Homophobia? Queers? Survivor?

Great Debates
41

You are simply dodging the issue now.

THe idea that being gay entitles you to special rights and privileges in terms of self-nomeclature, is silly but I’m willing to accept it.

If you wish to be called “Gay” and take offense at “queer,” I will gladly refer to you as “Gay.” If you then continue to call yourself “queer,” but state that I can’t use the term, because I’m not gay, than that is discrimination and prejudice pure and simple.

I assume that you are simply dodging the issue because the concept of the double standard is not a difficult one, and I’ve only managed to convey it a half dozen times.

Instead of dodging it, hiding behind smilies, or indignation about how repressed you are, why don’t you address the issue I’ve been asking you.

How do you justify the idea that being Gay gives you the right to implement a double standard?

Why do you get to say “queer,” and it’s ok, but it’s bigoted if I (as a non gay,) do.

In all seriousness I would prefer it if you and you alone addressed me as “Master of the Universe.”

42

You can repeat “double standard” as many times as I repeated the smilies, and it will be just as meaningful.

It’s not any more a double standard than Affirmative Action is. And if you think that’s a double standard, you’re just exhibiting your willingness to pick and choose historical context to suit your own opportunism.

Nomenclature within a group, privately as it were, is a different thing from nomenclature between groups, publicly as it were. It is absolutely my right to demand to be addressed in such and such a manner, and to define what is offensive to me and what is not; it is absolutely none of your business how another person within my “group” and with whom I feel more privately trusting of address each other. They are two separate issues. For you to continue to refuse to see the distinction is simple pigheadedness.

Over and out; we’re talking in circles.

43

I agree it is offensive when someone calls someone, someone they knew to be gay, a queer. However if two straight guys are sitting in a living room on their own and one jokily calls the other a queer, just as a general insult not as a bigoted or derogatory comment aimed at homosexuals, then who is offended? Should the gay guy who lives next door and accidentally overhears him come pay him a visit and try to stop him from saying the word in his own house, even though it wasn’t aimed at him?

If a straight guy calls another straight guy a queer then I don’t think it is as offensive as, say, insulting his parents or calling him a bastard (ever thought how offensive * that * word really is?) It is one of those words, like fuck, which tends to lose it’s meaning through overuse.
Only when the word queer is said in an insulting way by a straight man to a homosexual can it really be deemed offensive. It’s all about context.

44

If you and your wife/whatever call yourself Poopiekins, it is my absolute right to also call you Poopiekins, and if you’re embarrassed by it, or in any way object to it, you’re just exhibiting a double standard. If you don’t want me to call you Poopiekins, Poopiekins, then I demand you stop calling your wife Poopiekins.

45

“Fuck” is a verb, not a person. If you use the word “queer” as an insult, then that tells me you find the concept of being gay an insulting one. I wouldn’t come over and correct you, but I’d privately label you a homophobe.

Look, if I overhear a straight guy calling anyone–in whatever context–queer, faggot, whatever–and using it as an insult, he’s a homophobe. Is it inoffensive for one white guy to say to another “I’m not your nigger”? Of course not.

I probably wouldn’t have the nerve to correct you, as I said, but any gay man with enough balls to do so would be own personal hero.

46

Not necessarily. If I called you a fuck (not that I would, of course) it doesn’t mean I find the concept of having sex insulting. It would probably just be the first word that sprang to mind. This is because, like queer, it is one of those words which people grow up using without thinking about it. I don’t think that there are many straight men out there who would be insulted if you called them a queer for just that reason. Only when a word is said to someone who it would offend and only when it is said with the intention of causing offence, is it an insult.

47

So, if I call you “queer” in the privacy of my own home, but not to your face, is this Ok? Maybe, like my Grandfather we call black people “niggers,” in the privacy of our own home, but never in public. That way we aren’t prejudiced.

Again, Bullshit.

What you want to call your lover in private is one thing, but we’re not talking about pet names here.

We are talking about a derogatory term which serves to widen the distance between two groups. As such, I believe you can make a case that it shouldn’t be used. Fine.

Think about that Mormon girl again, the one you respect. SHE never did anything to either Blacks or Gays, but she accepted that she shouldn’t use certain terms and refrained from doing so out of politeness.

If her housemates continued to use those terms around her, but insisted that she didn’t, wouldn’t you find that rude? Do you think that she might feel that she was having some kind of racial or sexual guilt inflicted on her without justification? She would be right to think she was being excluded and forced to wear a scarlet letter, yes?

That’s all I’m saying. If the words are bad they are bad for everybody.

