My apologies if you guys have done this topic before, but until I open my wallet and fork out the 15 bucks, I’m here without assess to the search function.
Lately I’ve been seeing the word gay used as a deragatory comment to describe a person or activity that the commenter is less than impressed with. IMO, they’re using the word gay as an insult.
Some members of the British gay community have told me that they’re actually ok with the way this word is currently being used and they don’t mind straight people using their sexual orientation as a synynom for lame, crap, weak, undesirable…what have you.
Now I’m not gay, but if I were, I’d be pissed off at the way my “lifestyle” is being negatively portrayed. In fact, one of our local school boards has started a poster campaign in elementry schools to combat this new usage of the word, The campaign is called " That’s So Gay, Is Not OK"
I’m of the mind that gay people should reject the use of this word as a negative, but the British seem to disagree, and purport that using the word in this context is more of a “camp” thing. I disagree, I think it will aid in the creation of homophobes in the younger generation.
I’m not gay. I’ve got several friends who are, however. I’m also pretty active in the online game communities- and the useage of the word “gay” as a synonym for “bad” or “stupid” pisses me off. Not just because I think it’s insulting- but also because I think it’s just sloppy, because there’s no thought involved when a thirteen-year-old fanboy calls something “gay”.
I haven’t asked my gay friends if it bothers them… maybe I’ll work on that today. I’ve just always been offended for them.
You’re not being overly sensitive. It is insulting, but I don’t see any way to remove it forcibly from use. It’s just something we’ll have to wait out, and hope that the portrayal of being gay in popular culture as being normal seeps a bit more into people’s heads. Which shouldn’t be too hard, since the largest group that uses it seems to be young teenage males.
I personally view it the same way the word “dick” can mean penis or a 1940’s private eye- same spelling and pronunciation, two totally separate meanings- in other words, the “gay” meaning bad has nothing to do with the “gay” meaning homosexual, in the same way “gay” meaning homosexual has nothing to do with “gay” meaning happy, so I don’t view it as offensive.
‘Gay’ has already had it’s meaning changed from happy to homosexual. It also used to be a first name, so I’m sure anyone name Gay wasn’t at all happy about that change.
Arguments from the gay community about the word changing meaning sound a little hollow to me.
“Gay” has had a lot of meanings over the years. “Happy” being one. “Twee” being another. For several decades, “fag”, “faggot”, “queer” and “gay” were derogatory terms, and only loosely linked to the meaning of homosexual, the way today “cunt” is derogatory and only loosely linked to the meaning of a woman’s genital cleft. Generally, a 6 year old saying “That’s a dumb game! It’s so gay!” is not thinking about homosexuality.
Somewhere in the seventies, as I understand it, a small subset of homosexual men decided to “reclaim” the word gay and make it a descriptive word without negative connotation, indeed, a term of pride. (See similar case: “witch” to describe a practitioner of Wicca.)
The fact that some people are STILL using “gay” as a derogatory term, and they’ve taught their kids to do so and those kids have taught other kids, simply means the term hasn’t been completely reclaimed yet.
Do I greatly dislike the term used in a derogatory fashion and wish that usage would go away? Yes, absolutely. I don’t let my kids use it that way, and I scold anyone else who does in my presence. I am offended by it. But it’s sort of like being offended because someone uses the word “awful” to mean “full of awe” or “awe-inspiring” because the more current definition is “bad”.
“Gay” was used concurrently with its “happy” definition to mean “sexually uninhibited” or “wanton” and referred to both hetero- and homosexual wantons. The word became specialized to homosexuality along roughly the same timeline as the modern homophile movement. There was not to my knowledge any sort of organized sexual libertine front to object to the specialization.
There is, however, an organized gay movement to object to snot-nosed little pricks wandering around using a word that has come to mean “homosexual” to mean “stupid” or “disgusting.” It is rude and insulting to use the language to equate “homosexual” with “disgusting” in exactly the same way it is rude and insulting to speak of, for instance, “jewing down” a price.
