h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Yes, that's true. You might forgive it in the kids who just pick it up from their older siblings and don't understand what it means, but when 'gay' is used as an insult it's not a random occurrence. It's sort of like how 'sodding' and 'bugger' both had an explicitly sexual reference originally, but now they seem to have lost that. Maybe over time 'gay' as an insult will lose its sexual connotation too, but I don't see that happening right now.

The media obviously influences the vast majority of people today, especially young people, who often rely upon outside influences to define a feeling of self and an independent personality. Unfortunately, the definition of sexuality in the media is very two dimensional and leaves very little room for an honest exploration of homosexuality. It is often perceived very much as alien. I feel that, generally, people are controlled socially by television and newspapers. I feel that the exploration of our sexuality is stifled by the overwhelming guilt brought upon us by generations of homophobic peers. I also believe that many of these homosexual feelings are replaced with aggression by young men in our society. We all experience homosexuality at some point in our lives...it is human and perfectly natural...but it is perceived as unnatural by the very media we rely on to communicate truth. Or at least what we perceive to be the truth.

Gay seems to be used to refer to a particularly 'un-butch' style or behaviour, as most homosexuals do not act like Julian and Sandy, it is a derogatory term directed at a perceived group, rather than an actual group of people.

I use 'labels' in the same way I do shoe or bra sizes. It doesn't really mean much if you're just having a conversation about (or with!) bras or shoes but it's a good place to start if you are looking to buy something in particular.

I'm looking for a certain type of partner, and it's handy to know whether the person I'm interested in is actually likely to be interested in me. So it's really useful to know that one of the blokes I used to work with who has me weak at the knees is gay, because it means that I know that friends is all it can be.

>>Gay seems to be used to refer to a particularly 'un-butch' style or behaviour<<

I agree quite resolutely. I thought it was extremely interesting that the winner of the Playing It Straight show on Channel 4 last night was the most "straight-acting" (quite literally) gay guy I've ever seen. Even I thought that the No.1-cut, trimmed-beard guy was the gay one. Shows that you can't ever judge a book by its cover.

I also thought it was quite touching for him to share the money he won with the woman. The show proves beyond doubt that stereotypes of homosexual men are exactly that - stereotypes.

With gay being used an adjective, I think it's one of those words where the two meanings (homosexual and crap/bad) will become unconnected. A while ago I was in the pub with a friend and we were chatting about something and he said it was gay, meaning bad. I gave him a very dirty look and it was only then he realised what he'd said and apologised profusely. The thing is he'd never associated gay as in my sexuality with gay as in bad, the link had never in his life occured to him and I know plenty of people who've acted in the same way. Although it's still pretty nasty in its origins, I think gay in the bad sense will start to lose it's offensiveness to gay people.
>>Gay seems to be used to refer to a particularly 'un-butch' style or behaviour<<
The funniest back-handed compliment I get is "You can't be gay, you're too masculine" it just gives me a chance to be so witty, I love it
Iago
P.S Thanks for the applause and praise, it's nice to have my ego massaged once in a while

I supose I should apologise in advance for any offence which the things I describe bellow may cause.

I'm guilty of using gay in a derogatory sense, although mostly I use pouff or pouffy. After seeing LoTR:RotK I complained that after Aragorn/Vigo Mortensen had brushed his hair he looked gay, but I didn't mean he looked like a homosexual. Actually my specific words went along the lines of 'Year I'd f**k Aragorn, but not after he brushed his hair, he looked gay' Yet I'd leap into bed with Brian Molko without a second thought, and he does actually look gay.

EMR: I rather suspect that the whole sexuality conversation is more common for your environment than it is in general. I understand that you are an adolescent, and you and your peers are dealing with hormone levels that could kill some of the rest of us. Sex is on your minds constantly, and learning about sex and sexuality is pretty important at this stage. Figuring out the sexuality of the people around you can be valuable information when figuring out your own. There probably isn't an adolescent in existence who hasn't at least considered that they might be gay, and knowing how the people around would react to that is rather important.

As for the word "gay" as an adjective, I've used it. I don't use it to mean "crap," I use it to mean "gay." Homosexuals have created their own subculture, with certain identifying characteristics. If I say something is gay, I'm saying it has properties reminiscent of the gay subculture. I don't think there is any issue with that usage.

Blatherskite

We don't really talk about our sexuality among my peers. It's sort of assumed everyone's straight... and if you're not, and you want to deal with it, you go hang out with the gay crowd, which is fairly prominent at my school.

I don't have any problem with using 'gay' to mean, well, 'gay', but it's very common here (maybe not as much in the UK) to use it, as you said, to mean 'crap' or 'screwed up', and that is something I would take issue with.

EMR, I think it's great that there's now a gay crowd at school!

In my day (and I'm only 23) if you were a gay teenager, you spent your time either pretending to be straight, and probably bullied because you were different.

I think that's one of the advantages of labels: if you are the only person you know who fancies people of the same gender or sex then you are going to feel odd. If you know that this means you are gay it's slightly less confusing, you know that you're not alone. You know what it means and you know what to do about it.

