~~ really stupid linguistic wibbling...
Sep. 3rd, 2003 08:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
reenkaam i like, the only one that finds the word "gays" kind of offensive?
i don't know what it is, i'm stumped if i try to find a reasonable explanation. it just seems like... i dunno. icky. like something pc-type people would use about "those people with that lifestyle that are really quite nice, and they're normal, actually", and yet... why? it's a perfectly valid plural form of "gay" (which by the way, i'm also not in love with, but am okay with). it's like there's some nuance of usage, but a certain segment of the population..... i dunno!
has anyone else noticed? am i insane?
no matter -what- context i find it in, no matter -what- the person is saying, if they use "gays" as plural, i flinch. it puzzles me, but i suppose there is a possibility that it's not a complete idiosyncrasy. also, "a homosexual" connotates a certain... er... intellectualization of the idea that might be veiling distate, often enough, but i can differentiate between the use of this for "i'm using very formal language for everything" and just some throw-away use, which sets off subliminal alarms. like i said, just "gay" is fine, though it acquires... a weird tinge for me if it's -continuously- used to -describe- someone. as in, "i'm gay" and "that gay man" and "i'm not gay". it's just like... using any epithet would bother me in this way, like, "i'm a woman" and "that woman" and "the woman said". you're obsessing that it's a woman; why?
but the "gays" usage doesn't need to be repeated, as i said. it just connotates "them" to me. like, i'm well aware it's used as a self-label most of the time, too, or is it? i mean... is this a british thing or an american thing? i mean, in america, there's the "gay, bisexual & trans alliance" or the "rainbow alliance" in school-- they don't call themselves queer or anything. sigh. i'm baffled. in the news and media they say "homosexuals", never queers (since it used to be a disparaging term), and, more rarely, "gays".
perhaps i've become sensitized through fanfic. in the sorts of fics/contexts where "gays" or even "gay" is used most often in hp fic, i feel there's a certain... flat-footedness, a certain amount of stereotyping and ignorance and perhaps even slight homophobia i can detect. it's all very subtextual and subtle, but i really think it's there. i can trace a definite correlation in the fics that feel "off" overall in terms of queerness portrayal and the fics that would use the term "gays". and er... i can't really draw a conclusion except to say, "huh."
on a contradictory and futile note, saying "queers" bothers me too. heh.
actually, this is possibly related to how you don't exactly say "straights", do you. you say "heterosexuals", but only in a very specific context. you say you're "straight" (singular) but not plural so much. this is probably a part of why it bothers me.
"gay men" and "gay women" is okay. "so-and-so is gay, btw" is okay-- i suppose because it's an adjective rather than a noun at that point. hmm.
(and all of this does little to address barb's rather interesting essay on the possibilities of seeing harry as metaphorically `gay' within canon, and the use of metaphor in the hp books to denote disenfranchised groups).
i don't know what it is, i'm stumped if i try to find a reasonable explanation. it just seems like... i dunno. icky. like something pc-type people would use about "those people with that lifestyle that are really quite nice, and they're normal, actually", and yet... why? it's a perfectly valid plural form of "gay" (which by the way, i'm also not in love with, but am okay with). it's like there's some nuance of usage, but a certain segment of the population..... i dunno!
has anyone else noticed? am i insane?
no matter -what- context i find it in, no matter -what- the person is saying, if they use "gays" as plural, i flinch. it puzzles me, but i suppose there is a possibility that it's not a complete idiosyncrasy. also, "a homosexual" connotates a certain... er... intellectualization of the idea that might be veiling distate, often enough, but i can differentiate between the use of this for "i'm using very formal language for everything" and just some throw-away use, which sets off subliminal alarms. like i said, just "gay" is fine, though it acquires... a weird tinge for me if it's -continuously- used to -describe- someone. as in, "i'm gay" and "that gay man" and "i'm not gay". it's just like... using any epithet would bother me in this way, like, "i'm a woman" and "that woman" and "the woman said". you're obsessing that it's a woman; why?
but the "gays" usage doesn't need to be repeated, as i said. it just connotates "them" to me. like, i'm well aware it's used as a self-label most of the time, too, or is it? i mean... is this a british thing or an american thing? i mean, in america, there's the "gay, bisexual & trans alliance" or the "rainbow alliance" in school-- they don't call themselves queer or anything. sigh. i'm baffled. in the news and media they say "homosexuals", never queers (since it used to be a disparaging term), and, more rarely, "gays".
perhaps i've become sensitized through fanfic. in the sorts of fics/contexts where "gays" or even "gay" is used most often in hp fic, i feel there's a certain... flat-footedness, a certain amount of stereotyping and ignorance and perhaps even slight homophobia i can detect. it's all very subtextual and subtle, but i really think it's there. i can trace a definite correlation in the fics that feel "off" overall in terms of queerness portrayal and the fics that would use the term "gays". and er... i can't really draw a conclusion except to say, "huh."
on a contradictory and futile note, saying "queers" bothers me too. heh.
actually, this is possibly related to how you don't exactly say "straights", do you. you say "heterosexuals", but only in a very specific context. you say you're "straight" (singular) but not plural so much. this is probably a part of why it bothers me.
"gay men" and "gay women" is okay. "so-and-so is gay, btw" is okay-- i suppose because it's an adjective rather than a noun at that point. hmm.
(and all of this does little to address barb's rather interesting essay on the possibilities of seeing harry as metaphorically `gay' within canon, and the use of metaphor in the hp books to denote disenfranchised groups).
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2003-09-03 06:49 pm (UTC)this sense of "they are different, with a different culture, etc", while valid because it is true that these days a lot of queer culture is separate, has not always been so. for ages and ages gay people were just people. there didn't seem to be "gay culture" in ancient greece: there was just culture, as far as i can see. i am not part of gay culture, but i am queer. i may not be "good enough" to be "truly queer" because i'm not "100% queer", but there you have it, i am different. am i `them' or am i 'us'? what does that even mean? so this probably has personal applications to me, this question of difference and culture.
i am not "normal" but neither am i one of the "gays" if used to describe "that sort of person".
i am neither russian nor american: i am both.
i am neither gay nor straight: i am both.
i'm not even completely gender-defined, mentally, though i heavily lean towards female.
definiting yourself through group identity and sharing group identity is all natural and to be expected, but when others define that group, then it bothers me. "the gays" in most contexts isn't used by the gay population itself. whenever we call large groups of other people something, it's different than whatever self-identification those groups would use upon themselves.
i am not saying that being gay isn't a natural and healthy part of one's identity. i'm not even talking about identity, merely about linguistics.
if being gay is the -major- part of someone's identity, and moreover if someone -else- is decreeing that it is so, and even moreso, merely taken in a linguistic light, it bothers me for no particular one reason, as i said: it baffles me, there -is- no reason, i just -react-.
and, finally, `faggots' isn't offensive to me unless used offensively. i don't quite know how 'gays' is used as clearly as 'faggots', and it seems to be that -sometimes- 'gays' denotes something.... icky. but i'm not sure what.
clear as mud, i know :D