Homophobia? Queers? Survivor?

Great Debates
61

Sorry, but in this instance I’m going to agree mostly with lissener. The gay community using the word “queer” is a way for them to reclaim all the abuse, harassment and discrimination directed at them for much of our recent history. They’re the ones that took the word, turned it around, and turned it into a symbol of pride, not derision. (A similar thing happened with the pink triangle, once used in Holocaust concentration camps, then worn to remember those that died and instill a sense of pride.)

I will say, though, that, as many have said, it comes down to context. Scylla, you can call me queer if you want, because I know you and know your intent. But I’d wager that if you walked into a hairdressing salon and blurted out, “Hey, ya queer!” even with all the best intentions, you’re going to get sneered at. It’s about personal relationships, and in that regard, yes, the gay community, in a sense, has its own personal relationship with itself, just like the black community or the Jewish community, so until you establish that personal relationship, don’t use the word.

Esprix

62

I’m down with that Gaudere, but unless I’m mistaken, that’s not what Lissener is arguing.

He’s stated that “queer” should be a Gay-use only term. He draws a parralel to the use of the word “nigger” by people of color. The latter case is ok for reasons of solidarity, as long as it’s only used by them. If a non-black uses it, it’s an insult.

I find both ideas to be a discriminatory claim to special privileges.

I’ve already stated, that I have no problem with pet names, or terms of endearment.

Hey, I call my wife “Sweet-cheeks,” but privately.

I’m not trying to draw a hard-line, but the idea that some kind of past wrong or oppression against a group moves a term into their private domain seems silly.

63

What Gaudere said. You know you both (Scylla and lissener) are comming at it a bit strong. I hold a more moderate postion. Wow, whouda thunk it, me with a moderate position. Anyway.
Let’s take the case of someone who’s name is Will.
His parents call him Willy.
He has a right to allow his parents to call him Willy and expect others to not do so. If they did call him Willy he has every right to be peeved about it. However, there are also two cases. Someone calling him Willy out of ignorance, and someone calling him Willy to be cruel.

People have a right, within reason, to request you call them certain terms. The terms have to be based on some kind of historical or social or racial background to make sense. ie. It’s ok for Black people to insist on being called African-American, but not Great Martians. It’s ok for Scylla to insist on being called Scyl or something but not The Ultimate ruler of the Universe.
Now let’s take a look at the term Gay. This term to can be used in an insulting manner. If I heard someone on the bus say “look at all the fucking gays” I would be insulted.
As I’ve stated queer is a much more ambigous term that faggot. I cringe when i hear anyone using the term faggot. Queer 99% of the time is acceptable. If rudy said “I support Queer rights” THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT… If he says “I support faggot rights” There is. Queer can still be used in a disparaging manner though. I feel that it’s ok when used to refer to a group, but not an individual. It’s one of those words that you should use caution when using, but it’s nowhere on the level of faggot

Also Ithink the whole reclaiming words bullshit is pretty stupid.

64

Pardon me for asking, but which planet did you grow up on? :confused:

Esprix

65

We all have terms for each other that we allow usage only from certain people. Older men may not think it acceptable for young’uns to call them by their first name, yet allow their peers to do so. Do you consider this a “discriminatory claim to special privileges”?

66

Well said. More than once I’ve heard someone yell back, “That’s Mister Faggot to you!”

Esprix

67

Not when your context is meant to be derisive. Not knowing you (there’s that “personal relationship” again), my hackles went up when I read that.

Crafty smugness doesn’t help your case any more than lissener’s language helps his.

Esprix

68

Respectfully, because you’re not a part of any minority, you don’t know what it’s like to be one. As lissener pointed out, the discrimination minorities face isn’t a once-in-a-while thing, but a life-long situation that never quite resolves itself. Just like you have been bombarded all your life with certain messages, so have those of minority status, only those messages aren’t so uplifting as “equality for all” - more like “equality for everyone except you.” I agree that there are some situations where inequality breeds intolerance, and I have my own problems with Affirmative Action and the like, but until the scales are balanced, work must be done to balance them.

Respectfully, I disagree. You have every right to call him a queer, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to respect you for it. Your choice. Personally, I’d rather earn someone’s respect than quibble over semantics.

Esprix

69

By the by, in regards to Rudy and Rich on “Survivor,” when I first started watching the show and listened to Rudy’s behavior, I thought, “Oh, boy - of course they had to put a 'phobe on with the gay guy.” But, like Rich, it was Rudy’s actions, not his words, that proved who he was. Obviously they established a friendship, and because of that personal relationship, Rich saw past Rudy’s words to the person he was, and the intent he had.

