Using the word "gay" not in the context of homosexuality.

[Marlin Clock]

horse thief is probably my favorite insult in the world. Irrelevant to homosexuality of course.

[GodClock]

I think it's important to realize that the word "gay" has been used negatively a lot within the context of homosexuality.

You make a good point, often times when I hear it being used I write it off as out of context, which has much to do with what corpse said I suppose. I myself try not to use the word, like buttplug said it sounds childish and its often unnecessary anyway

Well, gay already does have different meanings based on context. The difference between 'gay' and 'fuck', though, is that one is almost always an adjective (except of course when people say they "love the gays!") most commonly used by an array of people to define themselves, and the other is mostly used as a noun (except of course when people say they "love the fucking gays!").

Even if I were comparing 'gay' to a word other than 'fuck', I'd probably come to the same conclusion. Gay is a word used in the homosexual community for identification of sorts. The use of the word outside its "happy/homosexual" context only makes it more difficult for gay men and women to fit in.

Imagine how confusing it might be for a gay teen to admit and conclude that they're 'gay' when the word means 'homosexual' all the while encompassing almost everything that is unwanted or unappreciated according to other teens' general use. There are very few people this teen can reach out to if everyone around them uses the word 'gay' negatively. It makes them feel like there is actually something wrong with their sexual orientation.

Being a straight teen is hard enough, you probably know, imagine now another, even thicker, layer of abstraction. You can't hear what's coming in and you can't send a message out.

I had only used the word 'fuck' as a comparison because it probably has the most different uses of any word in the english language. However I feel that using the word gay negatively only gains its negative reputation because as satellite said they're probably the most discriminated people of today. People are scared to admit who they are and have no option to hide, Compared to the civil rights movement or the women's rights movements where they fought for their physical being. A very sad truth, however things are changing rapidly, love the gays!

[Marlin Clock]

You make a good point, often times when I hear it being used I write it off as out of context, which has much to do with what corpse said I suppose. I myself try not to use the word, like buttplug said it sounds childish and its often unnecessary anyway

Isn't that how words gain new meaning anyway?

I had only used the word 'fuck' as a comparison because it probably has the most different uses of any word in the english language. However I feel that using the word gay negatively only gains its negative reputation because as satellite said they're probably the most discriminated people of today. People are scared to admit who they are and have no option to hide, Compared to the civil rights movement or the women's rights movements where they fought for their physical being. A very sad truth, however things are changing rapidly, love the gays!

I'm not saying there isn't any discrimination against gays, but it definitely isn't as bad as it was during the civil rights movement. Do you see any gay people getting hosed down or shot during gay pride parades?

[FLOUNDERMAN_CLOCK]

Calling someone a fag or gay as a serious insult is pretty lame and shows a lack of creativity. You can argue that you arent homophobic as much as you want but if you're using that as a serious insult it definitely implies something.

[Topcatyo]

I never used "gay" to describe stuff that I didn't like.  It was a slang word that never made sense to me so I never used it.

Back when I was younger, though, I used to call assholes or people who acted idiotically "horse thiefs".  I did it pretty much the same way Louis CK describes, although I hadn't ever seen that bit until after I stopped using the word.  I never thought about gay people when I was saying it but I realized that it was a word whose use gave the person saying it a negative connotation, and that the word carried its past as an epithet with it, no matter how the person uses it.  So I stopped a couple years ago..

I've always been curious about what a gay person's thoughts were on the use of this word.

Louis CK did a segment in his show on it that I thought was thought-provoking, and I was curious if any gay folks in the Clock Crew agreed with the what the character in the show says or feels differently about it.

[video=youtube_share;v-55wC5dEnc]http://youtu.be/v-55wC5dEnc[/video]

[Sombra]

I spoke to a gay person briefly about modern informal usage of the word "gay" and he said that he and some of his homosexual friends weren't bothered by it too much when a "good-intentioned" person used it as an insult/ expression of dislike. When I say good-intentioned I mean your average person that respects the homosexual choice and would stand up for a gay person in a case of physical violence/ hate crimes, but still uses "gay" in a derogatory way for various reasons.

I personally don't use "gay" as a derogatory word or call my friends/ strangers "horse thief" but I think in part it goes past political correctness. I have really strong feelings about political correctness and self-censorship being a former journalist and huge proponent of free speech. If other people want to say shit like that, fine, that's their choice.

