Electrolicious

29 Responses to “That’s so GAY!”

1. leblanc
   October 3rd, 2002 at 9:09 pm

   

   maybe it’s a california thing? cuz i know people around here say “gay” for just about anything … meaning …. lame, stupid, whack, not interesting, etc. even all the gay guys i know say everyhting is gay. it’s also a south park thing i’ve noticed, but it’s DEFINITELY a california thing. come to think of it though, i get a lot of emails from my michigan friends who talk about things being gay all the time too… so maybe not. maybe it’s just NOT a seattle thing?

   i personally don’t find it offensive at all, and i say it all the time too.

2. Bee
   October 3rd, 2002 at 11:25 pm

   

   Umm Yeah We say “That was so gay” as in Lame, in Texas and NY, and my friends are queer. So I guess it’s like I can call my mom a bitch, but you can’t.

   I would never say anything is cunt, I’ve said “you are such a cunt” which took years to be able to say it above a whisper.. it’s just a really ugly word.

   Now, “that is so titties” was attempted by the staff at Jane magazine and it just never took off.
   Since cunt is the uber derog word, I’d be annoyed if you said my pants were ‘cunt’. It just seems so “I just discovered I’m butch and I gotta prove it….”

3. aristotle334
   October 3rd, 2002 at 11:36 pm

   

   In the AF “gay” has a wide range of derrogatory meanings. In fact, anything that could possibly be thought of as “weak” or “subversive” is often condemned. Can’t wait till I get out…

4. Jen
   October 4th, 2002 at 6:26 am

   

   In Canada we use the expression in the same context as everyone else does. I never understood where it came from though, Gay was originally defined as being happy.

5. Michelle
   October 4th, 2002 at 7:03 am

   

   Well since I am gay let me say that I do find it bothersome when someone uses gay as a synonym for ‘lame’ or ‘bad’ or ‘uncool’ or ‘embarrassing’ or any of the other negative things that it is used for by so many people these days. So I may just have to take Ariel’s suggestion and start using Het/Hetero when I think something is bad.

   “Oh my god look at that shirt. It is so hetero. I can’t believe he wore that in public.”

6. dc
   October 4th, 2002 at 7:57 am

   

   Seriously, are you not missing a huge aspect of the etymology surrounding the word ‘GAY’ ? First, you might consider the initial usage of the word :
   -Showing or characterized by cheerfulness and lighthearted excitement; merry.
   -Bright or lively, especially in color: a gay, sunny room.
   -Given to social pleasures.
   At some point in what appears to be the 1950’s, the word took a societal shift to mean a person’s sexual disposition. This is a natural thing that happens to many words. It’s not good or bad. It just is. Hence, if a word takes on a new meaning, I don’t think you get to necessarily “like” or “dislike” it.
   That being said, this post was sort of gay.

7. Sam
   October 4th, 2002 at 8:06 am

   

   Het! I love it!

   Regardless of the term’s original meaning, it now has a new one, and to use it that way seems pretty damned offensive to me.

   I always like to do a little word-replacement exercise with things like this. For instance, try this sentence on for size: “Oh. My. God. That movie was *so* nigger!” (And no, I *never* use that word. It’s hard for me to say even in contexts like this. So I guess to me, it is an unequivocally negative word of profanity.) Would you let that pass without comment? Then you probably (not always, but probably) shouldn’t let the other go, either.

   (Oh, and on a side note, look up the definition of “profane” sometime. One of its meanings is simply “not concerned with religion or religious purposes : SECULAR,” as opposed to consecrated or sanctified.)

8. rumbanik
   October 4th, 2002 at 9:14 am

   

   Weird that you would hear that nowadays. I’m wondering if it’s coincidental with the whole 80s fashion comeback…heh …but anyways, yeah, they used to say that back in the 80s here in L.A.; total schoolyard thing for us.

   If someone said “That’s so GAY!” it meant lame, stupid, etc., but there was also some homosexual connotation to it as well, assuming that homosexual men were overly flamboyant, tacky and tasteless.

9. Ariel
   October 4th, 2002 at 9:32 am

   

   Re: alternate meanings of GAY and CUNT. The difference for me is that “gay” isn’t being reclaimed…it’s being denigrated. I associate the word “gay” with the many positive things I love about my gay family members and friends. The lamest people I know are straight, which isn’t saying a lot, since heterosexuality defines at least 85% of America’s population.