I slightly disagree. I think Eminem summed it up best, when he said that the worst thing you can do to a man, is strip him of his manhood. Part of being a man (according to this theory, I personally think being a true man has many more factors and is much more encompassing) is being with a woman. To call another man gay, is, in effect, to verbally attack his manhood. Other ways of attacking his manhood are by calling him a pussy or the like. When you are calling somebody a dick, or any other part of the male anatomy, it’s a different insult all together.
However, I think when other things are called gay, in a way that means bad or stupid (such as music, movies, homework assignments, etc.) that Wee Bairn is spot on.
Hope I don’t get blasted for being insensitive, as this is simply my opinion, and have several gay friends, who, although (some) are more feminine than the average bear, I don’t consider them unmanly.
“jewing down” a price, or “nigger-rigging” a broken item are different, in that these terms undoubetedly refer negatively to the jews and blacks. Is there any substantive proof that whoever first used gay to mean bad, that they did so with intent to bash homosexuals?
I’m under the impression that using the word gay ( in the context of this discussion ) is a relatively new thing, and was spawned from the idea that homosexuality is a bad thing that should be derided whenever possible. I’m having a hard time accepting the idea that the word just “happened” to enter popular usage through any other mechanism than to belittle homosexuality.
I could be wrong though, and that’s what I’m hoping to find out on this thread, however if it has been done several times, would someone be so kind as to point me to the links, or at least tell me to get off my ass and buy a subscription.
Wee Bairn, am I correct in assuming you’re in the UK? if so maybe the “alternative” meaning to the word gay is a UK thing, that hasn’t crossed over the pond in the context of simply meaning lame,yet.
Why Not, agreed, a six year old using the word in this manner is probably parroting the word that he no doubt heard from an older boy and doesn’t fully understand the meaning of what he’s saying, that’s understandable, but a 13 year old does understand.
As to how successful the school board will be in forceibly removing this word from what I understand as common usage, time will tell I suppose. I’m not any type of politcial corrector myself, but after all that pc hoopla back in the 1990’s ,I’m suprised that this word somehow magically picked up a new negative connotation.
Not sure about the first usage, but in the urban dictionary usage of gay, people mention all three meanings (happy,homosexual,bad) that have been mentioned here and many of them directly equate the ‘bad’ meaning as a derivative of the homosexual one.
Sure, but even the 13 year old is rarely thinking of homosexuality.
Don’t believe me? Ask them. That’s exactly what I do to stop them in their tracks.
“I can’t believe we got homework on the weekend! That’s so fucking gay!”
“Really? Your homework is to become a homosexual for the weekend?”
“HUH?”
“You just said your homework was gay. As in, homosexual. Was that really what you meant?”
:rolleyes: “No. I meant it sucks that we have to do homework over the weekend.”
“Ah…so, you’re not becoming gay this weekend?”
(exasperated teenaged sigh) “No, Mrs. Not.”
“Good. Until you do, don’t use the word “gay” like that in my house again, OK?”
“OK.”
“Have a cookie.”
“You’re awesome, Mrs. Not!”
“Yeah. I know. I inspire awe daily.”
And herein lies the problem. From my own experience, when people use the word gay to denigrate, they’re saying the “gay” thing or person is lame, weak, pathetic. The insult isn’t that they’re homosexual, per se; it’s saying that you are lame, weak etc. because that’s what they associate with the word gay, the camp, unmacho stereotype.
It’s like calling someone a shit; you’re not actually saying “you are literally a lump of fecal matter” they’re saying “you have the attributes of a lump of fecal matter”.
Hummm, I never thought of using the word gay as an attack on the concept of masculinity, and seeing as how a significant percentage of homosexuals seem to enjoy reinforcing the gay stereotype, it makes for a very interesting point.
I haven’t head the term “Jewed down” in about 20 years, but there’s one negative steroetype that we’ve managed to diminish over the past while, at least as far as I can tell.
WhyNot, point taken about the 13 year olds, unfortunatly, I have limited access to teenagers, and just assumed that they knew the derivation of the word they were using.
Otto, I’ll buy a subscription just as soon as my wife lets me have the credit card ( did that sound gay? )