My real problem with it, besides it being hateful, is that it's just lazy language usage. Instead of calling a physics test "gay" or "I'm a edgy teen," express why you didn't like the test or fucking study more or something. Anybody that plays popular FPSes on Xbox Live can attest to how much of a clusterfuck of name-calling, racism and homophobia it is. It's so fucking repetitive and bland. I already know when someone is pissed and wants to talk, they're going to give me some iteration of a "fucking my mom" line or call me a norwegian or a horse thief. And the thing is, IRL, most of these people probably act fine with gays or at least espouse the common "I'm fine as long as they don't do it around me or make passes at me" mindset.

Also cool vid Tops. I've always thought about what it'd be like to be gay and whether it would be worth coming out. Seems like all the typical questions/ discussions would get really fucking repetitive and annoying after a while.

[AmberArachnidClock]

damn I don't know how I missed that Louie vid. That show is gold.

[SpongeClock SquarePants]

you should call this forum the whiners playground.
man all you do in here is whine whine whine, makes you all sound like a bunch of queers.

[DWARFINATORclock]

i have a gay friend and he calls everyone gay and a faggot so maybe you should all stop making a big deal out of this

[DWARFINATORclock]

I have a gay friend that doesn't.

Paradox, world implodes.

lol what a fag

[SpongeClock SquarePants]

no homo, btw

[CranberryClock]

I agree 100% with DWARFINATORclock for the sheer fact of this.

If I say your a fag, or your gay you may get offended. Why? Because you were taught to view that word as a negative word. If I say aosuih9a8wh3aw to you, you have no idea what it means. What if that was fag fag fag gay in another language.

Point in case, go to someone that doesn't speak any english. Say, your so gay you fag. Then smile. Chances are nothing will happen...because it does't mean jack shit to them. Its people getting all anal about the way we use words and trying to build an association with them. It falls under the Nig and Ni**** context. Its cool to say to your boys.. but the moment whitey says it, it means I want you to go to the cotton fields and pick shit for me cause your black.

Same goes with Gay, gay people that I know say, your a fag and your so gay to eachother. A straight person says, your a fag.. then its an insult because were using it as a derogatory manner because it doesnt effect us. Its a stupid word like cunt which means nothing to anyone except americans and english speakers, more so americans because we bitch about everything.

Eventually saying homosexual will become homo, which will become hom which means when we same HOME were obviously calling someone a fag at some point. 5 years down the road...fag and gay won't be an issue it will be something else stupid.

This is gay.

[Asshatclock]

This might very well be the gayest thread on the entire clockcrew.

And its not offensive, I literally mean that this thread likes other threads of the same gender.

[TequilaClock]

[F U Clock]

[video=youtube_share;v-55wC5dEnc]http://youtu.be/v-55wC5dEnc[/video]

I've always had an issue with this scene, because no, "horse thief" did not derive from burning gay people at the stake. If you look up the etymology it just kind of evolved out of a term for sissyboy.

I recall back in middle or high school when my friends would all call people "horse thief" or say something was "gay" and it was seemingly harmless, and when one of our more progressive friends would call us on it, we'd complain that they were trying to sap the fun of using that word from our life, and we weren't hurting anybody.

I don't say it anymore (unless it's a rare instance where I'm going for shock value) because, though I know this is horribly not-fun of me, I think when you're doing battle with something like bigotry in a society, you have to think big-picture about issues like this. It may seem like it doesn't affect anyone, but I think everyone silently acknowledges that by using gay or horse thief as a pejorative term for anything it hurts the gay rights movement.

I think you'll find when you take it out of your repertoire of insults to hurl at things you don't lose that much, and you may just sound smarter for it.

[AlbinoClock]

For example: "That's so gay" or "That video game had some really gay mechanics"

Something I've been thinking recently, Is it really wrong to use the word in this context? To me, it only seemed that recently there has been an uproar about people using the word gay to describe something with a negative connotation. Sure, it may be a demographic of people that refer to themselves as gay, however before that gay had been an alternate word for happy, why can't it have an alternate context to describe something negatively? The word fuck has many different meanings based on context, why can't gay?

