getting bullied and driven to suicide, it's offensive. If we lived in a world without homophobia, it wouldn't matter.

This is pretty much my attitude. I don't get worked into a fury by it but I find it obnoxious and objectionable.

Oh, gay male here.

[MyFootsZZZ]

Of all words these young people could have latched on to, why did it have to be "gay"?

I can see some homosexuals aren't offended by word being described as something being "lame", or "week". I know not everyone who says it is a Homophobe.

It's just...

What did anything having to do with the word "gay" make it a candidate for describing something "bad", (other than useing as a way to bash gays too), I don't get it? It annoys me because it's, in fact, lame IMHO.

[Kobal2]

Of all words these young people could have latched on to, why did it have to be "gay"?

I can see some homosexuals aren't offended by word being described as something being "lame", or "week". I know not everyone who says it is a Homophobe.

It's just...

What did anything having to do with the word "gay" make it a candidate for describing something "bad", (other than useing as a way to bash gays too), I don't get it? It annoys me because it's, in fact, lame IMHO.

Because it's icky and stuff. Anecdote I know a 10 year old kid who, when someone in the room mentions genitalia, or breasts, or sex, or kissing, or nakedness makes noises like he's just swallowed a cockroach.

I evidently find it very amusing to sneak such words in regular conversation around him, because I'm a bad person.

But you can see where the appeal of calling someone like him a "dick" in order to offend him might come from - it's something repulsive (to him at least), and it would get a rise out of him. Mission accomplished.
Same about being called "gay" in modern American society where a guy somehow showing any sort of emotion, feeling or missing an opportunity to assert to everyone around that you're a badass macho hard motherfucker with terminal testosterone poisoning is some sort of grave social faux pas.

On topic: I personally don't use gay as an adjective myself because I think it's a faggy word*. But I don't really think it's ever really meant as a slur on gay people either, even though it evidently is one indirectly. It's more of a display of ignorance and casual insensitivity than one of hate.

* That is a joke, Mr. Moreau.

[Mr. Slant]

Speaking as a person that believes the ability to use humor and offend is a sacred right, I refuse to object to any word's use. Ever.
Stifling free speech stifles comedy. I value comedy, and abhor censorship.

[SciFiSam]

Not according to Wikipedia. Sounds like they both came into usage around the same time.

Gay for homosexual only became common currency in the late 20th century? Er, we all know that's not true.

Is there really any question that gay for homosexual has been around a lot longer than gay=crap? Would anyone asking for proof of that also like proof that the Pope is Catholic?

Well, anecdote here, back in the olden days when dinosaurs roamed the earth, Ronald Regan was president, and boys wore their pants at the waist (with Jordache embroidered on the butt) I used it reflexively. When, during the Lord of the Flies type Hell that was the grade eight camping trip, stupid kissing games broke out(Stupid, because A) I wasn't involved, and B) the only guy who tried to kiss me was definitely not desirable to me at all.) When undesirable boy smacked a wet icky kiss with Dorito crumbs in it I said "EVER GAY!"

For the rest of the trip the joke was that I was really male and therefore I thought a boy kissing me was "gay". This may also contribute to my not using that expression anymore.

But that's using the word gay as a slur because of homosexuality. Mind you, the OP's anecdote is in the 80s, so perhaps in some areas gay=crap was being used as early as then.

[Illuminatiprimus]

Is it just me, or have there been more tears on the SDMB than usual these days? Where's the option for "It's offensive and distasteful; That's why you should use it."?Why are you advocating trolling?

Gay - don't agree with the use of the word in this fashion but I can think of plenty of other hills that I'd rather die on.

[boytyperanma]

Speaking as a person that believes the ability to use humor and offend is a sacred right, I refuse to object to any word's use. Ever.
Stifling free speech stifles comedy. I value comedy, and abhor censorship.

I don't think people are objecting to the use of the word for comedic effect.

If you see a heterosexual couple making out and say 'that's so gay' I could care less

If you are using it for the purpose of being derogatory 'Mr. Brown gave me extra homework, that's so gay' I think you are in the wrong.

If you can't or unwilling to understand the difference between the two uses I have no interest in associating with your kind.

[Mr. Slant]

Upon reflection, I think my post kind of touched on two different notions.
It says that I don't believe in stifling speech that doesn't result in grievous bodily harm. That part is true.
That's not the OP's question, though, and I apologize for the hijack, and for not thinking my post through.

Just because I support a speaker's right to offend, that doesn't mean that some words don't offend me. SOMETHING has to shock and offend me, even if I never believe that I should ask someone to stop using a word.

Strict answer to the OP:
Calling a bad movie gay doesn't shock or offend me.

