lol, the idea that I’ve said there is something wrong with being gay or being called gay is rich.
You’ve said that using jokes about being gay is derogatory. Literally what you are saying is that calling someone gay has negative connotations. It’s bad to be gay.
Let’s try to put this in simple terms:
If one of my many very gay male friends calls someone a fag they are owning the definition of “fag”. If I call myself a dyke I own that word.
If we joke about homophobes being secretly gay we own the language and we erect a shield against that being used in a derogatory manner against us.
You want to police those definitions and tell people what they can and cannot say and can and cannot joke about. You want to take away that shield.
I suspect you are young and did not live through a time when it was absolutely CRITICAL for the queer community writ large to take control of our language. Literally that was the only way we gained power and the only way we made jokes about fags and dykes NOT be derogatory.
Jokes that treat being gay as bad are themselves homophobic, yes - they do not reclaim the word, they perpetuate hatred. You’re welcome to make those jokes - I’m not stopping you by calling out your internalized homophobia.
You can also reclaim any words you want to. Nothing wrong with that.
I’m an older member of the Comm, old enough to have lived through a large chunk of the AIDS crisis but young enough to spend wayy to much time online (yay limnal) and a lot of newbeans who mainly interact online get a bit of bad faith actor brainrot. They claim things like ‘queer is a slur’, ‘bisexual is transphobic’ and weird shit like that. Biggest whiplash i had was from someone who claimed ‘the q word is a slur’ and then in the next breath ‘reclaimed’ fruit.
Basically their answer to “is the word queer a slur” is a good indication of the mindset.
I am also older… old enough to remember when queer was a slur until we took it back. And fag and dyke and all those.
Words have power and who controls them matters. And few things piss me off more than having people try to take control - without even asking - of words and thoughts that many of us fought so fucking hard to own.
You’ve said that using jokes about being gay is derogatory. Literally what you are saying is that calling someone gay has negative connotations. It’s bad to be gay.
Let’s try to put this in simple terms:
If one of my many very gay male friends calls someone a fag they are owning the definition of “fag”. If I call myself a dyke I own that word. If we joke about homophobes being secretly gay we own the language and we erect a shield against that being used in a derogatory manner against us.
You want to police those definitions and tell people what they can and cannot say and can and cannot joke about. You want to take away that shield.
I suspect you are young and did not live through a time when it was absolutely CRITICAL for the queer community writ large to take control of our language. Literally that was the only way we gained power and the only way we made jokes about fags and dykes NOT be derogatory.
Jokes that treat being gay as bad are themselves homophobic, yes - they do not reclaim the word, they perpetuate hatred. You’re welcome to make those jokes - I’m not stopping you by calling out your internalized homophobia.
You can also reclaim any words you want to. Nothing wrong with that.
You are interpreting this particular joke as saying being gay is bad. I’m not. So I’m reclaiming the words and rolling with it. 'MMmmkay?
Please explain the joke to me, because I don’t get it.
Perhaps that’s the problem. You have no sense of humor.
Understandable, thanks!
A good question to answer that one is to ask if they thing Queer is a slur.
I’m curious what point you want to make.
I’m an older member of the Comm, old enough to have lived through a large chunk of the AIDS crisis but young enough to spend wayy to much time online (yay limnal) and a lot of newbeans who mainly interact online get a bit of bad faith actor brainrot. They claim things like ‘queer is a slur’, ‘bisexual is transphobic’ and weird shit like that. Biggest whiplash i had was from someone who claimed ‘the q word is a slur’ and then in the next breath ‘reclaimed’ fruit.
Basically their answer to “is the word queer a slur” is a good indication of the mindset.
I am also older… old enough to remember when queer was a slur until we took it back. And fag and dyke and all those.
Words have power and who controls them matters. And few things piss me off more than having people try to take control - without even asking - of words and thoughts that many of us fought so fucking hard to own.
The bisexual one really sets me off.