gay.

[Bob Hubbard]

I thought the saying went, "If you can't say something nice about someone, you're probably talking about Hitler."


-Rob

Actually, I can say a lot of nice things about Hitler (who took a demoralized nation from ruin to the dominant power in a few short years, abet at great human cost, and then back to ruin again just as fast). They usually annoy folks, until I say "and it's very nice that he's dead." Then we're back in agreement.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

Try this one on for size just as a comparison: "retarded."

There is nothing wrong with the word "retarded" as it applies to its medical definition; it is a label used to describe a particular condition where one's intelligence development is slowed or reduced via a medical condition. It is actually a place some parents of developmentally challenged children want for their children to be, on paper, because it means a host of procedural safeguards for their socio-economic group that they would otherwise not be entitled to even though their needs for such would be clearly defined. It is an unenviable-by-most delineation.

I'm a member of the Knights of Columbus. Every year, we don orange vests and go out to ask for money to, as our vests say "Help Retarded Children."

The money goes to the ARC. They use the term 'retarded' because the federal government does not recognize the term 'mentally disabled'. They literally, legally, have to use the word 'retarded' and therefore we do as well.

I've been chewed out by people for daring to collect money to help 'retarded' children, because it's not PC. Seriously. Even - get this - by parents of mentally disabled children. I'm collecting the money for YOUR KID.

 

[elder999]

Well,just to **** with the dominant pardigm.......

I had a kyokushin sempai-Wesley, by name. He was about 3 years older than I was, so he was 16 when we met. I went to boarding school, and didn't see much of him, but he was awesome. Then, I went away to college, and Japan, and didn't see much of him at all.....then I came back to N.Y., reconnected with some people, and Wesley, and he was ga-ay, as in drag queen gay. As in professional "danther" gay. As in shaved off eyebrows, dressed to the nines as a woman, dynamite pair of legs, swishing down the sidewalk and every man watching, CAPITAL "G" effing gay.

I'm more man than you'll ever be, and more woman than you'll ever get.

:lol:

And easily, one of the toughest people I've ever known. We worked security at parties together back in the 80's, and I once saw him take on three guys, while he was wearing a mini skirt and high heels. He carried a .357-in his purse-and he wouldn't have hesitated to use it. For all I know, maybe he did. And he died standing up like a man, even if he was gasping for breath, blind and brain-damaged from AIDs in a hospital bed. The guy measured up to every standard I've ever measured manhood by except for one, and, when I thought about it, that one wasn't very much of a measure anyway.

As for the video that inspired this thread, Jarrod-it was a fitness competition, and that's how they do it.....but, yeah, it's pretty "gay."

So what?

 

[Bill Mattocks]

I was 18 years old, just out of Marine boot camp, stationed at Camp Johnson, a part of Camp Lejeune in NC. It cost $3 to take a gypsy cab from J-ville to the base or vice-versa, and I had drunk up all my money, so I walked back to base. It was raining. I was 18, weighed 145, wore cowboy boots and a big ol' cowboy hat, I kind of stuck out.

A 72 Ford LTD slid up to the curb, a huge black man behind the wheel. He was blasting hip hop music on the stereo - remember that song "Rapper's Delight?" That one. He asked me if I wanted a ride to the main gate. I said sure and jumped in, thanked him.

I noticed he was very, very, fat. So fat that his belly went up and over the bottom of the steering wheel. And the car had no more inside door locks - they had been removed. And there were Radio Shack-style speakers duct-taped all over the inside of the car (this was way before big car stereos or woofers, that kind of thing). Then I noticed that the song "Rapper's Delight" wasn't really the song you heard on the radio. It was an x-rated version of it. Never heard it before or since. I won't go into the lyrics but they were explicit.

He asked me if I had been in NC long. I said I'd been in town about 3 weeks. He asked me if I was getting much leg. I didn't know what that meant, so I said "Huh?" He explained it meant, uh, p#*@. Oh. Well, no.

Just about that time, we slid up to the light before the last turn to Camp Johnson. He wasn't going to turn. He looked right at me and asked if I wanted a b*@ job.

I started clawing at the door handle, realized it was locked, started trying to pull up the lock, but it was missing. Finally got my fingers wedged in the hole where the rod was supposed to stick up and felt the part where it had been cut off. Somehow I wedged it up. I pulled the door open and fell out, the car had already started to move. I got up and ran like hell across the wet grass away from the car - my cowboy boots were slipping all over, I kept falling down. Like a 400 pound fat man was going to chase me down, pull my pants down and force a b*# job on me. Didn't matter, I was still terrified.

Of course, the worst part was not that. The worst part was that I recalled later that as I was trying to get the door open, I was actually responding to his question - I said "No thanks, man, that's not my scene." Not my scene? Who the hell did I think I was, John Denver? Wow, man, far out.

Thinking back on it, he might not have been gay. He might have been a pimp. Took me like ten years to figure that out.

I'm still ashamed. I mean, about the "that's not my scene" thing. Scarred for life. How lame is that? God, I'm a dork.

 

[jarrod]

So what?

exactly.

everyone is at least a little gay. i make scented candles, write poetry, & roll around with sweaty college boys a couple times a week.

pretty gay when you state it like that!

jf

 

[Bill Mattocks]

exactly.

everyone is at least a little gay. i make scented candles, write poetry, & roll around with sweaty college boys a couple times a week.

pretty gay when you state it like that!

jf

Hella gay.