[pancakes3]

not gay and i use it pretty often when i'm hanging out with close friends who i know won't be offended by it. sometimes i slip up when there are friends of friends there, and i lock it up pretty well when i'm with people i don't know, or with gay friends/acquaintances.

however, i do feel obligated to distinguish the nuances of using the word, at least within my social circle (20-something recent "elite" college grads of the mid-atlantic across all political party affiliations, careers, and socio-economic strata). in my experience it has evolved from just generic "not-goodness" to two rather specific uses.

1 - it means effeminate/unbecoming for/of a man specifically. so, if MRS. Harris assigned double hw, it wouldn't be gay. she'd be a bitch. However, if MR. Hammond assigns it, it would be (or he's a dick). if JENNY turns down a beer because it's bikini season in a few weeks, it's not gay. if JIMMY turns down the beer... well... he shouldn't be so gay about it.

2 - "gay for". it just means being in love/obsessed with, regardless of gender. i.e. allison is totally gay for Jude Law right now. mitch is so gay for bradley cooper right now, he actually went to go see Limitless.

and in an attempt to rationalize the switch over... before "gay" = "crap" because if you loved another person of the same gender, it was bad. flat out. now... it seems like you can like another person of the same gender, as long as you're "cool" about it. however if it becomes to the point of switching gender roles? becoming "fruity" ? it still makes people (conservative straight males) uncomfortable and "WE" don't like it and it's reflected in our language. consequently, the gay stereotype of being a voracious lover, as well as over-the-top enthusiasm has lent itself to the secondary phrase - gay for.

again, intellectually i do understand that these words are hurtful and insulting, and even if i do censor myself it's still wrong. funny enough, i HATE the word rape. it bothers me and i've never been a victim of it. none of my family members have been raped, although a few female friends of mine have been taken advantage of. i just HATE the use of it. i correct people every single time it's used inappropriately. i find nothing funny about it. it's odd that i can be so adamant about that word, and yet continue to use "gay" rather openly without any qualms. anyway, just to share. think less of me if you will...

[SSgtBaloo]

Do people with walking disabilities find the term "lame" offensive as a synonym for unhip or square?

As someone who gets around with a cane, I can say with complete authority (at least in my case) "No".

If you tell me I'm lame, meaning I can't walk as well as someone without a disability you are not using a pejorative but a descriptive term. If you tell me I'm lame because I'm unhip or square, I'll probably agree with you. I'll be 53 this June. Who I am was kinda cool about 30 years ago. That lasted for perhaps 10-15 years. I didn't stop being cool, but what was considered cool and hip had moved off in directions I didn't feel the need to go. Being hip is work. Being the unhip square, now that's fun! Especially if you can keep a straight face.

[SanVito]

Gay female here.

Yes, I find it offensive, and, in particular, I have a low opinion of people who use it without thinking it could be so because 'it's just a word'. Yeah, right mate.

[SanVito]

again, intellectually i do understand that these words are hurtful and insulting, and even if i do censor myself it's still wrong. funny enough, i HATE the word rape. it bothers me and i've never been a victim of it. none of my family members have been raped, although a few female friends of mine have been taken advantage of. i just HATE the use of it. i correct people every single time it's used inappropriately. i find nothing funny about it. it's odd that i can be so adamant about that word, and yet continue to use "gay" rather openly without any qualms. anyway, just to share. think less of me if you will...

I think better of you than people who use it without considering it is offensive. We all, no doubt, use language amongst our close friends we wouldn't necessarily use in polite company. It's the casually 'innocent' use of the word I find more grating. At least you are honest and know that it's not a great thing to do.

[stpauler]

Gay male here.

I could've picked 1, 3, 4, or 5 but ended up voting for the fifth one. It's language, so it's very contextual in my opinion.

However, I'm more offended by those who get offended by words rather than context. I wasn't offended by Kobe's words. They weren't meant to be a slur against homosexuals but just a slam against a ref who was bugging him. I'm annoyed when GLAAD feels they need to respond to every anti-word ever uttered and not only expect apologies but have to make sure that the apology is sufficient and blah blah blah.

Reminds me of when I was in my more rebelious twenties. I worked with a person who was obnoxiously conservative about her pristine ears. I was speaking with my boss and she was also in my cube.

"That situation is really fucked up."-Me
"Ahem, what did you say?"-conservative co-worker
"I said, 'that situation is really fucked up'"-Me
"I heard what you said the first time, I don't appreciate hearing that language"-ccw
"Then why did you have me repeat it?"

It wasn't my most shining moment, but at the same time, I loathe when people are so uptight about language.

[SciFiSam]

I don't mind 'gay for' at all. It makes sense and it's not pejorative. I've used 'straight for' myself too.

[Acsenray]

I have to disagree about this. "Gay=homosexual" began in the 20s or 30s, and entered the mainstream in the late 60s to early 70s. "Gay=lame" probably goes back no further than the 90s.

It was current when I was in school, in the '70s and '80s.