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03/08/2007
The P-word on the G-word and the F-word
In the intro for his latest musing, Americans For Truth's Peter LaBarbera says:
Ann Coulter has been roundly denounced for using the “F-word” (six letters) ...I’m a Coulter fan, but she crossed the line on this one.
There are larger issues at stake here for American freedom: today it’s the F-word, which has been banished as the sexual equivalent of the N-word. Tomorrow it could be certain applications of the G-word: G-A-Y. Many students use “That’s so gay” to connote something that they think is stupid or weird: should they be forced to undergo sensitivity re-education — or perhaps attend a “Gay Pride” parade?
Where will the PC “hate speech” enforcement stop?
Okay, we understand how hard it is to sometimes come up with a setup for an article. But Peter -- comparing the "F-word" with teenagers' usage of "gay" to mean "lame?" That's apples and mangoes, my friend! While it's annoying that the MySpace generation finds "gay" to be so much more of a time-saver than the uber-verbose "lame," it is a situation far removed from the verbal abomination that is "f***ot!" Teenagers have always taken words out of context (radical, bad, cool) and adopted them as slang. This particular one happens to be more annoying and a tad offensive than past linguistic liberties(even though the vast majority don't mean it to be), but again -- it's not "f***ot!"
Actually, what we find really LAME about this generation's adoption of the word is that "queer" would be a far more understandable term to borrow from homo culture. After all, queer does mean strange, odd, or peculiar, which would seem to have closer etymological ties to what they're trying to convey. But we digress.
While parlaying this acknowledgment of Coulter's unsavory rhetoric into an all-out attack on "liberal hypocrisy,' Peter later goes on to say:
“Gay” is not a person. So while I would not encourage my kids to say “that’s so gay” — there are better ways to make your point — it’s almost refreshing that the word “gay” still has a stigma attached to it among so many youth. (That does not mean that you don’t fully punish thugs who prey on weak kids — you just do it without promoting any agendas.) Polls show that young people are increasingly pro-”gay”-agenda on issues like “same-sex marriage.” Nevertheless, despite years of brainwashing by public schools and popular culture designed to re-program their minds into thinking that “gay” is good (or at least no big deal), most American young people recognize, deep in their God-informed consciences, that homosexuality is unnatural and wrong. It’s sort of like liberal adults who take pride in their “tolerance” until they are confronted with the reality of what homosexuals actually do (perversion) — and they react with disgust (the “ick” factor) like everyone else.
Gosh it must be hard to both condemn such verbal tirades (as if you don't you'll look nutty) but also still condemn gays in just as unsavory ways. Just look at the first three lines above. It's like a roller coaster of condemnations! And then for Mr. LaBabs to suggest that most of the young people who use these words (as well as adult liberals) deep down think homosexuality is wrong but just don't want to admit it to themselves? Well, that's a convenient theory. Too bad it exists solely in his mind! And it's very telling that the article to which he links to try and prove his "icky" point is a story about a former meth addict who used to immerse himself in the bath house culture. The disgust in that article is conveyed like so:
Jay explicitly described barebacking as anal sex without a condom (the instinctual look of uncomfortable disgust on Oprah's face was telling - one's natural conscience recognizes homosexual acts as unnatural and repugnant)
Uhm...If someone tells this gay writer about meth-fueled bareback sex with strangers in a bath house, then you best believe my look will also be one of disgust! But that is not "the reality of what homosexuals actually do," as Mr. LaBarbera would have you believe. That is the reality of what some meth-fueled bath house attendees do! Using that particular niche to represent gays is like using the men who pay for sex at the world famous Moonlite Bunny Ranch (subject of HBO's "Cat House" series) to represent the sex habits of straight men everywhere.
As per usual, there are loads upon load of points to make you say "AARRH!!!" in Peter's posting, so if you'd like to read more and form your own opinions, click the link below. While you're doing that, this writer is going to try and convince America's word altering-hungry teenagers that "lesbian" means "sofa."
Ann Coulter, “That’s So Gay,” and Thought Police in Schools [AFT]
Your thoughts
Yesterday, I popped a bowl of popcorn, plopped down on the lesbian, and watched The L Word!
Like, radical, dude!
Posted by: jaj | Mar 8, 2007 6:28:08 PM
The "ick" factor... well, it's there... largely to do with how you've been brought up, but also to do with what it right and wrong **for you**. For instance, my rugby team a while back thought I was straight because I objected to them talking about cunnilingus at a team dinner in a restaurant. In this case, the ick factor wasn't anything to do with what they were saying, but rather to do with where they were saying it - time and place, girls!
Having said that, if they'd been straight girls and chosen the same forum to discuss felatio, my ick factor would have been twofold - one would have been the time and place thing, and the other would have been just the fact that that particular act seems icky to me. Not the worst thing imaginable, by far, but definitely icky.
Because someone feels a revulsion for a particular thing expressed in a particular way at a particular time is no proof that the thing in question is inherrantly wrong - and it's certainly no proof that everything even remotely connected is wrong.
Seems strange to me that anyone would argue that it was...
Posted by: Anon | Mar 8, 2007 7:44:14 PM
Agreed, anon. It's always weird/amusing to me that people like Peter think that they SHOULD find gay sex appealing.
Posted by: G-A-Y | Mar 8, 2007 7:54:38 PM
The “ick” factor, you say? And do you know where that “ick” comes from?
Inside the human brain are the vestiges of primordial brain structures, and one of them is referred to as the R-25 complex. “R” here stands for “reptilian.” I like to refer to this part of our brains as our lizard brains.
Now, we need our lizard brains. If you step off the sidewalk into the path of an oncoming bus and your body is functioning normally, you will be airborne on your way back to the sidewalk before your “human” brain knows what happened, and only once you’ve landed safely do you verbalize your reaction: “Holy crap, that stupid bus driver nearly hit me!” In this case, your lizard brain saved your life.
But this lizard brain also reacts violently if it’s surprised by something it perceives as different from you. So if you’re not accustomed to seeing little people (a.k.a. dwarfs), and you round a blind corner quickly and nearly knock one of them over, your lizard brain is going to scream “ICK! ICK! ICK!” Adrenaline will course through your body, taking a long time to dissipate, and you will remember the incident for a long time. But unless that little person was carrying a knife, or a gun, or maybe leading a pack of wolves, he or she was not a threat to you. In this case, your lizard brain was wrong. But that didn’t stop it from shouting “ICK!” at you.
Your lizard brain thinks you are the center of the universe. And its prime directive is your survival. In other words, the more paranoid it is, the better it’s doing its job. So when the lizard brain of a homophobe detects a homosexual, guess what his or her lizard brain does?
I’ll let you use your human brain to figure that out.
Posted by: Robin Reardon | Mar 9, 2007 6:46:04 PM
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