That’s So Gay!
Someone sent me a note today asking whether as a gay man I had a problem with people using the phrase "that's so gay" to describe something they wanted to paint negatively.
My honest answer was that I'd only ever seen it used online in a forum we both frequent, and that I'd assumed it had its origin in some obscure past thread in which it had been used to give stick to one of the regulars and just become a buzz-phrase.
Apparently not. I'm told that it's endemic in American English, and has been for years. My correspondent has some gay friends who take it in their stride and some who take offence at it. His own view is that most people don't really think about the meaning in an anti-gay sense at all, but that this doesn't alter the fact that it has its origin in the 'gay=bad' equation.
I'm rather conflicted about my own reaction. On the one hand, by wrongly assuming it was some kind of in-joke I've been unwittingly complicit in it by not questinoing when I've seen it used. Which fucks me off, frankly, because if people have been using it without thinking about what they're actually saying then they should be pulled up.
On the other hand, if there's no intended anti-gay sentiment (and in that forum I truly don't believe there's very much either generally or specifically in these cases), then does drawing attention to it make me sound like yet another shrill whinger who will actually create antagonism where there wasn't any?
Once upon a time I'd have waded in with both feet and to hell with upsetting people, but I'm a little calmer these days, the past is another country, etc.
So I throw the discussion open to the floor. What does anyone think?
(Postscript - Curiously, I've also found myself involved in an entirely unrelated online discussion this evening about whether the use of that word (you know the one - the one I hate above all others and won't use; begins with a 'c' and rhymes with 'punt') as a slur, panders to the misogyny that lies at its root. Weird how I can go months without a good word-discussion and suddenly have two on the same day.)
May 29th, 2003 - 07:53
I don’t like the use of ‘you’re so gay’. I don’t think it would look good if people kept saying ‘you’re so jewish’ as a put down. Sometimes one can run the risk of being accused of PC when objecting to terminology. No, if something’s offensive, it’s offensive.
I’m all for reclaiming ‘cunt’ but somehow I think it’s way too early to do so in polite circles!
May 29th, 2003 - 09:14
Now if women want to reclaim that word, that’s clearly their prerogative, and I’d support that . It’s similar in principal to the way I continue to reclaim ‘queer’. (Flashback – outside the Women’s Office of the Student Union in Manchester, 1985 – the first time I ever heard the phrase “reclaiming the language of oppression”.)
But I agree completely about the ‘PC’ thing. I read a comment from someone who was objecting to being described as PC yesterday, and the gist of his comment was that no, if someone uses non-offensive language in order not to cause offense, then they’re considerate. On the other hand, if they use it to further an agenda of their own, then they’re narrow-minded.
I can get behind that.
May 29th, 2003 - 10:40
I am prolly going to be showing my ignorance here, but I get the feeling there’s more to the c word than I currently realise. So far as I know, it’s a word for “down there”, a really good way of insulting people, and a lot of people don’t like the word (mainly women).
What’s the difference between calling someone a c*** and calling someone a dick? In terms of meaning, I can see little difference …
May 29th, 2003 - 11:04
Personal opinion (backed up by a number of others I’ve read over the years):
The use of the C word as a slur is rooted in misogynistic views of women: The adoption of a uniquely female body part to represent what to many people remains the ultimate insult/swear word relates to a basically male urge both to:
1) reduce women to a single body part, and
2) associate that body part (and by extension women) with as much negative connotation as possible.
In a linguistic sense, you’re right that ‘dick’ can be viewed in a similar light, but ‘dick’ doesn’t come on the heels of generations of female oppression of and violence towards men in the way that its countpart has an equivalent background, so the difference is and will remain contextual and societal.
Additionally, and again societally, words are defined as much by their accepted use as by their linguistic form or history. You could call someone a ‘dick’, or a ‘penis’ and apart from people thinking you were painfully prosaic in your insults, you could actually do so in a joking, even affectionate manner. I don’t think you can use a word that has the extreme associations that ‘cunt’ has in that way. I’ve heard people try – I heard someone use the phrase “ye wee daft cunt” recently, and if anythin I thought it sounded even more offensive.
And whether you use it conscious of all that or not, in the same way that people unconsciously equate ‘gay’ with ‘bad’, you’re equating ‘women’ with ‘slur’.
May 29th, 2003 - 12:04
wow, when I am unconscious I am a real bastard!
May 29th, 2003 - 13:16
Yes, I’ve heard that.
May 29th, 2003 - 15:02
he doesn’t even have to be unconscious!
May 29th, 2003 - 15:08
I’ve seen the term used many many times throughout the web. I have always considered it somewhat offensive even though I am sure it was most likely not intended to be so by the person using it. I guess I am one of those people who tries to consider a words root origin and the reason for its continued existance.
One thing I know for sure, is that the majority of people that I seeing using it are usually the same ones…
‘Dat TaLk LiEk DiZ, WtF LoL !!1??!?!!’…and probabely, hopefully are still a bit too young, or maybe immature to consider a lot of the things they say.
May 29th, 2003 - 16:22
I like C***
(I will not type it in deference to you Jon who once told me off in a lift for using it).
It is something that I really like to get my mouth around.
Draw your own conclusions.
May 30th, 2003 - 00:11
Gay = Bad
Well if you’re insulted by that then I think you’re encouraging the sort of attitudes that ruled our lives on the playground. One of my best friends uses that slur with a quick disclaimer “in a school type of way” to show that he doesn’t mean it offensively just that its something that has stuck since he was a kid.
I don’t find it offensive. I don’t find being called “gay” offensive even if it is meant in an offensive way. Reclaiming a word is one thing, ridding it of its potential to hurt is another.
Thats so gay. Well, maybe it is.
Thats so straight. Equally derogatory
May 30th, 2003 - 00:45
I don’t think I’m insulted by it as such. To borrow a sentiment: If I spent time getting insulted by things, I should never get any Buffy watched.
Personally I find it offensive, where you don’t, which is fair enough.
I do think it’s a bit tragic that our society has reached a point where, here at the start of the 21st century the gay=bad association is still prevalent.
And I think that the unconscious use of that kind of association (not just that one) ought to be challenged. Because I’m now big enough and secure enough to do so, I’d like to think I’m doing some small thing to help the kids in the playground who still get that crap and are neither big nor secure. But that’s just me on one of my crusades.
May 30th, 2003 - 07:26
of course if you are evaluating the statement it would be
gay == bad
or
gay eq bad
i’ll get me coat!
May 30th, 2003 - 12:19
hmmm, I might be putting the cat among the pigeons here, but surely the individual intent overides any historical mysoginistic leaning to the “c” word.
For one I have, on occasion used the word. It is a GREAT word for singular expression of feelings that go beyond yer standard expletive…..but to my mind it that usage has NOTHING to do with female anatomy and certainly is not used from a mysoginistic perspective – it just happens (though the irony of why is not lost on me) to be a word with the ability to make the exactly right impact in the right occasions.
To give other examples if I said somebody is a bastard I don’t actually mean that they have been sired out of wedlock; nor if I observe that someone is pissing around I don’t actually mean they are running around expelling urine; or that if someone is a dick (as Mike was saying) I don’t actually mean that they are a penis (tho actually in Mikes case I might have
.
The language grows and words and meanings alter and adapt. The more commonly a phrase is in usage the more likely it is to have strayed from the original definition. I think this is certainly the case with fuck (which is now a generic one-word-fits-all-needs swear word) and i believe that to be the case increasingly with c***.
To a certain extent the more that c*** is used as a general swearing term the less it is likely to cause offence (though there would be something of a watershed to reach first). However (as Julian Cope explained to his daughter when she asked why she wasn’t allowed to swear when he did it often) we’d then have to go to the bother of trying to think up new swearwords!
A last point on that – do people take the same offence when they hear “stop fannying around” etc?
Re Gay. Well this is a perfect example of a word that had an original meaning, then was approriated then (mis)appropriated again and one sassumes will continue to grow.
