Propagandasaurus said:
CrystalShadow said:
... Wait. I'm getting sidetracked again. XD - Uh, I personally don't think of gay culture at all with regard to the phrase "That's so gay."
So, to me that phrase is kind of divorced of any relationship with Gays as such.
But I can't say that's so negro? Or that's so spic? Wait, but I can talk about getting jewed, that one is ok. I can call my friend a pussy still, right? Man, all this blatant hypocrisy is confusing.
Let me explain it this way: nobody cares if you and your friends like to substitute "bad" for "gay". The problem is the underlying culture that finds this acceptable. The fact that you don't relate the two meanings of the word is a problem because it now means that you've validated the slang definition.
By re-defining something that a person uses to describe themselves, you've stolen a piece of their ability to express who they are. More than that, by casually turning it into a pejorative statement, when you wouldn't do so for other people groups, you've placed homosexuals in a perceived lower class by being less fearful of "unintended" disrespect.
Here's a test: next time you're with your buddies, try using this statement "that's so n*gger!"
Tell me what happens. I'm curious to know.
Yeah, you don't go around saying that. But then, I don't know what makes people within their own group use such words either.
Whatever. In the end, I think there's a problem here with the nature of the words. ****** has almost always been used as an insult by anyone using it. (even though it's meaning is self-explanetory, and should be quite obvious to speakers of several languages other than English).
Why exactly the target group of this particular insult has taken to calling eachother that is beyond me.
I can't call someone that, because it's only use is as an insult. - Saying someone is Gay is not.
You don't see gays going around calling each-other Faggots constantly do you?
I mean that's always been an insult.
Jewed? Never heard that one. Again though, being a called a jew isn't inherently an insult.
pussy is an insult, but somehow that's OK?
But would you then argue that calling someone a pussy (which is essentially an insult) therefore means there's something wrong with cats? (or, by the other implication, which is perhaps worse, that there's something wrong with being a woman?) - That essentially the same logic, after all...
Not a lot of consistency here, is there?
Gay is a word that was originally chosen by the people involved themselves. I guess you can call that hypocritical, but it's easier to divorce seperate uses of the same word if they have obviously different meanings.
Your implication here is basically as follows:
Some people use the phrase
that's so gay to denote something that's bad.
A group of people that are attracted to their own sex, some time back decided to refer to themselves as being 'gay'.
The way the first group uses the phrase "that's so gay" means there must therefore be something wrong with the group of people that call themselves gay.
I would in fact argue drawing a connection between such disparate uses of a word causes more harm than acknowledging they have nothing to do with eachother.
See, by saying you can't use a particular insult because it devalues a certain group of people by association, you're reinforcing a connection between the insult and the group in question.
The more you emphasise that the use of "that's so gay" (and similar phrases) has anything to do with people who
are gay, the more you reinforce the notion that there's something wrong with being gay.
So, clearly, we have a different outlook on this.
You view it as validating the slang usage, and by extention devaluing the group that the term refers to.
I view it as divorcing the slang from having anything at all to do with a group that happens to be reffered to by the same word.
But then, language is a funny thing at the best of times...
