Does gay as a derogatory term offend you?

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BENZOOKA

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Oct 26, 2009
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Not at all. I just think it's juvenile. As well as a tell from a lack of intelligence in some cases.
 

Froggy Slayer

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Jul 13, 2012
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I have a very colourful vocabulary, but I tend to avoid gay as a demeaning term as a courtesy to the LGBT community. I think that people who use 'gay' as their exclusive word for something that they dislike are dumbshit ****-bubbling fucksticks.

personion said:
When someone says "gay", "******" or "retard" I get the urge to rip their throats out. So I suppose that counts as being offended.
Why so sensitive? Are you a gay retarded faget or something.

I'm sorry, that was mean.
 

Mr F.

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Jul 11, 2012
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Yep.

It does.

Nuff said.

Its not the term, it is the fact that the term is used.
 

KefkaCultist

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Jun 8, 2010
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No it doesn't offend me at all unless it's directed AS AN INSULT at me. Hell, I'll still say something is gay occasionally (a lot less than I used to though) and I even sometimes call my friend a ****** when he's being one (see above video).
 

Torrasque

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Aug 6, 2010
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I made a thread about this a while ago, but I'll just put my TL;DR opinion here:
I hate when it is used out of context, especially for inanimate objects like, "Man, did you see that camper with the shotgun? He has been there all game! HE KILLED ME AGAIN! THAT IS SO FUCKING GAY!"

No, it is not gay. It is stupid, annoying, retarded, etc.
In no way is his sitting there in that corner homosexual. In no way is your going over there and dying the same way repeatedly, gay.

I understand that in today's world, gay = stupid/bad; I get that society has changed that word and it's context, but that doesn't mean I have to like it or agree to it. So long as 'gay' is in the transitional stage of meaning two different things (homosexual & bad) I will try my best to not use it.

I have nothing against calling people I dislike 'faggots', but I still use that term sparingly.
Maybe I'll look for my thread later... It explains it better.
 

Relish in Chaos

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Mar 7, 2012
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Haven?t we done this song-and-dance before? Context is important, a word?s only powerful when you give it that power, blah blah. Yeah, I?m heterosexual and I use ?gay? as a light-hearted derogatory term among friends. And they liberally use ?nigga? around me and to occasionally insult me, a black person, and I don?t give a shit. It?s not as if I was in the slave trade, was I? So I have no valid reason to be offended, other than the media and everyone else saying, ?You shouldn?t say the n-word because some black people, who actually never shared the experience of slaves, might not like it.?

I do consciously rein myself back when I?m around actual gay people, though. I rarely use ?******?, though, and have all but stopped using ?tranny?, because they?re more obvious slurs.

It?s not about insecurity or homophobia (for most people, at least). It?s just that people don?t think that much about it. It?s habit. When you hear people around you using it regularly, you pick up on it and then things spill out without you really noticing the true meaning of the word. You don?t have to be sexist to make fun of your friend for ?screaming like a girl?. You don?t have to be religious to tell someone to ?go to Hell?.

Maybe I?m a dick for using it, maybe I?m not. Of course, I can?t truly know how a gay person would feel to hear someone using the name of their sexuality as an insult, but, to be honest, I just don?t care. I?ll say what I want, and to even it out, you have every right to say what you want. ?Retard?, ?coon?, ?pussy?, ?cocksucker?, ?fatty?, whatever. They?re just words.
 

Mikeyfell

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Aug 24, 2010
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It offends me. I'm not gay, but I'm still offended when people use "Gay" to mean "Bad"

The example I use to defend my stupid point is "What if I went around saying, 'Wow, (insert crappy thing here) is so Jewish.'"

On the other hand calling a person a fag, instead of asshole or douchebag doesn't bother me because the point of that is to offend and not explain an opinion. And if someone is being that much of a dickhead they're probably homophobic enough for "fag" to really get under their skin.
 

Vidiot

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May 23, 2008
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Wow... it's barely past noon and this is the second time I've been made to feel ancient.

I grew up in a small redneck town where there was no difference between "that's so gay" and "that guy is gay" when it came to word connotation. People in my high-school thought I was gay because I couldn't get a date, and as a consequence, I've been stabbed, shot at, and beaten more than I feel would have been my fair share. This attitude is no better than when my friend would have his grandpa over and he would describe things as "n*gger music, n*gger car, n*gger movie" just to name a few. He didn't directly mean anything about black people, he was expressing his distaste for that style of clothing, music, and the fact that he hated anyone with brown or darker skin had nothing to do with it in his mind.

It's an attitude that comes about when hate has boiled dry a long time ago, and all that's left is bitterness toward a particular group. The negative connotation comes from the words roots as a racial slur, otherwise it wouldn't necessarily be a negative word.

I find that these days the use of the word gay makes me just as uncomfortable as that old coot did.
 

HHammond

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Jun 28, 2011
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A little bit.

As a few people have stated, no matter how desperately you try to justify using the word in a derogatory fashion, no matter if it's that you don't really mean or the word has come to mean something, there is still some very, very unfortunate undertones. Namely, that being gay is something that is wrong. In a world where there are so many kids who feel ashamed because people tell them being gay is wrong, where kids are bullied and even kill themselves, using the word "gay" contributes and is extremely harmful.

HOWEVER, I shall now get off my soapbox and say that I do use the word very occasionally and only for comic effect. As I am gay I do occasionally use it in a sarcastic "GAAAAAAAAY!" ironic sort of way. I only do this in my circle of friends though because as a group we're all fairly... well of the 17 of us at least 6 of us have had some sort of gay/lesbian interaction.
 

TeletubbiesGolfGun

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Sep 7, 2012
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TopazFusion said:


...



...

Not really.
It's used so commonly, the term has practically lost all meaning.
Charli said:
I yell 'that's so hetrosexual' all the time, most people laugh.

So no, laugh at everything, or laugh at nothing, If a person is using it aggressively, I usually take issue with their intent, not the words they're using. In text it's more difficult to pin point so should be used very very sparingly and in company you know face to face usually.

Words are a tool to convey emotion remember, so try to pin point that emotion first before you go all 'GRRR censorship'.


Words are words are words. They're powerful, but only if you let them have that kind of power.



I'd be glad to share my negative experiences with insecure homophobic cretins to validate my point and 'street cred' but I don't think it serves much purpose, this is my own take on how I see the world, you don't have to agree with it, but I would hope it does invoke a little thought about how reacting to words negatively can increase the power they wield over you.
both of these here.

context is everything to me, you could say "shitty tit anal fuck huge gay dick in a ******" and if your context was "oh hello there, quite a lovely day, isn't it?" i would concur.

i'll pull the reigns in around people i don't know usually, unless they are in fact being a fag, then i might just troll them for lulz sake, but otherwise i couldn't care less.


"that's so heterosexual", lol, i'm going to have to find a creative way to use that...
 

LetalisK

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May 5, 2010
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I think I generally only use the term "gay" when I'm appealing to the gay stereotype[footnote]"That's a pretty magenta....wow, that was kinda gay"[/footnote].
 

Cheery Lunatic

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Aug 18, 2009
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My friends use brown as a synonym for cheap.
I don't get offended by it.

Gay isn't even in the same category anymore. I'm sure people have already said this, but words EVOLVE. Hell, no one uses it to mean "happy" anymore.

I don't use the word as an insult but frankly I get more annoyed at the people who are ohhhh so mature and look down on those lowly, immature homophobes.

Stop taking everything so seriously, jesus.
 

Purplecoyote

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Feb 10, 2010
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It can, but it depends on the context. If someone says it with the intent of wanting to call me something that would be offensive, like "useless", "idiot" or something like that. And they use "gay", like with the intent purpose of wanting to call me a bad name, then yes, I get offended because being gay is not offensive or wrong.

If my sister has trouble opening a bottle of ketchup and says something like "this bottle needs to stop being so gay", then of course I don't get offended.

Just because I call some sort of kitchen appliance a **** sometimes doesn't mean that I hate women. But I don't call people that.
 

tautologico

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Apr 5, 2010
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Overusedname said:
Hate to be that guy, but...yeah, I'll admit. Gay being synonymous with 'bad' or 'cowardly' or 'lame' has some very nasty undertones no matter how far you distance yourself from what the word really means. I don't think it's the worst thing ever, but none of my friends or family have ever used it that way, and...again, dem undertones.
Exactly. You can say "it has lost all meaning to me, it's just an insult" but this doesn't change the fundamental fact here: using "gay" as an insult equates being "gay" with being "bad" or "lame". If it's an unconscious association that you don't even notice, that's even worse. And by saying it, you are, in a little way, helping to perpetuate this idea.

Words shift and are used according to the culture, so it's pointless to try and fight everyone who uses the word, but it still means something. And I don't think it's a big offensive slur. But if you don't want to maybe hurt people who have done nothing to you, and you don't feel comfortable knowing you're helping, in a small way, to perpetuate a senseless prejudice, then don't use these words as insults.
 

CMDDarkblade

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Jun 14, 2010
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I get mildly annoyed when people say to refer to things as "gay" because seriously you can't thing of a better way to describe it, but I get offended when people directly use the word to insult people. Because in most cases when that word is used to insult people, it doesn't mean that that person is "stupid" or "lame"; it's mostly used to tell other men that they are too feminine to be real men and that they are less of a person because of it. One context is much worse than the other but it's still not a nice word to throw around carelessly as long as it still used as a word to describe homosexuals.

In fact is there a simple, non-clinical word to describe gay people without using words like "gay", "queer", or "******" that are also used as slurs? In any case there wouldn't be an easy way to separate the definitions and switch to another word to describe gay people without perpetuating the euphemism treadmill.
 

orangeban

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Nov 27, 2009
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No matter what people claim about "gay" losing it's meaning as "homosexual", it hasn't. Currently gay has two definitions.

1) A homosexual
2) A bad thing

And as long as those two definitions exist together, that means that homosexual = gay = bad thing then we have a problem. But who am I to say that it's offensive, when there are all these straight people on here informing me that, well, they don't find it offensive!
 

gnihton

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Mar 18, 2012
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orangeban said:
No matter what people claim about "gay" losing it's meaning as "homosexual", it hasn't. Currently gay has two definitions.

1) A homosexual
2) A bad thing

And as long as those two definitions exist together, that means that homosexual = gay = bad thing then we have a problem. But who am I to say that it's offensive, when there are all these straight people on here informing me that, well, they don't find it offensive!
You don't need to share someone's perspective to know that what they're saying is ridiculous.

I can understand people finding it offensive, what I don't understand is people not acknowledging that they shouldn't find it offensive. The second definition is clearly not intended for you, and the former is only used by the ignorant.

Also, if South Park's anything to go on (hurrdurr I can't be arsed to do the research) gay/****** has always meant something that people don't like, meaning that it never necessarily implied homosexuality at all, there was just a period when it was used to that end. Although, everything I've just typed could just be nonsense if that little nugget of information in that SP episode isn't actually true.