Is the term 'gay' as 'stupid' really that offensive?

[WorkingClassDude]

This is my first attempt to start a thread here, and to be quite honest I don't see it going great given the subject. I'm just curious. Regardless of how 'immature' people think it is to actually say, is using the term 'gay' to lightheartedly decry something really so uber-offensive? I've known and read of gays who don't care at all about it. They don't take offense to it. But it seems like the gay community in general really hates it. Enough to air commercials about it. I.e. 'That shirt/movie/anything is gay'. There may be absolutely nothing homosexual about the shirt/thing in question, the speaker just doesn't like it for some reason. The speaker is NOT saying 'that shirt/thing is expressly homosexual and grrr that's bad'. So I don't get where the offensive part comes from. The especially ironic thing is, isn't the term 'gay' in relation to homosexuality already taken from the original word gay meaning happy? What I mean is, when gay people starting saying gay to mean homosexual, were straight people offended at that? As far as I'm aware, words can have multiple meanings, and so I don't get the uproar. Whenever I used to use the term, it was never to say something was negatively homosexual, unless it was to a buddy or somesuch and we were talking ****. And there was no real offense taken there either. I'm not saying that people don't use the term in an offensive way. There are people who do. But what about the people who aren't? They're still awful people for merely using the word in a non-homosexually-negative light?

 

[robertorex]

Why not just say stupid? I get the feeling that the people who say "gay" as a placeholder for another negative term are at least ignorant, if not outright awful.

A lot of people think that just because they want to use a word to mean something, it comes out meaning that to other people. Doesn't work that way.

 

[juvefan]

the medium is the message

 

[CouttsClient]

Originally Posted by robertorex

Why not just say stupid? I get the feeling that the people who say "gay" as a placeholder for another negative term are at least ignorant, if not outright awful. A lot of people think that just because they want to use a word to mean something, it comes out meaning that to other people. Doesn't work that way.
Agreed

 

[tagutcow]

"Gay" in the disputed sense doesn't really mean "stupid" as much as it means lame, cornball, or otherwise unattuned to the values of irony and noneffort.

 

[dhaller]

It's kind of indefensible to use the term as such if over the age of, say, 17 or so... and even then I think the proper term is "****", not "gay"!

DH

 

[Pantisocrat]

Who cares. free speech and all that. I use "asinine" in place of "stupid". Like, wow, what asininity!

 

[83glt]

Originally Posted by robertorex

Why not just say stupid? I get the feeling that the people who say "gay" as a placeholder for another negative term are at least ignorant, if not outright awful. A lot of people think that just because they want to use a word to mean something, it comes out meaning that to other people. Doesn't work that way.

Originally Posted by CouttsClient

Agreed

Originally Posted by dhaller

It's kind of indefensible to use the term as such if over the age of, say, 17 or so... and even then I think the proper term is "****", not "gay"! DH
You guys are so marsupialed. ^Fixed so as not to offend.

 

[L'Incandescent]

"I don't know what you mean by "˜glory,' " Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. "Of course you don't"”till I tell you. I meant "˜there's a nice knock-down argument for you!' "
"But "˜glory' doesn't mean "˜a nice knock-down argument'," Alice objected.
"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean"”neither more nor less."
"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."
"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master that's all."

No competent speaker of English can fail to understand that "gay" is being used as a pejorative, and that the pejorative force comes from the obvious connection to homosexuality. If the use of the term "gay" presupposes that gays are in some vague way bad, then obviously gays will be offended by that use of the term. This is not rocket science.

 

[tagutcow]

Originally Posted by 83glt

You guys are so gay.

They're a bunch of marsupials is what they are!

 

[Miles Gloriosus]

I don't care anymore, but before and when I was in the process of coming out constantly hearing it as a derogatory made the process a lot more difficult.

 

[wmmk]

Originally Posted by Pantisocrat

Who cares. free speech and all that. I use "asinine" in place of "stupid". Like, wow, what asininity!

The definition of "asinine" is "extremely stupid or foolish." "Gay," on the other hand, means nothing even vaguely related to "stupid." So I don't see what connection you're trying to draw.

And do you really mean to argue that the First Amendment means that nothing you say can be seen as offensive to either the people around you or to the English language itself?

 

[CouttsClient]

Originally Posted by 83glt

You guys are so gay.
Yeah I am

 

[Pantisocrat]

Originally Posted by wmmk

The definition of "asinine" is "extremely stupid or foolish." "Gay," on the other hand, means nothing even vaguely related to "stupid." So I don't see what connection you're trying to draw. And do you really mean to argue that the First Amendment means that nothing you say can be seen as offensive to either the people around you or to the English language itself?
I don't see how the English language is offended???

 

[83glt]

Originally Posted by CouttsClient

Yeah I am

Yeah I know. That's why I said so.