Besides, I’m just happy the queer guy won. :smiley:

Esprix

70

I am as unPC as a gay guy can get, and I generally don’t give a rodent’s posterior what people call me as long as they don’t call me late for dinner. :smiley:

With that said, it’s clear that lissener has issues with “queer” and “faggot”(which are pretty offensive words)
so simple courtesy would keep someone from using those words in his presence. OTOH, I am so tired of people with thin skins who demand the right to keep their delicate feelings from getting hurt. Toughen up.
Learn to laugh at homophobes and racists. If you get angry with them, you give them power; but if you laugh at them and treat them like the pathetic losers they are, it’s like sunlight to a vampire.

MGibson reminds me of Bart Simpson using the word “bastard”–“How is that old bastard?”
“Bart!”
“Well, his parents weren’t married, were they? That’s the right word, isn’t it?”

Basically, MGibson wants to call people names and then hide behind gays reclaiming the word for themselves. That’s not only not cool, it’s cowardly. I bet you’re one of those white guys who likes to use the word “nigger” because “that’s what the black guys call each other, so why can’t we use it, too?”

Putz.

71

This is absolutely the oddest thread I’ve read in GD in quite a while.

“Queer” is used both as an insulting epithet and as a legitimate descriptor, and therein lies the crux of the problem. Scylla has a legitimate right to use the word in the positive ways, just as lissener has justification to feel umbrage when it is used negatively. Ironically, the members of the gay community have, in seeking to use the word as a token of solidarity, traded certain knowledge of ill-intent for ambiguity. But what bothers me most is the unnecessarily hard-line stances that have been taken in the debate.

My take on the whole Richard thing in the OP: I don’t watch Survivor, so I didn’t see the incident. But I am of the opinion that the odd social status of the word “queer” itself is what has caused the whole brouhaha. It is not really like the word “nigger” at all as things stand today. “Nigger” has always been a slur, and you don’t have large groups labelling themselves “Nigger Nation.” Blacks may use the word amongst themselves much like gays may call one another “faggot.” (The use of these words is a different debate. For now, I’ll stick to arguing the word in question.) But “queer” is a word that is used by the gay community to represent themselves both to each other and to other people not in their groups. That makes it an entirely different animal. It’s disingenuous to call oneself Queer Nation, to chant “We’re here! We’re Queer! Deal with it!” and then turn around and say “Don’t call us queer! That’s an insult.” Ummm… What? That makes no sense to me at all.

Of course, I know that being gay does not automatically give you membership in Queer Nation, nor mean that you necessarily agree with their use of the word. I am sure that their are folks out there who hear the word and find it offensive in any context. (What would Dr. King think of young black men referring to one another as niggers I wonder?) But given the word’s common usage in the media, in ordinary conversations, and on this board for that matter, it’s merely dogged blindness to see that the word has changed its character. It is sometimes an epithet used in disgust, but it is often just an ordinary word used for a group of people who have, after all, told the population outside their group that that’s what they would like to be called.

lissener, you are correct in saying that I, and others like me who have not been the target of discrimination, do not know what it’s like to be slapped down by a slur. If you say “Don’t call me a queer,” any reasonable person, including those who have responded already in this thread, would normally try to accomodate. But, since “queer” has gained the status of an ordinary descriptor in many circles, including the media (something “nigger” and “faggot” never did), then you should also realize that it is an unreasonable request for you to make that they never use the word in any context, while you reserve the right of your group to do so. If people are willing to meet you halfway by observing your personal wish not to be called something, then you should also be willing to meet them halfway and not take offense when it is obviously not intended.

72

I didn’t mean to make this so personally about me. The fact is, I’ve learned as well as the next mature gay man how to (usually) distinguish simple ignorance from petty immaturity from genuine threat, but thanks nonetheless for your warm wishes that I “toughen up.” :rolleyes:

But Scylla’s (and others’) insistence that the words under discussion should mean no more or less to me than they do to him, and his (their) refusal to acknowledge the emotional history of a word that has traditionally been used to brand individuals as members of a group deemed worthy of derision and even violence, led me to try to communicate some of the subtext that those words might hold for some people–me of course included, but by no means exclusively.

And the additional insistence that calling anyone any random name–"a fuck” was the example given–was entirely interchangeable with a marginalizing group label like “queer” or “nigger” was equally infuriating.

