Gender and Sexuality in Star Trek

[Marie1]

If sexuality is not relevant, why so many stories about heterosexual relationships?

Sex sells. Or it did before "free exchange" the Internet created...

Re: that product description, I'm not sure I consider ENT "commercial and aesthetic failure" and if it was, I don't think it had to do with sexuality...

 

[Steve Roby]

All these posts and no one's mentioned the classic WKRP episode in which Les Nessman is banned from a local sports team's locker room after someone misunderstands someone else calling him a queer little fellow. What has happened to our '70s and '80s pop cultural literacy?

 

[Marie1]

^Mostly before I was born?
Sorry buddy, had to.
It's a big backlog of stuff!

 

[ST-One]

The issue is not how a few academics use "queer," but how the majority of the US English speakers use it.

It is derogatory, almost as derogatory, specifically against homosexuality, as "faggot." Practically no one would call a simple eccentric "queer."

You. Are. Wrong.

"Queer" is perfectly okay.

 

[Harvey]

I can only speak from personal experience, but "queer" as a derogatory term just hasn't been part of the vernacular where I've lived. Outside of gay friends self-identifying as such, the only time I've noticed the term is in Hammett's The Maltese Falcon, when Sam Spade uses it in a derogatory fashion towards Joel Cairo (the line is absent from the 1941 filmed version). That is hardly grounds for "how the majority of the US population uses it."

And if we're to dismiss "queer" upon those grounds, how is "gay" still justifiable? I've certainly heard, "that's so gay" and equivalents far more often than the word "queer" in any context. Hell, it pops up in the trailer for Ron Howard's latest movie as if it's nothing!

Anecdotally, friends and I (all, I must confess, very white) use "honky" all the time. Because, honestly, with all the unearned social privilege that comes with being white in this country, who gives a damn if someone calls me a honky?

 

[stj]

Self use by a few homosexuals et al. is irrelevant. The whole point is that it is self-deprecating, no matter what they think. This is very much like trying to explain to a young African American that "nigger" has a negative meaning that doesn't go away just because they don't mean it in a negative way. Again, "gay" itself is now derogatory. It's not because "gay" people want it to be derogatory. Usage is demotic, not decreed.

In any event, it is absurd that people use English usage in Germany or amongst personal circles including gay friends as the standard. My experience with native speakers of English, including supposedly straight circles, is that queer is derogatory. You survey the people who don't like homosexuals for insults to homosexuals! If the masses of gay people are self-identifying as queers, it would have leaked into the mass media by now. TV, including news, eschews "queer" because communications is their business and they know it is an insult. If I am merely caught in a backwards area, I'll see "queer" in a self-identified way popping up there. Until there are scientific surveys, the masses of self-identified queers are merely alleged.

 

[Stevil2001]

^ Exactly. This is why there are no television shows in the popular media with titles like Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.

 

[Sci]

Self use by a few homosexuals et al. is irrelevant.

Right, because actual gay people don't get to decide what they can be called. Their opinion doesn't matter.

The whole point is that it is self-deprecating, no matter what they think.

Fascinating. You're saying that someone is actually saying something they aren't saying, even if they say they're not saying it.

This is very much like trying to explain to a young African American that "nigger" has a negative meaning that doesn't go away just because they don't mean it in a negative way.

And I'd say that that's their business and not any business of a non-African American. A community gets to decide for itself what it wants to call itself or be called; it's not the business of anyone outside that community.

 

[ST-One]

Self use by a few homosexuals et al. is irrelevant. The whole point is that it is self-deprecating, no matter what they think. This is very much like trying to explain to a young African American that "nigger" has a negative meaning that doesn't go away just because they don't mean it in a negative way. Again, "gay" itself is now derogatory. It's not because "gay" people want it to be derogatory. Usage is demotic, not decreed.

In any event, it is absurd that people use English usage in Germany or amongst personal circles including gay friends as the standard. My experience with native speakers of English, including supposedly straight circles, is that queer is derogatory. You survey the people who don't like homosexuals for insults to homosexuals! If the masses of gay people are self-identifying as queers, it would have leaked into the mass media by now. TV, including news, eschews "queer" because communications is their business and they know it is an insult. If I am merely caught in a backwards area, I'll see "queer" in a self-identified way popping up there. Until there are scientific surveys, the masses of self-identified queers are merely alleged.

As Pine-Kirk would say: "Bullshit."

 

[stj]

^ Exactly. This is why there are no television shows in the popular media with titles like Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.

The self-sterotyping on that show got on my last nerve. Frankly, I can't think of a better example of self-deprecation. There has long been a place for stereotyped effeminate entertainers, so long as they know their place. You also forgot Queer as Folk, but that title was a double entendre on an old saying. I suppose Showtime counts as mass media?

Even the trendies are trotting out LGBTQ, instead of just making the language simpler with the supposedly reclaimed queer. Even the proponents try to claim queer is an inclusive term. The Urban dictionary, wouldbe online arbiter of the trendy, explains that queer is applied by some to heterosexuals, such as fetishists. Even so it still cautions that queer is an epithet. Homosexual men embarrassed at being forthrightly gay can now blur their homosexuality with the more tactful queer! That's not progress, folks.

And a so-called community that includes bondage heterosexuals isn't a community which makes the claim the queer "community" can call itself what it wants blatant drivel.

 

[Steve Roby]

And a so-called community that includes bondage heterosexuals isn't a community which makes the claim the queer "community" can call itself what it wants blatant drivel.

In your recent posts I haven't been able to understand your point but I've at least been able to understand your sentences. This one defeated me.

 

[Stevil2001]

^ Exactly. This is why there are no television shows in the popular media with titles like Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.

The self-sterotyping on that show got on my last nerve. Frankly, I can't think of a better example of self-deprecation. There has long been a place for stereotyped effeminate entertainers, so long as they know their place. You also forgot Queer as Folk, but that title was a double entendre on an old saying. I suppose Showtime counts as mass media?

I've actually never even seen the show. But its very existence would seem to contradict your assertion that "TV, including news, eschews 'queer' because communications is their business and they know it is an insult." As, indeed, would Queer as Folk. I don't know how many people watch Showtime, but if 1.5 million people can be found who like Stargate Universe, it's got to be more than that, and that seems "mass" enough for me in this decentralized modern world.

 

[Harvey]

There's also, if you still want to consider Showtime (and why wouldn't you consider it a part of mass-media?), the animated series Queer Duck.

 

[ST-One]

^ Exactly. This is why there are no television shows in the popular media with titles like Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.

The self-sterotyping on that show got on my last nerve. Frankly, I can't think of a better example of self-deprecation. There has long been a place for stereotyped effeminate entertainers, so long as they know their place. You also forgot Queer as Folk, but that title was a double entendre on an old saying. I suppose Showtime counts as mass media?

Even the trendies are trotting out LGBTQ, instead of just making the language simpler with the supposedly reclaimed queer. Even the proponents try to claim queer is an inclusive term. The Urban dictionary, wouldbe online arbiter of the trendy, explains that queer is applied by some to heterosexuals, such as fetishists. Even so it still cautions that queer is an epithet. Homosexual men embarrassed at being forthrightly gay can now blur their homosexuality with the more tactful queer! That's not progress, folks.

And a so-called community that includes bondage heterosexuals isn't a community which makes the claim the queer "community" can call itself what it wants blatant drivel.

Are you unwilling or unable to understand it; Homosexuals. Don't. Have. A. Problem. With. The. Word. "Queer".

 

[Gepard]

Fascinating. You're saying that someone is actually saying something they aren't saying, even if they say they're not saying it.

Welcome to stj Argumentation 101. Please have a seat in the BSG forum.

 

[JoeZhang]

It's a good thing you are here to put everyone straight.

 

[Csalem]

^ Exactly. This is why there are no television shows in the popular media with titles like Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.

The self-sterotyping on that show got on my last nerve. Frankly, I can't think of a better example of self-deprecation. There has long been a place for stereotyped effeminate entertainers, so long as they know their place. You also forgot Queer as Folk, but that title was a double entendre on an old saying. I suppose Showtime counts as mass media?

I've actually never even seen the show. But its very existence would seem to contradict your assertion that "TV, including news, eschews 'queer' because communications is their business and they know it is an insult." As, indeed, would Queer as Folk. I don't know how many people watch Showtime, but if 1.5 million people can be found who like Stargate Universe, it's got to be more than that, and that seems "mass" enough for me in this decentralized modern world.

Worth bearing in mind that Queer as Folk was originally a UK programme, created by Russel T Davies and broadcast on Channel 4, one of the five terrestrial channels so it was pretty mainstream there. (Also, the show was originally called Queer as F**k, but became Folk before filming started.)

 

[Smitty]

Sigh, this thread gives me a headache

 

[Scout101]

Are you unwilling or unable to understand it; Homosexuals. Don't. Have. A. Problem. With. The. Word. "Queer".

I'm not gay, but will say that it was pretty off-putting to me, reading the synopsis. Can call yourselves whatever you want, but if the book was looking for any more mainstream attention than just the gay community, better phrasing could probably been used. If the intended audience is only gays, and then only ones interested in it from a scholarly perspective, fine, but that's a pretty small market, I'd imagine.

First, the synopsis just used the word A LOT. Once or twice probably wouldn't have been so bad, but it was there enough to be noticible, which struck me as odd. And again, others may well be fine with it, but it struck me as out of place, and turned me off to any further interest. To me personally, it read about the same as if it had been saying it was about "fag relationships" in Star Trek. Another word that's used plenty in the communities, but just as out of place in the sentence...

In the context of the writing, i was expecting to see things described as either 'homosexual', or 'same-sex', i suppose.

 

[ST-One]

Are you unwilling or unable to understand it; Homosexuals. Don't. Have. A. Problem. With. The. Word. "Queer".

I'm not gay, but will say that it was pretty off-putting to me, reading the synopsis. Can call yourselves whatever you want, but if the book was looking for any more mainstream attention than just the gay community, better phrasing could probably been used. If the intended audience is only gays, and then only ones interested in it from a scholarly perspective, fine, but that's a pretty small market, I'd imagine.

First, the synopsis just used the word A LOT. Once or twice probably wouldn't have been so bad, but it was there enough to be noticible, which struck me as odd. And again, others may well be fine with it, but it struck me as out of place, and turned me off to any further interest. To me personally, it read about the same as if it had been saying it was about "fag relationships" in Star Trek. Another word that's used plenty in the communities, but just as out of place in the sentence...

In the context of the writing, i was expecting to see things described as either 'homosexual', or 'same-sex', i suppose.

Since 'we' don't have a problem with the word, why do you?
There is a difference between 'fag' and 'queer': 'fag' is still an insult, whereas if you used 'queer' no one would bat an eye.