Sure, you can call black people niggers in the privacy of your own home. That doesn’t make it right. If queer is a bad word, it’s bad for you too.

Affirmative action is a bad example. The idea is to make a concrete move to correct past injustices. Nomenclature is just semantics, and doesn’t correct anything. Besides, quite a few black leaders are of the opinion that affirmative action belittles and calls into question legitimate black achievement, and again serves to widen racial gulfs rather than close them. I happen to agree.

48

Hey the homophobes can only call other homophobes homophobes. You can call them master of the universe.

Lissener what if a gay guy is a homophobe? Also why do you agree with grouping people to increase intolerance.

That is confusing but not offensive.

Btw if I called you a fuck that would be a noun.

Also Lissener your bigoted against heterosexuals because you believe that a persons sexual orientation limits them from saying certain words.

49

Boy, you guys sure do talk like you have no idea what universe I live in. This is all abstract theory to you; an argument you’ve got too much bald stupidity invested in to even try to imagine what life might be like for someone other than yourself.

This is nothing but semantics to you. Try to imagine what it is to me.

Have you ever been sitting in a restaurant and heard “faggot” from the booth behind you, and have your palms go cold and your stomach knot up, because “faggot” was what the guys on the football team called you when they beat you up every day after school? Have you ever lived in a world where you’re not free of that fear?

Imagine you’re a black guy sitting on a park bench, and two white assholes walk past you and one of them calls the other one a nigger. Now really truly try to imagine that. Imagine you say something like, “whoa, watch it, I’m sittin’ here,” and they respond with something like, “Hey, I’m not calling you a nigger, I’m calling my buddy a nigger. He’s white, so I can call him a nigger if I want to. It’s none of your business.” Try to imagine what it would be like to be that black guy not just for one incident but for your whole life.

You effing assholes can’t even drop this stupid, pointless semantic bullshit long enough to stop and realize that all I’m asking for is the right to name myself without having you call me names. That’s all I’m asking. You can’t even concede the use of a couple of words that mean, obviously, absolutely nothing to you, but are extremely significant, more than you can ever understand, to me. How fucking dare you?

I’m not even saying it should be illegal. I’m only trying to say that it’s rude. That’s all. That’s fucking it in a fucking nutshell.

If I want to, in some aspects of my life, gather around me people who’ve been through what I’ve been through, people to whom those words have the same power to wound, and fucking exclude you for a while, what right have you to protest my right to feel safe? And if in the privacy of that safety, my friends and I want to try to defuse a horrible hateful word, and try to diminish its power over my life, what possible concern could that be of yours? How in the most bizarre stretch of your vast imagination does that give you the right to make me feel like you’re calling me names, like you’re a threat to my way of life.

Keep the fucking words, if they’re so fucking important to you.

50

[Moderator Hat ON]

Chill, dude. Take it to the Pit if you must.

[Moderator Hat OFF]

51

**

If the word was that offensive you probably wouldn’t use it yourself. I don’t buy the idea that one group owns the rights to certain words. There are several words I’d rather not hear in public or private conversation no matter who they’re coming from.

**

You have the right to name yourself. You don’t have ownership of any particular word though. If you choose to use a word in one context then you have no reason to bitch and moan that someone else uses it.

Marc

52

**How in the fuck would you know? What, I’m lying to you? It is that offensive to me; it does engender that kind of fear in me; it is somewhat therapeutic to use it in a ridiculing way is some contexts. You don’t understand that, fine, butt the fuck out.

Hello, is this thing on? read the fucking thread: I’m not claiming legal ownership. I’m trying to make you understand that it’s fucking rude and inconsiderate and insensitive for you to use these words.

If you don’t feel you can be a whole man unless you can continue to walk around spouting these hurtful words, then fine, spout 'em. It’ll let the rest of know what kind of person you are.

People, this is not a new concept. The word “nigger” underwent the same trasference of “ownership” long ago; it’s an example of the same cultural phenomenon. Go ahead, let’s do an experiment. You just walk around using the word “nigger” any old time you want. Report back here on what happens to your redneck ass. Tell us how a discussion of semantics convinced anyone you might have offended that you can use any damn word you please. I await the results.

53

Well, I actually have some gay friends and some gay co-workers. But I never knew that the words queer or faggot were consider insulting. So I definately can see how a 65 year old ex-marine might not be up on the politically correct term for homosexuals.

54

Where I come from (Santa Cruz, CA, as liberal as it gets) the term queer is an all-encompassing term used to refer to gays, lesibians, bisexuals, transexuals, questioning and non-lableing people as a whole. It can get pretty hard saying every single one of those terms, so queer is used instead.

I felt a little uncomfortable with it at first, but everyone uses that term witout malice, so I have gotton used to it.

But here “queer” refers only to the group. You dont say “Bob is one of those queers”, but you can say “We want to talk to members of the queer community” or “Angela started a prgram for queer youth.”

Honestly, though, if you know a word is offensive in your area, how hard is it not to use it?

55

While I can understand the distinction between an intellectual discussion of semantics and the visceral reaction of one who has been subjected to abuse, I must stop and wonder -

True empowerment would seem to come, not in co-opting the words, but in devaluing them completely. Bear with me, I know this is painfully easier said than done, but it seems the words themselves should not hold such power. If your opinion is such that people who use these words are ignorant, so be it. If they are not speaking to you, ignore them. If the conversation involves you, make your opinion and the reasons for it known. You are then free to draw whatever conclusions you will from their reaction.

But the words themselves hold no power. Don’t assume the worst by their usage, but if they are used to provoke, don’t allow their users the satisfaction of seeing it work.

56

**

Look, you queer, if it is ok for you to use it in certain context then it is ok for others to use it in certain context.

**

Nor did I mention anything about legal ownership. Culturally no single group owns a word. And speaking of being inconsiderate and insensitive, you’re the one exhibiting that behavior not me.

**

Who said I even used those kinds of words? My position is simply that no group owns any word.

**

I don’t buy it with that particular word either.

Menewhile you type without any care about offending someone. Why should anyone care about offending you?

Marc

57

lissener, perhaps you don’t understand where people like Scylla are coming from.

I, for one, am not part of any minority. What has this taught me? Simple: The best way for there to be equality is for there to be equal opportunity at all times for all things. This is what mainstream society has been hammering into my white, heterosexual, able-bodied, able-minded brain for the past few decades. What makes me angry? Affirmative action. Special hunting and fishing rights for aboriginals. Double standards of who can call who a queer or nigger. My philosophy of equality (that many others share) is simple: No group of people should under any circumstances have rights that any other group does not, for any reason. After decades of constant bombardment by this message of equality, I believe in it entirely. Why, then, don’t you?

If you don’t want to referred to as a queer, you have the right to not be called a queer. Here’s the catch: You can’t let anyone call you a queer. Neither straight people, nor gay people. If you want to enforce a double standard, then you aren’t advancing the causes of equality or tolerance. If you don’t want me to call you a queer, don’t you dare let ANYONE else call you a queer.

Intolerance breeds intolerance. Hate breeds hate. Double standards breed double standards. Equality breeds equality.

58

In light of the preceding quote, and others like it, I ask the following:

What is your position on people who refer to Christian Fundamentalists as Fundies, or Jeezers? In view of your expressed views on these topics, one would expect a strong condemnation. But you never know.

59

Lissener:

Your insults are uncalled for. Your argument is indefensible. You have no more right to restrict the vocabularly of non gays only just to make you “comfortable” than you do the right to insist that African Americans refer to you as “Master.”

Your martyrdom is unconvincing.

You’re gay. Fine. I have no desire to tell you what to do, or how to live your life. Just because you’ve claimed to had a tough time, don’t presume to tell me.

I’m through with this guy.

60

Scylla, quite frankly, I think you’re drawing an unneccessarily hard line here. It is considered common courtesty to not refer to someone by a term they find offensive–and I’m talking about reasonable people here, not a white person who finds it offensive to not be called “Massa”. My brother sometimes calls me “little one”, yet I’d find it condescending from most others. If a older gentleman is called “Bob” by his peers, yet he wishes me to address him as “Mr. Black” or “sir”, I will not rail against him for double-standards. I know plenty of guys who let their friends call them “shithead” and “assmunch” and so on, yet they’d find it extremely offensive if some who is not their friend referred to them as such.

This is not about being PC, in my opinion–this is about respecting the reasonable requests of others. “Queer” has historically had a derogatory meaning, and if lissener doesn’t want me to call him a queer, I see no reason why I would insist on doing so. Lord knows I’m not the politest person around, but I do try not to actively piss people off. You have the right to call him whatever you damn well please, and if it makes you feel that you are fighting for equality by calling him a term he finds offensive, well, as you will. Lissener could stand to rein in his temper a bit and not take such dire offense at someone using a term that is not universally considered offensive, but calling him a “queer” to deliberately piss him off does not exactly give you the moral high ground.