Much like c*** I have used the word in a “derogatory” way (the inverted commas are stressed!) but not with the intent of saying that Gay = Bad. Meaning Gay = not the height of machismo, yes…..but that isn’t a bad thing. The less macho bullshit the better (tho obviously real ale and football are exluded from that last statement!!).
Obviously it is the listener who gets offended so you just need to be aware of this and (as with Jon) not use the word in their presence if you can avoid it etc….
I find language fascinating and love the way that words grow (tho I have THE most limited vocabulary and hate the way I use an expeltive as an all too ready stand-by, no matter the occassion!). And the reclaimation of words such as Nigger, Gay and (closer to home and rather less important) Mackem is something that I find wholly fascinating and encouraging.
Right, there you go – that’s my input for another 6 months – see you in December!
G
May 30th, 2003 - 14:37
bloody hell, who woke up gerard ?!
May 30th, 2003 - 14:39
I’m not going to get into a line-by-line response to that Gerard because I think I’m probably starting to bore people to death now, *but*:
One point – the reclamation of terms of abuse and oppression is a powerful political statement, but it has to be for those who were its victims to use, at least until such time as no one who would use it in its oppressive sense is still doing so. To use an example that’s not a me-personal one from your list; I suspect that you wouldn’t dream of using the word ‘nigger’ in any circumstance, least of all one in which you were using it to put something down, but if a black person used it of themselves, that’s their right. That doesn’t by precedent give the world at large the go-ahead to use it in a light-hearted way, just because “they didn’t mean it like *that*”.
I keep saying that context (including ‘intended’ meaning) is important, and it clearly is, but you can have narrow context and wider context. And the wider context of terms of abuse and oppression is that they represent years, generations, and even centuries of exactly that – abuse and oppression.
May 30th, 2003 - 14:41
Actually, two points: “Gay = not the height of machismo” is also stupidly reductionist: Gay people can be every bit as macho (in both good and bad senses) as anyone else.
May 30th, 2003 - 16:01
Me again.
Re the bit about reclamation of words – completely agree. I mentioned it to begin with as an aside and was a leap on from my wittering about the growth of language – not to be miscontrued.
Re the macho thing – v fair point. Wasn’t meaning to pigeonhole Gays into an effete stereotype – if anything having a pop at stereotypical meathead blokes.
Right, this post is in place of the formerly promised one due in December – off back to sleep ’til next June now.
See ya
May 30th, 2003 - 20:46
Q: How many c***s can you get into a mini?
A: I dunno, ask Foxtons.
June 2nd, 2003 - 23:00
I’m not a big fan of that use of gay. Just seems a bit … lame. However I’ve been known to liberally use the other word. I claim that it’s due to a strong belief that the words don’t matter as much as the meaning. Maybe I’m just a rude —-er ;o).
June 2nd, 2003 - 23:08
Dave had a spectacularly offensive insult thrown his way this weekend that puts everything we’ve discussed here into the shade for sheer, unmitigated viciousness, didn’t you Dave?
June 3rd, 2003 - 00:01
hehe, yeah that he’d have me as a boyfriend!!!
June 3rd, 2003 - 00:09
Actually, that wasn’t the one I was thinking of, though I did mention to him today that if you, he and I were walking down the street together, it would still be you who was pegged as his gay lover.
June 3rd, 2003 - 08:29
the insult i received over the weekend was shocking….
i have never ever before been so insulted or for that matter been called “four eyes”
June 6th, 2003 - 07:15
I’ve been looking for a discussion of language use. Looks like I found it.
While I was in high school, I heard “that’s so gay” all the time. I was always pissed that no teacher ever called a student on it as misogynistic and racist language was not tolerated. I didn’t mind the students’ saying it, because I doubted that, in their minds, their use was connected with homosexuality, but I thought that the adults should be more sensative. Then again, it was the middle of Indiana, so maybe they didn’t care.
Anyway, once I got to college I found myself saying “that’s so breeder” in a similar context, but I really meant “breeder”. My friends, too, said this. I think it was our queer response to “that’s so gay.” Really, though I don’t mind straight people, as long as the act gay in public.