   If gays themselves want to denigrate the word, that’s fine. Like Bee said, you can call your mom a bitch, but no-one else can.

   The reclamation of “cunt” as a positive is exactly the opposite. I’m not using the word in its negative sense, I’m trying to take a word that describes something I think is beautiful and give it the meaning it deserves. For those who find this confusing, I recommend Inga Muscio’s Cunt: A Declaration of Independence.

   …And to dc, who seems to argue “that’s the way ‘gay’ is being used, get used to it”? I am a writer. I am not a passive user of English. It’s a maleable language, and I not only have every right to like or dislike the way a word starts being used, I have a responsibility to encourage or discourage its use through my own actions. Common vernacular isn’t something that just happens. We each make a choice of how we use the language we speak.

   That said, I don’t think that just because I don’t like them, people will stop using the word “gay” as a synonym for “stupid” or telling sexist or racist jokes. But they know not to to do it around me.

10. leblanc
    October 4th, 2002 at 10:23 am

    

    a previous student of linguistics, this conversation is interesting. it’s funny to me how the meaning of words mean *so much more* to some people than others. i think the use of “gay” totally depends on the context, and like i said, almost ALL of the SF homosexual men i know use the term all the time without even thinking. but then again, they call eachother fags, and i would never do that .

    why is it that “reclamation” of a word is o.k. - such as black men calling eachother “nigger” but no one else can, gay men calling eachother “fag” but no one else can , lesbians using the word “dyke”, etc. etc. — but if a regular bystander uses the term “gay” to describe something in a completely non-homo way, they are gonna get flamed for it?

    i’ve never understood that. seems like a doublestandard to me. but then again, language is a very tricky thing. *some* people make a conscious choice to use the words they do - but the majority of people *don’t*, and are just repeating what they hear from everyone else, without any intended meaning other than face value.

11. Ariel
    October 4th, 2002 at 10:32 am

    

    You make a good point, Amy. I know that when I was living in SF and 99.9% of my friends were gay men, I started saying “fag” with the familiarity they did…which was ok because I was a hag.

    Then I moved back to Seattle (arguable the PC capitol of the world), and made a comment to a straight friend about a gay friend who’d gone to a Mariner’s baseball game. “What kind of a fag does she think she is!?” I crowed. My straight friend looked mortified, and I realized that I wasn’t in San Francisco anymore, Dorothy. It was a bit of a rude awakening.

    I’ve heard people criticize Margaret Cho for similar reasons: “What, just because she’s Korean American, it’s ok for her to slander Asians? That’s racist!” Granted, it was a straight, white man saying this, but still…lines do get blurred. (And, for what it’s worth, Margaret Cho is my favorite comedienne ever.)

12. dc
    October 4th, 2002 at 12:45 pm

    

    Seriously, my point was not as to your liking a word or not, but that words change, and that is not a point of like or dislike. It’s just the reality of the nature of linguistics. I would counter that a person ought very much to like certain words to the disregard of other words. Look at Oscar Wilde, clearly he liked certain words that were in his society, and certainly he used those words like bullets. Personally, I don’t use the word gay much in any context, as it , from whatever side, is quite stigmatized.
    But again, words change. Fundamentalist is another fine example of a word becoming derisive in nature, when initially intended to be simply an observation of a personal belief (more or less). Now, it’s an insult. However, we as a society, see fit to allow this change to happen. Words do change, not by themselves, but by usage.

13. philippe
    October 4th, 2002 at 1:48 pm

    

    Interestng post ! and discussion.
    And it’s funny that, in french, the word “con” had the same evolution as cunt. It used to be a profane word for vagina in the late XIX/early XX,. Now it means moron. The former meaning is totally lost, but in overly precious erotic novels.
    Now, it still has to turn into a positive adjective… I’ll try to promote “ton pantalon est très con”, but I’m afraid of some serious misunderstandings…

14. Sam
    October 4th, 2002 at 2:04 pm

    

    leblanc, it’s not at all a double standard. It’s just that there’s an additional dimension or two to the standard: the cultural identities of the speaker and the listener. People do this all the time. We change lots of things about how we communicate based on who we’re talking to. F’rinstance, few people would describe a work project in the same language to a co-worker as to their CEO.

