Just to add spice to the argument, I'd submit that, as a whole, western culture has become a lot more androgynous over the last quarter century. So, I don't think those insults present the same level of innuendo as they used to.
I wonder how homosexuals feel about...
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This is definitely true. I think they're on their way out, bit by bit, but, then again, there's a strong current in the US towards hard and fast gender specific guidelines that most of the population doesn't even fit into.
I know, personally, I like it a lot more when I'm called "pretty" than I do being called "handsome".
Of course, I'm mistaken for gay all the time. I like pretty clothes, I cry at sad things, and I don't laugh at farts.
I don't fit into the the little box Crash was talking about. You pay a social price for abandoning the mold.
I get it when it's a joke. Still ... i don't like it.
I'm saying that a guy who looks like a girl isn't going to be judged on the look so much as what that look must mean. A girl who looks like a guy is ugly, but a guy who looks like a girl is obviously gay and effeminate.
I'm with Shameless here. I'm not one of "the oversensitive gays", and feel there are a lot worse things people could say that would be worth feeling insulted over.
Still, it's basically using what I am as a demeaning and/or derogatory epithet. Doesn't really give one a warm and fuzzy feeling when people say it.
This.
^ Yeah. I'm a heterosexual female, so I'm no expert or anything, but it seems to me that although I am sure most people who use it don't mean it seriously, well...how can it be a good idea to take a word that ordinarily refers to a group of people - any group of people - and use it as a synonym for "bad in some way"?
The phrase "That's gay" has become a regular part of everyday culture that it doesn't even have anything to do with homosexuality. It basically means stupid.
I disagree. Words don't exist in a cultural vacuum, and given the current political and social climate in the United States it's pretty clear what the implication is, as I outlined above.
Try it and find out.
Let's all try it. The survivors can return and report the results.
Nonsense. Never heard of the phrase "tomboy", have you? A girl who works in a machine shop is generally regarded as less feminine by some people. Girls are just as much judged on both behaviour and looks as guys are.
On topic: The gays I know have no problem whatsoever with calling something "gay"; they do it themselves. Not only that, but calling something gay has little to do with homosexuality, and everything with looking like a drag queen. It's a common misconception that gays have to flap their hands, have to walk ultra-feminine and have to wear makeup. That's nonsense.
It is right up there with Thats Quier.
I think people from the dawn of time had gay people to content with and its only recently histyory wise we even care.
The Romans were gay for god sake.
I think people from the dawn of time had gay people to content with and its only recently histyory wise we even care.
The Romans were gay for god sake.
Wait...the Romans were homosexual, happy or stupid?
I'm sure they had their fair share of all those traits.
I agree, but that's not the only pejorative meaning it has acquired.
Sometimes it's used to mean effeminate, or womanish, or dandyish--presumably because these are all negative stereotypes associated with gay men.
I usually avoid using 'gay' in either sense, but I do recall using it once, years ago, when I was a student, in a conversation with my housemate. She was giving away some old quilts, and asked if I was interested. Sure, I said.
"How about this one?" she asked, showing me one that was covered with a flower pattern.
"Dude," I said disapprovingly. We were all watching a lot of South Park at the time, and it had a marked effect on our conversations.
"What?" she said.
"Gay," I said.
"What?" she said. "How is this gay?"
"Not for you," I explained.
"Oh," she said, catching on. She put it down and picked up another. "Well, how about this? Nice manly plaid?"
"Much better," I said.
What I find especially interesting about this, in retrospect, is that I wouldn't even contemplate sleeping with a flowery quilt, but I thought nothing of carrying my discman in what was essentially a man-purse. I was mocked regularly for that, by young males in passing cars, but it didn't stop me. Some aspects of your socialization are harder to shake than others, it seems.
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