I've also seen similar things in medicine, often there's nothing a can do for a condition other than say 'this is called disease X and there's nothing much we can do,' - but a lot of the time people are relived that their disease has a name. Diagnosing and naming a disease can make a big difference to a patient, even if there's nothing you can do to treat it.

One of the problems with using 'gay meaning pants' is that it means that soon the word gay will loose it's positive meaning. At the moment a lot of people who fancy people of the same sex/gender choose to describe them selves as 'gay' because it stands for 'good as you' and doesn't have any negative connitations.

If gay starts to have negative connitations then it will be difficult for people who want to use a positive term to decsribe their sexualitly. Homosexual is a medical conditon, Queer is only really PC if used by, well, Queer, people themselves, and is more an umbrella term than 'gay' which is more specfic, Lesbian, obviously only works for women.

I'd assume some kind of equality with 'camp' might have led to the usage of 'gay' as meaning 'relatively weak'.
Unfortunately, as one of the few expressions of male same-sexuality that was permitted in some areas even when homosexuality *was* illegal, the 'camp' image is one that would be tailor-made for stereotyping even without quite a few people playing up to it either within a particular scene or more widely. Stopping a widespread mental linkage between 'gay' and 'camp' is quite a task.

I guess another problem with a single-syllable word with reasonably understandable associations is that like many other terms, it is prone to adoption for wider uses in a flexible language like English.

If someone can describe a particular piece of technology as 'gay', and someone else who's never heard the term used *in anything like that particular context* before can immediately understand it to mean "not exactly bleeding edge", or "usable, but rather underpowered", it does have some actual *communication value* that many other words don't have, so it's not pure homophobia that is the enemy of people who would have the word used otherwise.

'Butch' is also used to describe machines, etc, and with a largely opposite meaning to 'gay', but it doesn't necessarily conjure up images of sexuality in the minds of most users.
If someone says "butch power supply" to me, I get mental images of overspecced power transistors, thick copper busbars, and hefty inductors, not short-haired women in dungarees.

PS - I do accept I'm neither remotely normal, nor vaguely representative, but I can only speak for my own mental images.

>>'gay' because it stands for 'good as you'<<
I'd never heard this one - it's quite funny. I use gay just because it means I am a man who sleeps with men, I don't care about the other meanings. When people start complaining about how using gay as sad is derogatory to gay people, they never think about the original meaning of gay. When gay meant happy or light-hearted (the negative meaning only started rearing its head when I came out at 15) was that a positive comparison to gay people? If so it's one that's passed me by.

Having a friend called Gay (ie its her name) I resent the way the word has been usurped - Especially since I tried calling her across a crowded railway platform.

Well, it's better than trying to identify someone you *don't know* who's called Gay. "Excuse me, but are you...

Reminds me of a time years ago when wlaking down a mountain, trying to pass a message to an unknown man expected to be in one of many small groups walking up who was called 'Randy'.

Even though there are countless unambiguous ways of phrasing a question, they tend to be easy to lose in the sickly fog of potential embarrassment. Your brain knows *exactly* what not to say, and then goes ahead and says it anyway.

I bought a copy of the (rather excellent) film Shaun of the Dead recently and I was listening to the commentary from the director and the lead actor, Simon Pegg.

In the film, the lead launches his rescue attempt to save his girlfriend from the marauding zombies. His sidekick asks why and Pegg replies "because I love her". The sidekick stops, reflects and says "Alright. GAY!"

At this point in the commentary, the director explains the use of the phrase. He says that he always found it strange how heterosexual boys at school expressing their affection for girls was classed as being "gay". It's not because these boys ARE gay but more to do with the fact that they're in touch with their feelings.

I find that point very interesting and certainly a reflection of much more of an historic interpretation of "gay". Nowadays, it tends to mean, quite literally, homosexual but also that things are 'bad'. I find it slightly offensive because one 'could' interpret this to mean that being gay is 'bad'. Perhaps, though, there is a clear distinction.

>>At this point in the commentary, the director explains the use of the phrase. He says that he always found it strange how heterosexual boys at school expressing their affection for girls was classed as being "gay". It's not because these boys ARE gay but more to do with the fact that they're in touch with their feelings<<
This just reminded me of a very funny incident while I was at 6th form college. A lad had turned down a night with his mates to spend sometime with his girlfriend. They all called him gay, at which point I burst out laughing. The most amusing thing was it took them ages to see the contradiction in what they were saying

I love the people that try and insult me with things like; "Urgh, you're a dyke!" I have to laugh at them, before responding with something along the lines of; "Yeah and you're a greasy, stupid moron with the intelligence of a cornflake. Whats your point?" It doesn't bother me if people have nothing better to do than try and put me in a pigeon hole just because of who I sleep with, at the end ofthe day, thats only a tiny part of my life, I'm also an incredible geek when it comes to Buffy, a good friend and, I think, a nice person so if people are going to make a decision on me based purely on who I sleep with then thats up to them but if thats the most important thing they can think of to say about me then either I need more of a life or I don't need someone so shallow in it.

Who you sleep with is relevant to you and the other person in your bed. There are many sexual activities that other people do that I either am not into, don't agree with or don't like but if its between two consenting adults in the privacy of your own home, what business is it of anyone elses?