    When an oppressive label is used *by a member of the group the term is used to oppress*, it’s (usually) what Ariel said: a way to redefine it, reclaim it, defang it, or use it as a coping or healing mechanism. By co-opting it, people can take the sting out of its use and even use it as shorthand for an experience shared by members of the group. When it’s used by someone outside that group (e.g., fag hags), it’s still possible that it’s being used in a ‘cheerleading’ way (but this is usually awkward at best), and when it’s used by someone who’s part of the group that benefits from the oppression, it’s seen as pejorative, exactly because of the identity of the speaker.

    I don’t understand all the nuances myself; I’ve only picked up as much of this information as I have because my sweetie does a lot of anti-oppression work in her job. But that’s my take on it.

15. leblanc
    October 4th, 2002 at 3:24 pm

    

    i’m quite familiar with reclamation of words, and what seems like a doube standard is not, and actually took an entire course on it when studying Ebonics in college. but still, no matter who you are, everything should not be taken so literally.

    that being said — ARIEL! i got my hoop today

16. Philo
    October 4th, 2002 at 6:51 pm

    

    Ariel, I applaud your willingness to say things aren’t right, even if they don’t necessarily apply to your life as specifically. One of the most insidious ways to take away a communities power is to take their language and give it opposite meanings. My, won’t gay pride day sound stupid when they are celebrating how lame and retarded they all are. The majority has the power to control language. Phillipe’s reference to a term for vagina being recoined to mean “moron”, to me, not living there and not knowing, seems to reek of sexism from here. It’s a great example.

    It’s been particularly easy for the masses to do this these days when so many gay men and women are so busy being “atypical” or “straight acting”, often reacting and creating distance in that “I’m not like them” manner, often unaware of oppressing others who are like them in the process. Oh wait, I’m sorry, who aren’t like them at all. After all, minorities internalize these lame, stupid, lazy, references society throws at them. As for me, you can call me a fag, you can call me a cocksucker, you can call me a fudgepacker, but when you take the word that defines my community and use it in such a manner, I find that very offensive.

17. tr
    October 5th, 2002 at 4:41 pm

    

    I also remember the word being used that way a lot in the 80’s. Hadn’t heard anyone say that in years and then recently someone I work with said it. I was a little shocked and horrified when she said it. It just sounded so wrong and offensive to me…especially the tone of voice she said it in. I do get the whole reclamation thing, but you won’t hear me using the word “gay” that way.

18. Philos (not Philo)
    October 6th, 2002 at 12:28 am

    

    When I was a kid in the 70’s, “gay” as used by kids meant “stupid” — I don’t think it was until the early-mid 80’s (not so coincidentally when I got into my teens) that I learned what gay “really” meant. Of course, we also used “queerbait” as an insult, again thinking it meant “stupid idiot” or something — we didn’t know, we just knew it was a mean thing to call someone.

    As for cunt, I was delighted when we read the Cantebury Tales in college to find out that cunt is simply the perfectly good English term for the vagina — I’m not a linguist, but I suspect there’s some class warfare involved in the “demonization” of the word cunt — cunt is English, a word of the lower classes, while vagina is Latin, a word of the educated and nobility. So I’d like to see cunt lose its negative connotations for that reason as well as the more important reason of not equating womenhood with badness. However, I can’t see turning it around and using cunt as a positive adjective, either, any more than I’d want to start saying, “wow, those new pants are so penis/cock/dick!” To me, it just sounds silly.

19. Suz
    October 6th, 2002 at 8:08 am

    

    Instead of using the term gay to describe something silly, lame etc. I like saying, “Oh, that is so middle class-white trash.” Of course I am white and middle class, but I don’t believe I am trying to reclaim anything. In fact I usually use the term for people and things I don’t like-so it is a derogatory term of my own meaning, perhaps, people/things who appear to be something more than they really are. Maybe instead of het/hetero, middle class-white trash could be more effective. It’s certainly a more descriptive phrase. Example: “I believe that Limp Bizkit is very middle class-white trash.”

20. kim
    October 6th, 2002 at 9:41 pm

    

    i hate it when people use gay as an insult and i always make a big issue of it. fuck it if they think i’m pc. it’s annoying.

21. leblanc
    October 7th, 2002 at 5:17 pm

    

    for all you people who like to make up new words like “Het”, you should definitely check out Erik over at Intellectual Poison’s “new words” page. very very funny:

    http://home.pacbell.net/figan/.....words.html

22. Meesha
    October 7th, 2002 at 5:39 pm

    

    Word on striking the usage of “gay” for dumb, stupid, etc. My friends (and, OK, I) used it with that meaning in high school (Dallas, early 90s). I am so glad to have grown past that point and begun to say what I really mean (i.e., use the word “stupid” or “silly”) without indirectly putting down an entire segment of the population..

    Equally annoying is the similar use of “retarded.”

23. seventhswami
    October 8th, 2002 at 10:04 am

    

    The best line from any movie ever:
    “I knew someday that cunt was gonna fuck SOME cunt…”
    ~ Francis Begbie - Trainspotting”

24. Teresa
    October 11th, 2002 at 9:54 am

    

    I think the way it evolved (at least, the way I’ve been told), was that gay went from meaning happy -> homosexual -> bad.

    And yeah, kids still use the word to mean bad, it’s not something from the 80’s. I’ve worked with kids(anywhere from 2nd to 6th grade) in Connecticut, New York, and Wisconsin, and they only know that gay means stupid, and have NO idea what you’re talking about if you use the phrase “gay rights”, it’s like saying “I think poop is really important”. They giggle and say “huh?” After explanation, though, they get it, and don’t say it as much (thank goodness).

    Anyway, I don’t think it’s the development of gay to mean homosexual that’s a problem, because at this point it’s such a common term, even if it originally came from a kind of “light in the loafers” connotation, but it clearly being linked the the whole “femininity is bad” thing definitely needs to get checked. So keep yelling, Ariel! I sure do.

25. Mark
    September 25th, 2003 at 3:11 pm

    

    Using the expression “That’s so gay” is taking a word that refers to a minority group and making it into an epithet. How would all you African-Americans out there like to hear “That’s so niggery”? How many physically challenged folks think it’s cute when someone says something is “so lame”? How about the mentally challenged hearing “that’s so retarded”? The moral principle here is THINK before you open your mouth. Most minority group members have quite enough pain in their life as it is, without someone thoughtlessly adding to it by a careless (or maybe mean-spirited) remark…

26. Gracie
    January 12th, 2005 at 9:12 am

    

    I am writing a paper for a class about this very subject. The title for it is, “Using the word ‘gay’ as a deragatory expression in cassual conversation just helps to intensify the already excisting discrimination towards homosexuals.”

    I am 16 years old and I have been fighting this battle for 4 years now, when I found out my boyfriends mom was gay. I had said ‘gay’ in that context exactly two times in my entire life, and from then on completly regreted it.

    I really enjoyed this article and completly agree.. I love the:
    “No, actually, if you’d been acting ‘gay,’ you would have been wearing much better clothes, and have been infinitely funnier. I believe you were just acting like a dumbass. Not gay.”

    brilliant.. so brilliant

27. Mike
    May 31st, 2005 at 9:29 pm

    

    I just think its arrogant when others use the word ‘gay’ as a critism. Because whether you are gay or straight, you have no idea how using that word as an insult will offend of even hurt the people listening.
    It just bothers the hell out of me when i hear staight people using the word in that context! Its like ‘You arnt gay, So how dare you say that when you have absolutely no idea how that feels to be gay and to hear that”. And even if you do think the word has once agian transformed its meaning doesnt matter. The fact that it might hurt someone whos already struggeling enough with the reality that the majority of society doesnt accept who they are is reason enough to never use the word ‘gay’ as a deragatory espression. And no, if someone is hurt by this word in that context they arnt just being sensitive, because accepting and being confident in who you are when soo many others dont is a hell of alot esier said that done.

28. Jenna
    December 18th, 2005 at 10:09 pm

    

    I know this was posted a long time ago, but I’m with you all the way.

    I’m on a bit of a crusade of my own to ask people to stop using the word “retard” to mean “stupid.” See here:

    http://www.jennaglatzer.com/pl.....retard.htm

29. marty
    April 24th, 2007 at 7:00 am

    

    People keep saying Words change, evolve, it’s a natural thing the english language does etc… That would be fair enough, however the negative context of the word “gay” isn’t a totally different meaning. It came about because gay means homosexual. It is therefore an offensive use of the the current meaning, not a new one.