 

[jarrod]

*swish*

 

[jim777]

 

[Gordon Nore]

There was an episode of WKRP where someone in referencing Les said "Queer little fellow", meaning odd. Unfortunately, Folks started thinking he was homosexual, and it wasn't a happy time for him.

In an episode of CSI a cowhand refers to a murdered Downs Syndome sufferer as "Retarded". When the same cowhand is fingered as the killer, Grissom's line is "By the way, the definition of the word "retard" is "to hinder" or "to hold someone back." I think your life is about to become 'retarded'."


Think about it.

Good point. The word "gay" and the word "retard/retarded" are often being used in the same way of late. If something is appears awkward, strange, unfamiliar, it's "gay" or "retarded. So the words have turned back to being put-downs but in a different way.

People with cognitive disabilities never chose to reclaim the word "retard" as many gays and lesbians have successfully reclaimed "gay." I cringe a little when I hear the word "retard" in the pejorative.

G

 

[Drac]

I guess the litmus test is this one: if you would be offended by someone else calling you that, then don't call anyone else that.

Call me whatever you like..Wop, Dego, Guiena, Saghetti Bender..I have heard them..You should hear some of the conversations that take place in the locker room at shift change..

 

[JadecloudAlchemist]

often used to describe something stupid or unfortunate. originating from homophobia. quite preferable among many teenage males in order to buff up their "masculinity"

Anytime you say thats gay or this is gay you are speaking in a homophobic manner because you are distinguishing between homosexual manner and masculine manner by the defination.

So ya calling things gay is coming from the orginal homophobic usuage of the word.

 

[MA-Caver]

Anytime you say thats gay or this is gay you are speaking in a homophobic manner because you are distinguishing between homosexual manner and masculine manner by the defination.

So ya calling things gay is coming from the orginal homophobic usuage of the word.

So saying "he was such a gay fellow" means he's homosexual?

It's HOW the word is used determines it's context/meaning.

Fag used to be a word for cigarette. So "smoking a fag" doesn't necessarily mean a drive-by shooting in a gay neighborhood.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

So "smoking a fag" doesn't necessarily mean a drive-by shooting in a gay neighborhood.

What goes 'clippity clop, bang. Clippity clop, bang'?

Amish drive-by.

Thanks, I'm here all week. Try the veal!

 

[JadecloudAlchemist]

So saying "he was such a gay fellow" means he's homosexual?

It's HOW the word is used determines it's context/meaning.

Fag used to be a word for cigarette. So "smoking a fag" doesn't necessarily mean a drive-by shooting in a gay neighborhood.

If you want to use the orginal meaning as

1. jovial or happy, good-spirited

But this term is rarely used today to mean this and it's slang defination of gay has proceeded the meaning.

fag 2407 up, 654 down 1. British Cigarette
2. Homosexual
3. Short for ******, a bundle of wood, once used to burn homosexuals at the stake in less enlightened times, which is where the insult comes from.

So I can not type F a g g o t but we can type F A G ?

****** (1)

1279, "bundle of twigs bound up," from O.Fr. fagot "bundle of sticks," from It. ******to, dim. of V.L. *facus, from L. fascis "bundle of wood" (see fasces). Esp. used for burning heretics (a sense attested from 1555), so that phrase fire and ****** was used to mean "punishment of a heretic." Heretics who recanted were required to wear an embroidered figure of a ****** on their sleeve, as an emblem and reminder of what they deserved.

 

[shesulsa]

Semantics, semantics, semantics.

If you want an excuse to insult someone because it *used* to mean something else, you won't get one from me.

 

[MA-Caver]

Semantics, semantics, semantics.

If you want an excuse to insult someone because it *used* to mean something else, you won't get one from me.

Well yeah... it's the intent of the word not the word itself.

 

[jim777]

Call me whatever you like..Wop, Dego, Guiena, Saghetti Bender..I have heard them..You should hear some of the conversations that take place in the locker room at shift change..

My dad used to like to say, "Call me anything you want, except late for dinner". Always smiled at that one

 

[CoryKS]

Calling bad stuff "gay" is retarded. And vice versa.

 

[astrobiologist]

Gay is not a synonym for ******...

Some band has a song with that title. I have homosexual friends and family. I love and respect them for being strong enough to be themselves, regardless of what mainstream society thinks. Yet, I catch myself once and a while saying "that's gay" in reference to something being crappy, sucky, or otherwise less than worthy. I'm not trying to insult a homosexual, just using a connotation of a word in reference of something else. I try to avoid such uses of the word, but sometimes I fall back on what I've heard so many times on Comedy Central or in film. The human mind is very impressionable.

 

[JadecloudAlchemist]

Gay is not a synonym for ******...

fag 2407 up, 654 down 1. British Cigarette
2. Homosexual
3. Short for ******, a bundle of wood, once used to burn homosexuals at the stake in less enlightened times, which is where the insult comes from.

So we can see the realtion of how Gay,Fag,F a g g o t came into the meaning in slang use today.

If people want to use the word gay as an adjective knock yourself out.

But the usuage of gay as an adjective is coming from the noun use gay which as my previous dictionay defination slang term is used in a homophobic manner.
But I presented my point and I bow out from this thread enjoy.