I was doing my comments for the latest set of ski pictures, and was commenting on this picture of Ross.
I had originally commented
... He probably forgot he was managing to look particularly gay in pictures this whole holiday.
I had made similar comments in the previous set about Ross managing to look particularly gay in many of the photos from this trip.
After a bit of thought, I mailed Razorhead asking him
I’ve got a question for you. My one mate managed to look particularly gay in most of the pictures with him in. I’ve commented as such in some of the pictures of himNow, he may not actually look gay in the pictures (I’m still straight, whom I too say), and we’re just joking around, but I was wondering (as I commented on another picture in the skiing set I’m currently working on) if I am actually being offensive.
I mean, we joke all the time “that’s so gay” “you look so gay” etc etc. And I’m not homophobic and I don’t mean anything offensive by it. However I can tell the difference between a funny Jewish comment/joke and a anti-semitic Jewish comment/joke. But I’m not so sure if I can in other areas.
So, am I being offensive? Or is it taken in the spirit it’s written? Which is just a bit of fun?
Razor answered in his own
The answer to this is yes and no. I am reminded of the line where, meeting for the first time after speaking on the phone, one person says to the other, "but you don't *sound* black".There is this delicate line between what is inclusive banter and subtle insult. That is so gay," I find terribly insulting since it is used to mean that is so bad. So gay equals bad in the same way Irish meant stupid in the nearly identical, "that is a bit Irish".
"You look so gay," is not necessarily offensive, but probably just lazy. What the speaker means to say is, "you look so camp." You can be camp without being homosexual. You can be homosexual without being a mincing queen.
Once I worked in a place where the boss and a colleague were old school friends who used the, "that's so gay" frequently until one day I interrupted, "that's not gay; I am." They stopped using it then.
If you, in a conversation with me, said I looked so gay and weren't being nasty, well that's fine and funny, because I am and I will tell you directly if you overstepped the mark. I'd enjoy it too: it would be inclusive then, you would be sharing in my world in a way which wouldn't have happened a decade ago.
But if you were standing near me heard me and my WASP mates calling someone a bit of a Jew meaning they were tight with their cash, well, that would be just wrong, wouldn't it? I would be exclusive and I'd be meaning it in a bad way.
Now I have to categorically agree with Razor. Although I'm not intending to insulting, although I'm not homophobic or anti gay, and although I mean nothing by it, I am still being offensive. I would take offence (and I do) when similar comments are made in a Jewish context (although it has been said (and refuted) that I'm so Jewish).
So I went through my pictures comments and changed all references to GAY to CAMP and it actually worked much better. Also was no longer insulting.
I'm also going to endeavour to stop saying things like "that's so gay", "you're so gay", "you look so gay" in my normal day to day conversation too. If anyone catches me doing in, please call me on it. I'll use camp where appropriate and say nothing where its not.
After all, anyone you can come up with the term mincing queen deserves not to be insulted. It sounds like a single Abba should have released and I chuckle every time I read it.
1. Matthew
That’s like, so gay.
Remember in the like, the 50’s or something (ok so I don’t actually remember the 50’s but allow me some licence) when ‘gay’ had a totally different meaning? Whereas now even in the dictionary,the meaning of ‘gay’ is given first as ‘homosexual’ and second and subsequently as it’s original meaning. No-one ever says ‘I’m so gay’ anymore when they’re happy. Unless they’re gay.
This is kinda sorta totally off-topic but I’m bored in work at 10.30-ish in the pm.
2. razorhead
‘gay’ has had lots of meanings. The OED states that in 1925, when used of a woman, it meant ‘prostitue’. It was first used as an adjective to mean homosexual men in 1935.— but word meaning change all the time.
3. Em
I think it’s pretty subjective really, it depends on the temprement of the person you either say it to or in the presence of.
I guess it also depends on the person’s mood at the given time. I think everyone has something about them that they get wound up about sometimes, some days it effects them, other days it doesn’t.
4. Adrian
ah but this isn’t about the person, it’s about the term. Ross isn’t gay, and Ross certainly would be offended.
It’s about the term, and the term is offensive. As it makes the statement that being “so gay” is being “effeminate” or “not manly” or “not as good as not being gay”
5. Destructor
Well, certainly when one says that Ross looks ‘totally gay’, it’s not meant as an insult. Just that his buns look good in lycra.
I think a dose of common sense and humour is vital in all human interaction, particularly amongst friends. It’s not at all unknown for me to burst into a room and yell: “Whazzup ma niggaz?!?” This is light years away from actually using that term with intent to cause offence, which I have never and would never do. The vast majority of humour is derived from things that, out of context, would be incredibly offensive, and a good portion of those things arise from cultural differences.
Sometimes the lines do get blurred, and that’s when communication is required, but I think the world would become a pretty grey place if all humour that referenced culture, race, religion or sexuality was dropped, for fear that it might offend someone- because all humour (because, you know, saying Ross looks gay is the height of humour) offends someone.
You wouldn’t want political correctness to, oh, I don’t know, “go mad” or anything.
