my british husband finds it quite offensive to refer to gays or straights who engage in anal sex as ‘buggers’. i cant figure out if the noun ‘buggery’ or the verb ‘to bugger’ is simply antiquated terminology that is harmless or if in there is a negative connotation.
i would love any comments to help me to get a sense of the meaning.
Yes, it’s antiquated terminology. But in that context, it’s from a time when ALL such terminology was derogatory. I’ve never heard it used in a positive way, except humorously.
I prefer bugger as a term than sodomize. Fudge Packer is the coarse terminology.
There are times bugger is the appropriate term. For example in discussing the pedo at Penn State, he buggered those boys. If you prefer to say he sodomized them that’s ok too. I just prefer the first word. Either way, it was a heinous crime.
Even if there were no negative connotations to the term “buggery”, it would probably still be considered offensive to refer to people as “buggers”. It’s just not polite to label people based on specific sex acts they engage in, or that you assume they engage in. (Plenty of gay men don’t have anal sex.) If you’re just joking around with a friend then anything your friend finds amusing is probably okay, but in general it’s considered rude to use reductive labels for groups of people or to bring up specifics (real or imagined) about other people’s sex lives.
I’m not British, but it’s my understanding that the term “bugger” is also commonly used in the UK to refer to people who are stupid or irritating. If so, that’s another problem with using the same word as a general term for gay men.
Well, both. Buggery comes from a very old English law. Buggery Act 1533.
Modern usage it’s a formal legal term or a mild swear word. Like Bugger Off. Similar to F Off. It’s not supposed to be taken literally.
I don’t use Bugger to speculate about what consenting Gay people do in the privacy of their homes. It’s none of my concern. I wouldn’t use that word to describe a gay person. That usage became inappropriate at least forty to fifty years ago.
Yep, especially the second paragraph. It has a negative meaning independent of the sexual one.
It’s nearly always used in an affectionate context, like “that old bugger.”
And, of course, just as the ejaculation (heh) “bugger!” or in the phrase “bugger me!” that means “that’s astonishing!” It’s also often used to mean “thing” and has a few other meanings too. Swearwords tend to have a wide variety of meanings.
The essential meaning is still negative out of those contexts - at least, negative enough that I wouldn’t want to use it to describe a whole group of people.
Buggering is also still sometimes used in the sexual context - it’s not antiquated.
Besides, it makes no sense. The act is buggering, not bugging. People who do it are buggerers, not buggers. If you referred to gay men as buggers, I’d simply be confused. If you said “those buggers over there” I’d have no idea you meant gay men.
Does anyone actually say ‘bugger’ to mean gay men?
ETA: your poll question is very different to the question in the thread title and OP.
i was/am having trouble articulating my questions. im sorry if i was confusing.
i appreciate the answers a lot.
i was motivated to ask these questions because i am trying to determine if i can make a complaint. a member of another forum i belong to makes inflammatory anti-gay statements regularly. i feel that is hate speech and a violation of the TOS.
i dont use ‘bugger’ or any related words. my husband says ‘oh bugger’ once in a while, but im sure since we have been discussing the latent meaning of it, he may decide to supress it from his vocabulary.
again, i appreciate your responses. im actually quite upset about the situation and the knowledge that most respondants find it to be offensive makes me feel better.
Here is wisdom. The person is not the act. Thus, I would not be comfortable saying that someone is a buggerer, but would be less reluctant to observe that he buggered his lover the other day.
FWIW, I had never known that rape was part of the connotation of the word; I had always understood it to refer to the mere mechanical act. If rape is a necessary part of the word, then, of course, I would not want to use it as above.
I don’t think the term is much used in the USA. It’s strictly a British-ism.
It reminds me of a similar term, “bummer.” US usage would be hippie slang, “Bummer, that’s too bad.” British usage (I think) would equate bummer with bugger.
I worked for a US electronics company that embedded what they thought was a cute error message in one product, “Bummer, Dude – you’re out of memory.” They got an angry note from a British customer who complained they were out of line accusing the user of sexual misconduct.
In my experience it’s quite rare to hear “bugger”/“buggery” used to actually refer to anal sex; but to do so is almost always going to be offensive. To refer to gay men (or straights who have anal sex) as “buggers” or “buggerers” carries exactly the same tone as calling them “sodomites”, and that’s certainly derogatory.
The issue is confused by the British English use of “bugger” in a way that’s completely disconnected from the anal sex meaning. As a gay man, I don’t find that offensive. I suppose you could draw an analogy to the problem with “that’s so gay”, but really the original meaning of “bugger” has been so completely eclipsed by the humorous-insult/exclamation use that it doesn’t seem like an issue to me.
I’ve also heard “buggered” used to mean that some person, object or endeavor has been damaged or ruined. Basically, the same as “fucked up”, “screwed up” or “reamed”. “Everything was going well until he came along and buggered things up”; that sort of thing.
It’s always been used like shit or merde or any other swear word. It just has another more literal meaning too, same as shit and merde do.
Surely you’re not in the UK and claiming that, until 2007, bugger was mostly used in a sexual context? In that case, the opening scene to Four Weddings and a Funeral must take on an entirely different tone for you.
I want to correct myself - the thread title does say buggery, but the OP says bugger. Buggery is not an offensive word - it’s a term for a specific sex act that is mostly used in terms of unwanted anal sex. But calling someone a ‘bugger’ is both a bit offensive and totally nonsensical. Two different questions.
Well, you’re in Australia, so maybe it’s different there, but it has been a mild swear word for much longer here.
I’d also be surprised if an ad company would use a word that was mainly known in its sexual context - I watched the ad, and it wouldn’t have made any sense if it weren’t widely-known as a mild swear word.