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

I spent an unfortunately large chunk of today in a bad temper. It started very nicely - lie in, tea in bed, radio on. And a show we always listen to on Saturday mornings is BBC Radio 4's Saturday Live, presented by Richard Cole. Which I was half-listening to, and feeling mellow towards, as ever, when one of the guests, Allegra McEvedy, chef, writer and broadcaster, jokingly told Richard Cole his knife sharpener was 'gay'.

I flinched.

She didn't mean his knife sharpener was attracted to knife sharpeners of the same gender. Nor did she mean it was lively and cheerful. She meant, it was rather rubbish.

I am quite strongly of the opinion that people, especially grown adults (as opposed to feral adolescents who like shocking and irritating their elders), should really not use 'gay' as a pejorative.

A little later in the programme, after clearly quite a few people had emailed in to complain, Allegra McEvedy 'apologised'. Well, actually, she did not apologise at all. She said something about being sorry IF people had been offended (if? IF? There was no ing IF about it!), and that the word's use had changed really, and everyone knew it meant 'a bit rubbish' without any homophobic intent any more.

Err, no. Not at all. No.

The thing is, Allegra McEvedy is openly gay herself, and by this I do not mean she's a bit rubbish (in fact, she's an EXCELLENT cook and foodwriter), not do I mean she's lively and jolly (though I am sure she can be). Nor do I mean she's an 18th century prostitute. No, I mean, she is a woman who is sexually attracted to women. So, if she thinks it's OK to use the word 'gay' as a pejorative, then surely it's OK for everyone else to use it like that? Yes?

Err, no.

If you hear two black teenagers refer to each other affectionately as 'n-word', does that make it OK for a white person to call either of them that word? (And look, it's SO not OK I had to fill it full of asterisks to get it through the censors). If you hear a Jew make a jokey reference to their people's alleged parsimony, does that make it OK for a Gentile to call a tight-wad 'K*k*' or 'Y*d'? (I have witnessed this last. Yes, I know it's the 21st century. No it was not OK). If you hear one woman lovingly refer to her friend as a silly slut, is it OK for a man to call a woman whose mating habits he disapproves of the same thing?

And I do not want to be told, again, that this satchel/opera-loving habit/book/KNIFE-GRINDER are 'gay', and then when I protest, be told that McEvedy said it, and she's gay, so it's OK to say gay when you actually mean 'rubbish'. I mean, she basically called HERSELF 'rubbish' on national radio, so why on earth should *I* have a problem with it?

Even if it hurts to have a part of my sexuality made equivalent to rubbish. Even if children in school who are gay, or even just not that Bobdamn macho, are being bullied and tormented by having 'gay!' shouted at them like a swear-word. Even if the loneliness, isolation, self-hatred and despair of gay teenagers in Britain is so intense that they are three to four times more likely to attempt suicide than straight teenagers. According to Stonewall, this is how bad it is in British schools: http://www.stonewall.org.uk/at_school/education_for_all/quick_links/education_resources/4004.asp

I mean, for Bob's sake, even the TELEGRAPH is printing articles saying it's really not OK to use 'gay' as a pejorative: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/personal-view/8776092/Calling-children-gay-is-just-playground-bullying.html

For those who wish to reiterate Allegra McEvedy's point that 'gay' just means 'rubbish' and that language changes, I'd like to refer you all to Ricky Gervais, yes, that Ricky, of the infamous 'mong' episode, in today's Guardian: "I was only defending it in the sense that I was sure the word had changed. And it has for a whole generation. However, if there is even a tiny chance of it still being used as a word of hate, then that's enough reason for me as a public figure to stop using it," he says now. http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2011/nov/04/ricky-gervais-lifes-too-short

So to Allegra McEvedy, and to all who defend her, I say, yes, fair enough, the meaning of the word has changed for YOU, but it has not changed for all of us, and, indeed, it has not changed for a lot of us, and we certainly do not need more people being made to feel inferior, rubbish, undesirable, because they are gay and everyone calls them gay meaning homosexual and then in the next breath calls something stupid and ugly gay as well. The meaning of the word really hasn't changed enough, not yet, not for enough people, for it to be OK to use it like that. And if Ricky Gervais, king of being Politically Incorrect and Winding People Up, can realise he was mistaken and stop using a word that hurts, then so can she.

And, for the love of crikey, 'I apologise IF anyone was offended,' when enough people were offended enough to email the BBC to complain, is weasely.

I couldn't agree more. A conditional apology is the act of a weasel, it is staggeringly insincere and it amounts to a second insult. And I say this as a citizen of a country with, apparently, much lower standards of public decorum and a much higher tolerance for blunt speech than the UK.

I totally agree. I'm really uncomfortable with 'gay'' being used as a prerogative.

Unbelievable! Such a non-apology too.

I'll probably get round to listening to that on the podcast, if they don't cut it out. Her reaction seems very childish to me.

Maybe one day it'll come full circle and gay will mean "cheerful and frivolous" again.