GayGamer.net has a lot to answer for

[Space Spoons]

I'm completely against using "gay" as an insult, but I do think GayGamer.net is overreacting a bit here. It's pretty obvious that Mr. Grace was using the term in the modern pejorative sense. I sincerely doubt he intended it to be a slight against homosexuals.

It was a stupid thing of him to say, sure, but accusing him of being homophobic is a bit much. If he's guilty of anything, it's casual ignorance.

 

[guntotingtomcat]

He used the word gay as a negative verb. That's pretty offensive, and the fact that it's done so casually makes it tragic. The fact that it has to be discussed at all is even worse.

I'm afraid we don't get to decide whether or not it's offensive anyway. If it offends anyone, it is by definition offensive.

 

[Azure-Supernova]

Okay, well this just further enforces my belief that certain people within minorities feel the need to overreact to every comment that might even be considered offensive to their respective community.

As for the people who ignorantly deny the addded definition of 'Gay', you can't equate slang to 'proper English'. By the logic that language can't evolve, I'd like to revoke America's rights Football, Fall, Bill, Paddle, Thread, Cookie, Shade as words that represent something different according to HarperCollins. But of course, I'm quite open to the idea of language changing in other cultures... for instance, Faggots and gravy anyone?

 

[blankedboy]

These days, "gay" has almost no connection with homosexuals.

Full circle the word has come!

Not really, it kinda means the opposite now.

 

[captainwolfos]

This article hurts my fabulous feelings.

Goddamnit, people like him give gays a bad name. One word does not give someone the right to come down on someone like a tonne of bricks, especially if he doesn't even know what context it was used in.

Goddamnit people, see some sense.

 

[Snotnarok]

I can't even side with the "victims" anymore. Everyone is too god damn sensitive and expecting everyone to tread lightly.

Grow some thicker skin, you're really not doing the Gay community justice if you're getting bent out of shape for one dumb line about some game interview. Had it been something like what Mel Gibson did sure but this is so weak.

Pretty much this. But how about on top of the Gay community growing thicker skin, so does every other race? You've got Gay people marching for Gay rights, blacks yelling racism, white's yelling reverse racism etc etc.

It all boils down to the "Look at me miss! I want attention!" or the "Please miss, He started it!" schoolboy mentality and it seems that people in general need to grow out of that phase.

I for one am sick of all the tip-toeing around that we have to do with our language, heaven forbid that someone complains that we aren't being politically correct.

Yeah I guess I didn't put that bit in, I meant in general people have to grow up. Janet Jacksons nipple got so much media attention and so many people were shocked and offended. I believe this number was around 8% of the people who saw the 1.2 seconds of nipple. Also fun fact it was the most rewound tivo moment in history. How offensive! GASP AND ZOUNDS

 

[Keirgo]

I personally want to ponder on this.

I think that yes, 'gay' was being used as part of a poking joke...in the same way that one would use 'girly'. There is nothing wrong with being gay, but the 'uber macho' type who love the 'uber macho' space marines would find something wrong with it. It's a bit confusing but, isn't the wrong group feeling insulted here?

 

[Wutaiflea]

To be honest, I don't know why people let themselves place so much importance on things like their sexuality or ethnicity etc.
Why is it that these features of a person need to become so overwhelming that there is no semblance of personality beyond "being gay", "being black", "being Christian" and so on?

Yes, these things are part of what make you who you are, but personally, I'd be devastated if there was so little to me as a person that I had to rely solely on my sexuality, taking offence at minor comments and joking perceptions for lack of anything else to say.

Yeah, it's sometimes annoyed me when I read my husband's girly mags and every model in their claims to be some kind of rabid bisexual, tonguing the other models at every photoshoot.
Do I write into Nuts asking them to apologise to me for misrepresenting bisexual women?
No, because not only do I have better things to do, but I don't see the harm in it. If sad fucks actually believe (and more importantly WANT to believe it for some kind of strange thrill), then good fucking luck to them- they're welcome to the little fantasy that gets them through their day.

 

[Jory]

These days, "gay" has almost no connection with homosexuals.

Full circle the word has come!

Crap.

The way a small demographic uses a word does not make it common parlance. I'll take the word of someone like Merriam-Webster over the urban fucking dictionary.

People using "gay" as a synonym for bad, broken, unwanted, useless can go to hell. I hope the first pizza-faced little basement dwelling puke who coined it fucking rots. Mkay?

Right now I am going to go on associating that word usage with ignorant little children/high school tossers and thus, remove them from my personal radar.

I think you have things the wrong way round.

Merriam-Webster an Oxford take words that people use and catalogue them and their definitions, they don't dictate what we can and cannot say.

There are many slang words in the dictionary, and words are added constantly.

Merriam-Webster even gives results for "LOL" which is used by a relatively small demographic, at least in physical speech.

You shouldn't shy away from using words because they're not common, language evolves.

If it didn't we'd still all be using doths, arts, and thous

 

[Last Bullet]

I disagree. Homoeroticism, to me, is a term describing the same-sex sexual attraction primarily in art, not especially in real life. It is quite appropriate to describe videogame characters. Furthermore, homoeroticism does not exclusively belong to describing homosexuals. Wrestling could be said to be a little bit homoerotic, but unless the wrestlers started copulating, you really couldn't call it gay or homosexual.

Hmn. Valid point. One internetz for you. I guess I was just looking at it as it would be kinda weird if he actually said "homoerotic space marines," considering it was (I think) just a little jab at the industry.

 

[Ethylene Glycol]

To be honest, I don't know why people let themselves place so much importance on things like their sexuality or ethnicity etc.
Why is it that these features of a person need to become so overwhelming that there is no semblance of personality beyond "being gay", "being black", "being Christian" and so on?

Because actually being a person rather than a collection of stereotypes requires effort.

Yes, these things are part of what make you who you are, but personally, I'd be devastated if there was so little to me as a person that I had to rely solely on my sexuality, taking offence at minor comments and joking perceptions for lack of anything else to say.

This. This so much.

Yeah, it's sometimes annoyed me when I read my husband's girly mags and every model in their claims to be some kind of rabid bisexual, tonguing the other models at every photoshoot.
Do I write into Nuts asking them to apologise to me for misrepresenting bisexual women?
No, because not only do I have better things to do, but I don't see the harm in it. If sad fucks actually believe (and more importantly WANT to believe it for some kind of strange thrill), then good fucking luck to them- they're welcome to the little fantasy that gets them through their day.

You, madam, may well be part of a dying breed.

 

[Steppin Razor]

If sad fucks actually believe (and more importantly WANT to believe it for some kind of strange thrill), then good fucking luck to them- they're welcome to the little fantasy that gets them through their day.

Wait wait wait. You're telling me that all those bisexual women in all the girly mags I've seen aren't actually like that? That it's just an act to sell more mags?
How can I go on!?
/wrists

 

[Timmehexas]

These days, "gay" has almost no connection with homosexuals.

Full circle the word has come!

Why where WE never informed of this?

Anyway he just sounds like a bit of a douche, if I got offended every time a douche said something stupid I'd be offender nearly everyday.

 

[Ragweed]

While it could be argued that the writer for GayGamer.net overreacted, the fact that this guy is using "gay" as a pejorative term is equally offensive.

Anyone who doesn't understand why, may I direct you to Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgSD7jb-7x4

 

[latenightapplepie]

These days, "gay" has almost no connection with homosexuals.

No. I don't think so. If anything, despite the recent surge in immature teenagers using gay as a pejorative, these days, gay is being associated more and more with homosexuality, as opposed to a cheery or colourful. Homosexual is a bit academic and formal for most people. Gay is more familiar and less stuffy.

There's a reason why the term appears in the titles of so many LGBT rights organisations. It is a valid, accurate, political term synonymous with 'homosexual'.

 

[Arachon]

Why is it that your "right" to offend people is somehow more important than their right to not be offended?

Imagine if the word "gamer", or hell, your own name, was used as an insult, I'd think you'd be a bit disturbed by that too.

 

[captaincabbage]

Gah, I'm so sick of people being fucking politically correct over trivial shit like this. As another said, they're making mountains of molehills.