This morning, I noticed on Facebook that a friend of mine
had liked a status which made my blood boil. It concerned the current status of
the word ‘gay’. As I only just decided to write about this I have to recall the
status and its reception from memory:
‘I’m pretty tired of
people saying it’s wrong to use the phrase “That’s so gay”. The meaning of
words evolve over time and this phrase is following the trend. Using such a
phrase is evolution, not homophobia’
The first thing wrong with that statement, is that gay was a
word created as an acronym for ‘Good As You’ by the earliest waves of the gay
rights movement in the 1960s. Secondly, from my own putrid experiences of
people using the aforementioned term; it is mostly straight people who use such
a slur when describing something bad. The majority of humanity are heterosexual
and therefore they have desecrated this phrase to becoming the shadow of its
former self.
I’ve touched upon how using this slur is ‘watered down
homophobia’ before in my article ‘Why I am a Straight Man for Gay Rights’ which
I wrote for Gay Star News. I won’t go into too much detail here on why I think
it’s homophobic to use this slur because it’s quite clearly put in the article.
And it is for that sole purpose that I will post this
beautiful photo of James Franco, which helped me gain so many hits on GSN. (And
because he’s been my most recent obsession with my discovery of the outstanding
Freaks and Geeks).
Returning to the reception of this status – another comment
concerned how gay is not being recalled in its definition like the terms ‘bitch’
and ‘slut’ are by Third Wave Feminism. I certainly agree that the SlutWalk is
making an excellent job on this, but I don’t see anything happening within the
gay movement to make a word of pride and self respect into a term for hatred
and bigotry. So if you ever see a ‘GayWalk’ marching for you to use this slur,
please let me know about it.
But what stood out for me in the reception of this status,
is this comment:
‘People obviously can’t think of any new insults to use and
therefore must resort to the most commonly offensive words.’
Now this is something I’ve been keen on for many years now. Insults
are an excellent way of expressing your anger and help to relieve stress when
we need to chill out. But what makes them most surprising and hilarious is not
their delivery, but the vocabulary you use when telling someone how disgusted
you are.
Using just a few of the phrases deemed ‘most offensive’ by
society is just plain lazy. The English language is the most advanced language
in the world with thousands of new words coming into use every minute of every
day. We have tons upon tons of luscious verbal gems that can be used to express
just how truly treacherous life is for us. So next time you’re trolling someone
on twitter or thinking of leaving an enemy dumbfounded, consult a dictionary
beforehand and amaze them with words they may never had heard in common usage. Be
creative for once. People are scared easily by things they don’t understand and
that’s the best way to break someone or something if they have made your life
utter hell.
With that said, I’ll leave the almighty (and very gay) Stephen Fry to give us a tirade of the finest insults imaginable:
