I have heard that not all men are adverse to martial arts classes.
Cassandra Kazenzakis would probably term it "such a thing as a woman does".
Obviously, it referred to characteristics associated with feminine men--and I'd like to hang on to that, because we have to be able to keep making fun of them. We just need to drop the further association of feminine men with homosexuality.
What I love about this blog is that you keep on teeing up things I want to argue about. Sadly, I should be working instead, but let me at least start.
Why do you have to be able to make fun of feminine men? No, seriously, why? (Don't take this personally, every straight guy in the country feels the same way, when I say (as I am about to) that mocking men for being feminine is both misogynist and oppressive to men I don't mean that this reveals anything particular about your flaws, just that society is all screwed up here.)
I run a little on the butch side -- not terribly so, I just can't get the hang of earrings, makeup, heels, matching clothes, etc. No one gives me much, if any, crap about this and what there is is for dressing badly, not dressing masculinely. Women dressing masculinely is actually seen as kind of statusy and cool, in a lot of ways. So we're not worried about gender transgression in any simple way.
What is so (contaminating? risible? wrong?) about dressing or acting in a feminine way, for a man? Why is it so important that it be mocked?
I was at a standup comedy show on Wednesday night, and will now proceed to mis-remember a joke told there.
Comedian: I just joined a new gym. On Tuesday I took a spinning class, on Wednesday I took Pilates, and on Thursday I took shaping. On Friday, I woke up and realized I was gay.
The guy had many better jokes than that, and think I'm messing up the punchline which is meant to set up the audience expectation that he woke up feeling sore, or in much better shape, or something like that.
I only ever see men in boot camp, martial arts, and (occasionally) spinning classes. Especially in this instance, the word "gay" is inappropriate because even the large population of gay men at my gym avoid the classes.
For straight men, the logic of avoiding an activity that is overwhelmingly female because it feels gay seems to be a counterproductive strategy.
Well, yeah. The whole "Man. Manly man. Must separate oneself from all that is feminine" often comes down to separating oneself from women, which seems, offhandedly, screwy. What goes on with this?
It's just wrong, LB. Wrong and immoral.
God knows what goes through women's heads when they're exercising
If I'm recalling correctly, for me at least, it was something rather similar to what you report men as thinking.
Now back to the gendered language dispute!
I maintain that both gendered and non-gendered languages exist. Rebuttal?
I think what "gay" used to mean, back when it was acceptable to use it as an insult, was, essentially, "homosexual." Could be why "twee" is not as satisfying.
If you want to attract men to exercise classes, then you have to create some way for men to win them.
I always took that form of "gay" to be more like "lame" than "homosexual".
Well, yeah. The whole "Man. Manly man. Must separate oneself from all that is feminine" often comes down to separating oneself from women, which seems, offhandedly, screwy. What goes on with this?
It's because hanging out with women in such settings rather dramaticaly diminishes the odds of someday fucking them.
I always took that form of "gay" to be more like "lame" than "homosexual".
Me too. In fact, I don't recall any correlation between use of "gay" in that sense and homophobia (unlike, say, "fag").
That's just not true. Think of the classic 'men won't dance' complaint -- that's about not looking "gay". But dancing will get a guy laid.
15: then why it's called 'gay' instead of something else?
And, even if it doesn't get a guy laid, I would think a guy would find watching a bunch of girls in a strength training class a more entertaining way to pass the time than watching the sweaty guys in the weight room. Hell, I'm a girl and I spend most of the class staring at the ass of the girl in front of me because there's nowhere else to look.
My guess is that these guys could do some serious jumping jacks. And that they probably went to a couple of gymnastics classes.
The straight guys in my dance classes were not unlaid, but then, as a puritan, I wasn't really in the gossip loop. It is one of the reasons I want my honey out of his dance-class-accompanying p-t gig, though.
That's just not true. Think of the classic 'men won't dance' complaint -- that's about not looking "gay". But dancing will get a guy laid.
Dancing acceptably well will get a guy laid. Dancing like a spazz is the surest way to blow an otherwise promising chance at booty.
Guys who say dancing is gay are guys who can't dance. Amongst cultural groups where male dancing ability is common, dancing is not considered gay. Black and Hispanic guys, for instance, generaly have no qualms with getting down.
Learning to dance okay isn't hard, but men don't seek out the competitive advantage inherent in learning how. It's completely a situation where the importance of not looking as though one has feminine skills or tastes outweighs the importance of getting laid.
And, even if it doesn't get a guy laid, I would think a guy would find watching a bunch of girls in a strength training class a more entertaining way to pass the time than watching the sweaty guys in the weight room.
Oh we're watching...
...from a distance.
17: Obviously the origin of the usage is in stereotypes of gay men, but what I mean is that people who would use it in this sense (in my experience) have generally not been personally homophobic, whereas people who use the word "fag" generally have been.
19: Parkour is totally awesome, even if those guys are too flamboyant to be doctrinaire.
How 'bout femme? (I like exercise classes -- though I do not go to the gym these days, the best shape I have ever been in was when I was taking Tae Kwon Do classes, and second-best was when I was taking aerobics classes. I don't consider myself femme truthfully, or particularly gay, so I don't know that the descriptor applies very well to exercise classes. Now off to read the thread.)
26: I had no idea that was a semi-organized activity.
19: I didn't see enough of the second guy to tell, but the first and third definitely have had gymnastics training. The first has probably done martial arts as well.
Teofilo and Becks are wrong; "gay" was an insult for something a gay person would like. "Twee" isn't even a word in America.
Parkour. You'd think most people who do it have some serious physical & gymnastic training, because jumping across an empty elevator shaft into a small opening, say, doesn't leave much room for missing your mark.
After reading the thread -- I find myself identifying most strongly with what LizardBreath and JackMormon are saying. (I should note that this is for me by no means an unusual experience of a blog comments thread.)
as a puritan
Thought you were a Mormon?
I think the reason Ted alludes to a timeframe is it could be a generational difference. "Gay" may have started out as meaning "something a homosexual would do" but most people my age (20s) learned the slang "gay" to mean a variation of "lame" in grade school before they even knew homosexuality existed.
How 'bout femme?
Probably a more accurate word for what's being made fun of, at least.
Yeah, Becks's 35 is what I was getting at.
(Ted?)
It's so simple: the women in the exercise classes, being (more than) a little put off by dudes trying to score, are not good at making said dudes feel like hot stuff. The gay dudes in the weight room, being dudes trying to score, are GREAT at making dudes feel like hot stuff.
So, aerobics classes are gay because they interfere with the gay sex? That's the first time I've ever seen a 'lucus a non lucendo' etymology in the wild.
"gay" relied on a certain homodisperagia to seperate groups ("gay" and not "gay"), which is why it was psychologically satifsying. "Lame", I think, is acctually a more accurate description of what was meant, but because anybody can be lame, and it's an accidental instead of an inherent quality, it is much less satisfying.
Labs's 37 reminds me that I, too, would probably not consider exercise classes "gay" in the sense we've been discussing, which leads me to the further thought that there may be a generational difference even among the commenters here, with Ogged and Joe O thinking of one meaning and Labs, Becks and I thinking of another. I'm not sure, though.
The closest substitute for "gay" in it's junior high sense that I can come up with is "retarded", which has its own set of issues.
39 - On the rare occasions that I've seen a guy try to take an exercise class, the women haven't shunned him or assumed he's trying to score. They tend to relate to him with pity, curiosity, and confusion, much like if they encountered a lost baby animal in the wild.