I don't see anything wrong in and of itself with saying something like "that's gay". What I think gets a little more offensive is the word f.a.g.g.o.t., and I think that the two tend to go hand in hand. When you qualify an inanimate object or a concept or an action as gay, it's clear that it's completely unrelated to sexuality, because objects and concepts don't have sexuality. But then when you start calling people f.a.g.g.o.t.s (not meaning that they're homosexual of course) it tends to go along with a lot of talk about sucking cocks and taking it in the ass. Well that's all well and good, but if any of the people you're hanging out with did happen to at one point fuck some men, it can make them uncomfortable, and you never know who that's going to be. Not everyone with a little bi streak in them seems outwardly gay, and it may be far enough in their past that you don't know about it, but not far enough that they don't. If they've ever been picked on for being gay, that just adds to it.

Also I find these word filters offensive.

I've always had an issue with this scene, because no, "horse thief" did not derive from burning gay people at the stake. If you look up the etymology it just kind of evolved out of a term for sissyboy.

That may be true, but it's the least relevant part to the modern context. The point is that when he hears that word, it makes him think about a bunch of nasty shit that's happened in his life.

[AbsintheClock]

My own take on it is pretty simple. I think it's a shitty word to use to describe something if you're being totally serious. That being said, I will admit to using the word "gay", "horse thief", and other homophobic slurs many a time. That probably makes me a hypocrite too. The reason I use it so much is probably because of my upbringing, and just hearing it so much. In my mind it really is something more of a statement of "That is effeminate" rather than "I hate gay people." Is this right? Probably not at all. I don't hate gay people, I'm all for gay rights, and I don't think it's ok to persecute anybody, or to hate anyone for their sexual preference. I also think that it is hateful that gay couples don't have the same legal rights as heterosexual couples. (I do however think private institutions such as religions have a right to turn away gay couples from things like marriage in order to preserve their traditions) It's also a really tough thing to ask somebody to take a word out of their lexicon. Especially if it's a charged word that has been used by somebody for decades. A good example of this is when Senator Robert Byrd said on Fox News "There are white norwegians, I've seen a lot of white norwegians." Despite the fact he was in the KKK in his youth, I do believe in his older years he felt remorse for his racist upbringing, and didn't really have hate in his heart. Just the same, I still hear a whole lot of old folks refer to black people as "colored" and I think a whole lot of them don't think they're better than anybody else because of skin color.

So what I'm trying to say is this. Saying things like "that's gay" or "quit being a horse thief" may not necessarily be intended as a way of putting somebody down for being gay. I also don't believe that everyone who says these things have that kind of hate in their heart. So people who are gay, if you have a friend who slips with something like "horse thief" let it slide unless it becomes a real problem. If you need to confront them about it, do it privately. And for people who really do have that kind of hatred in their heart, they're just ignorant pieces of shit. That being said, I also think it's perfectly ok to criticize somebody for being effeminate regardless of their sexuality. There are just some people who are so outlandishly flamboyant especially in the worst situations that they probably deserve some criticism. A good example of this is in the 2010 Winter Olympics when Evengi Plushenko declared his silver medal was a "platinum medal" after losing. Something like that reaches the point of being effeminate on so many levels. Somewhere between girly man, "gay", and being a pussy.

I also don't think calling somebody a girly man, or a pussy is homophobic at all. Just because you like to have sex with other men doesn't mean you need to act like a little prissy girl. That being said, I know a whole ton of straight men who need to cowboy the fuck up. That means not letting your girlfriend hold your nuts in her purse and return em when she wants you to put out, drinking light beer, making a lip sync video to Britney Spears, or enjoying My Little Pony. Folks should have a right to do all this crap, but folks like me should also have the right to criticize those people without being called bigoted or hateful.

[AlbinoClock]

I'm not saying there isn't any discrimination against gays, but it definitely isn't as bad as it was during the civil rights movement. Do you see any gay people getting hosed down or shot during gay pride parades?

I'd imagine that in the countries where they're safe enough to have a parade, their parades are probably safe. There are still countries in the world that execute homosexuals.

[AlbinoClock]

Louis CK did a segment in his show on it that I thought was thought-provoking, and I was curious if any gay folks in the Clock Crew agreed with the what the character in the show says or feels differently about it.

Etymology myth aside, I agree completely.

If I say your a fag, or your gay you may get offended. Why? Because you were taught to view that word as a negative word.

Unless you're gay, in which case you are offended because those words remind you of being tormented. There's shit that goes on in this world that you don't know about because it happens outside of your very limited view port. Try to keep that in mind.

[TequilaClock]

sigh...another one to add to the list I guess...

I just spent more than an hour reading everything. Interesting stuff.