6. Adrian
Aah but what if there was a black guy in the room, when you yelled “Whazzup ma niggaz?” … you may not intend offend, and he may know you are only joking but he may still find it uncomfortable.
And whilst I agree with you, that humour and the ability to laugh at ones self is important, it is equally important to know the root of where slurs come from, and how you may be harmless in what you say other people may not mean.
For example, Craig was telling him how he was at the bar the other night at two people toasted by saying “Le chayim , More Money, Le chayim, More Money”. Craig turned around and asked them on this, and they believed that the toast Le Chayim meant more money. They weren’t Jewish. (The toast means, “to life”)
Now somewhere along the road someone had obviously made a statement that these guys heard, or told them that Le Chayim is how the Jews toast and it means they are toasting for more money.
As Razor said, if I told him that he was “soo gay” then that’s cool, because in context it’s just a bit of a laugh. But if I am saying Ross is looking “sooo gay” when I really mean camp, what I am saying is that being gay is a bad that because obviously Ross wouldn’t want to look gay.
The same way the best Jewish jokes come from Yids, I would expect the best gay jokes to come from gay people.
However I’m not gay, and by saying on my web site, a public published forum, that someone is “soo gay”, or “looking gay”, I think I’m bordering the wrong side of a line, a line that someone who is homophobic could take to mean “looks like a fucking faggot” and that’s not the side of the line I want to be on.
Coming from an inherently raciest country, I’ve seen too many people be raciest thinking they weren’t that they were being perfectly acceptable. Calling the maid, “the girl” for example. I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to think I’m not homophobic, while at the same time using something that is offensive to someone who would be gay.
Which is why I’m trying to change here, as after thought, there are better ways to say things than “that’s soo gay”.
7. razorhead
I’m not offended by gay jokes. I’m not really offended by insults, intended or not - mostly I find them pathetic and they don’t come close to the bile spewed by the Church or the Tories.
I can feel nice and comfortable like this because it is generally the case that homophobia is considered a bad thing. But lately things have been getting worse: I’ve been spat and sworn at more by younger and younger people which is a change that worries me although I’ve not had a hiding for long time.
It is the small words that make people subhuman and open to attack. My parents called daft things, “a bit Irish,” a dirty person would be “a filthy arab,” and a black person would just be a “wog.” If you asked my parents, they really, really didn’t mean to be insulting; it was just the language used. Of course, this is awful, terrible language and they don’t speak like this anymore, but not using it doesn’t mean that you can’t have laff at Father Ted.
“That’s so gay,” is relatively new one on me, though I’ve been hearing it more and more. What the speaker means is, “that’s so shit”. That’s nice, does that mean when I say “I am gay,” my audience is hearing, “I am shit person?”
Frankly, if everyone keeps using it, then so what. People talk about what I am in far worse terms than that. It is sometimes hard for people who, well, lets just call them ‘sensible people,’ like the readers of sevitz, to quite appreciate that the rest of the country isn’t quite so abivalent. One neighbour, when he twigged what I was (I’m a big lad and I’m not camp or effeminate - it took him sometime to twig) told me not to acknowledge him in the street on pain of a slap.
Why this style of language gets up my nose, and why -incidently- Graham Norton irrates the hell out of me, is exactly why the role-reversal in L.Britain is so funny: it makes me a different kind of person to you when really I’m not (with the possible exception that Eurovision is the hightlight of my year).
When Adrian (who could probably say anything by now and I’d take it in jest) or anyone bothers to wonder if they are being just a bit crass, well, it means a lot.
8. Angelgurl
I love the site.If you are hetero you are not defined by the term,so why should you define a gay person by their sexual orientation.I have also known gay* men who appear to look straight and straight men who appear to look gay*
*gay:stereo-type of what a homosexual homosapien looks like(not the opinion of the contributor)
9. Gordon
It’s all about context.
In the company of one of my closest friends and his partner they happily accept it when I say something like “ohh don’t ask the poofs” for they know I am saying it in jest.
I wouldn’t even THINK about saying it if out in public.
As razorhead says, that pause where you consider what you are saying and to whom you are saying it is all important. Make no doubt, when I see someone who is a different colour from me, or in a wheelchair, or is female (i.e. NOT a white hetero male) I DO notice. It’s how my brain reacts to that that makes the difference. If that makes sense.
P.S. I’ve had a draft post about this very topic that I’m not happy enough with. I end up spending more time assuring readers that I’m not homophobic, rascist, sexist etc etc than I do discussing the main issue!!
P.P.S. I am a snob though. ;-)
10. Destructor
Adrian notices when someone is female, as well. Usually by whipping out a camera and taking a photo of them.
11. Angelgurl
I actually was out once,this guy was staring at me and I said under my breath”Take a picture it’ll last longer”.I seen him pull out a camera and take a picture of me!There is no way he could have heard me,I was so silent.It was all kind of creepy and weird!
Anyways Ciao 4 Now
12. Princess of Darkness
Sevitz, you are a very special person. And I mean that without a hint of sarcasm.