Add to that the blindly repeated mantra that they have a “right” to such words, when no one is discussing rights but decency, which last time I checked couldn’t be legislated, and, well, perhaps you can see why my emotional volumes ended up going to eleven. I won’t apologize to the individuals I addressed in such tones, because frankly I hope one of them does exercise his right to use such words in my presence some day: this queer will send them scurrying back to the safety of the little room in their mothers’ basement, where they can continue to avoid the changing world above them.

But I will apologize for exercising the limits of GD protocol by giving verbal vent to my frustration. (Although, since the point of this debate seems to be that language has no power, perhaps my apology is unnecessary.)

73

Let’s imagine a hpothetical:

Pretend Esprix is an accountant in a small firm with several partners who hapen to be gay.

I am a client of his, and over the course of several years we become good friends.

With no ill intent whatsoever I ask Esprix about what it’s like to be queer in a small town. Esprix politely informs me that “queer” is a disparaging term, and he would prefer that I didn’t use it. I apologize, promise not to use it again and Esprix says “Hey, you didn’t know. No harm done.”

Respecting Esprix as a person and a friend I refrain from the use of that term. Maybe in other discussions with other people I pass on the knowledge that “queer” is considered disparaging and shouldn’t be used by the polite and thoughtful.

No problem so far. Everybody agree?

Now let’s say during my visits to Esrix’s office I start to notice that they refer to each other as “queer.” Maybe I even get invited to a few social events, at which I notice again that Esprix and others refer to each other as “queer.”

Aha, I assume, something has changed. “Queer” is now an ok word.

I say to Esprix “Thank you very much for initing me to this party. I’m glad that you included me even though I’m not queer.”

Esprix looks at me funny, and says “I’m sorry, I thought we already discussed this. I find that term innapropriate.”

I apologize again. “I heard you all using it, so I assumed it was ok.”

“It’s ok if we use it. It’s a symbol of solidarity against the bigoted. If you use it it’s an insult, you’re not being gay.”

“Oh,” I reply.

I don’t use the term anymore, but now I feel uncormfortable. Any time I’m around my gay friends, they refer to themselves this way, but I am excluded. Each time I hear it I am reminded that I am only included up to a certain point. Each time I hear it I realize it is a little bit of an attack against me as a member of the non-gay community.

End of hypothetical.

Now I know Esprix would never do this, and I hope he understands that I just used him hypothetically here.

What I seem to be hearing argued here is that this type of scenario is ok. To me, I only see it as hurtful and discriminatory. It’s a barrier and exclusionary, and if my friends are truly my friends they wouldn’t treat me like that. I wouldn’t stand for it. That’s all I’m saying.

BTW I went to a Catholic grade school right next to a predominantly black public high school. Trust me, as a little kid in green plaid pants, yellow shirt and green tie, you know what it’s like to feel oppressed! For my confirmation I chose “Aloysious” as my name. He’s the patron saint young martyrs, but I always thought of him as the patron saint of getting your ass kicked.

74

I think you’re finally beginning to get it. It’s a shock to you, I guess, to suddenly live in a world where you feel excluded; where you’re made to feel different. But I’m supposed to allow you to make me feel threatened, to feel that the overwhelming sense of separateness and exclusion I feel every day of my life is never going to change, just so you don’t have to feel the occasional moment of discomfort?

Toughen up.

75

In the hypothetical scenario you outlined, the poin is no to exclude you, but that you are assuming a familiarity to which you are not entitled. Let’s say your family nickname is “Stinky”, always said with love and affection. Some guy overhears this, and says, “you stink”. When you object, he says, “But your family calls you stinky!”

Scylla, leave the word alone. You’re not a member of the group, and you have not earned the right to use it.

76

::lissener lunges to yank the plug out of goboy’s computer before he can hit Submit Reply. Too late!::

Goboy! you threw him the r word! Now it’s gonna start all over again!

77

Lissener, let’s head back to my place, I’ll put on my new Cabaret DVD, we can drink vodka martinis and laugh at poor old Scylla pressing his nose against the window and crying, “I wanna be queer, too.”

Silly breeder.

78

You know, I wasn’t even gonna go there. I think we should have the greatest sympathy for Scylla Queen of the Desert and her feelings of exclusion. It’s obvious that the Mother Church has built another closet.

And how about Showgirls, instead of Cabaret?

79

**

And I certainly would have extended that courtesy but for some reason he feels like being a jerk.

Actually in general I don’t use either words. I used queer the other day to specifically annoy someone. And why not when that person has been going out of their way to annoy everyone else who doesn’t agree with them?

Marc

80

Your on, I *love[/] Showgirls!