# Gay Slang Question: "Oh, Mary!"

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-slang-question-oh-mary/75646>\
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\
**Created:** [August 9, 2001, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-slang-question-oh-mary/75646 "2001-08-09T19:21:01Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\
**Post date:** [August 9, 2001, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-slang-question-oh-mary/75646/1 "2001-08-09T19:21:01Z")

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I was highly amused to see that A&E Biography has an All-Mary Week scheduled next week: Hart, Kay Letourneau, Magdalene, Tyler Moore, and Queen of Scots (no they don’t have Paul Lynde or Richard Simmons scheduled). Obviously there is at least one gay man working at A&E!

Got me thinking: any gay culture historians know whence “Oh, Mary!”? It was well-known by 1970, as John Waters used it in “Mondo Trasho”—the Virgin Mary appears before Divine at a laundromat, and Divine falls to his knees and cries, “Oh, MARY!”

Why Mary? Are there rules to Marying someone?