I would like to strongly second LB's comments at 3 and 6, and might add that this was the source of my reaction to the "stylish men are fuckwits" post. Not only do I not think it's imperative that we maintain the right to mock men for being feminine, I think it's pretty important that we don't. I'm just going to lamely echo LB here, because she already said what needed to be said and better, but mocking feminine men is mostly about reconfirming that feminine qualities are weak, undesirable, and contaminating. Feminine men are class traitors, failing to behave in a way that would continue to reaffirm the separation between the priveleged class--straight men--and everyone else. Masculine women used to be seen as uppity, but as LB notes, that's relaxing, and we all should be doing what we can to make sure that men have the same freedom to borrow freely from variously gendered behaviors and costumes, because they're doing us all a service by helping to break down these boundaries.
Wait, I have a totally non-offensive substitute! The reason guys don't join exercise classes is that guys who join exercise classes are pussies.
See? Nobody to be offended there.
lucus a non lucendo
I've always heard it as "canis a non canendo," but note that Labs apparently rejects Ogged's characterization of aerobics as gay so it isn't an etymology. It still doesn't make any sense, though.
But Tia, if any more of those barriers come down, men are going to be exercising with dogs! Dogs!
45 was actually posted before reading 44, which I agree with pretty much.
Tia-
The only thing I'd disagree with in that is the first two clauses of the third sentence. (Logrolling? Sue me.)
I'd just like to point out that Ted called Ogged an old man in 42.
They tend to relate to him with pity, curiosity, and confusion, much like if they encountered a lost baby animal in the wild.
This is exactly what I would expect, and it is one helluva reason to not go. One would feel so out of place*. It's also a big reason, I suspect, with why guys don't learn to dance. We don't like upsetting The Order Of Things, and many of us are not the quickest when it comes to physical coordination, and don't really like being starkly reminded of it. If I ever decide to learn to dance, I'm getting a DVD.
*Also why some guys don't go to gyms, if you're thinking of asking.
I watched a video of marines at boot camp. Man, I could never follow along because I would be concentrating so hard on keeping my eyes from rollings. What chuckleheads those some of those instructors were.
1. Ogged's linguistic reclamation project is absolutely essential. This is a word we need. (much like, as someone noted on an earlier thread, "retarded." Life isn't worth living here in Boston if you can't say "wicked retardde."
2. Fontana is a genius.
The things I most want to label "gay" in the jr-high sense are not particularly feminine; they're lame in a special way that I'd have to work to articulate.
This is exactly right. Of course it's also true that sterotypically manly things -- football, marine push-ups, fixing a car -- are not jr-high-gay. But then, neither is it so simple that stereoypical female activities performed by a man are jrh-gay. A man cooking isn't jrh-gay. A man staying home with the kids, or being scared of mice isn't jrh-gay. Heck, a man sleeping with other men isn't jrh-gay.
But a man in a Jazzercize class? What a total gaywad.
Becks 43: On the rare occasions that I've seen a guy try to take an exercise class, the women haven't shunned him or assumed he's trying to score. They tend to relate to him with pity, curiosity, and confusion, much like if they encountered a lost baby animal in the wild.
Well, okay, but they aren't making the dudes feel hot. The dudes in the weight room, though, are making the dudes feel hot. 'Cause they want to score.
To be fair to Ogged, I imagine that he has in mind not simply feminine men, but annoyingly femining men.
I'm going to agree with Becks that "retarded" and "gay" have very similar meanings. I still doubt that either would be used for aerobics, though, at least in the meaning "inappropriately effeminate."
54 - Yes, but (again) what feels manly != what will get you girls. Do women leave lost baby animals on the side of the road to die? No - they help. Same with guys in the classes. "Do you need me to show you how to set that up?" "Don't worry, I was confused my first class, too. You'll catch on" You might not feel macho, but play your cards right and you'll talk to five girls and walk out with a couple of phone numbers.
You might not feel macho, but play your cards right and you'll talk to five girls and walk out with a couple of phone numbers.
Yeah, but guys who think like that are so freakin' gay...
59 - That's not how most men want to interact with women, though. They want to be the big, strong protector, not the lost baby animal in need of help.
re 59,
It's my general experience that women give bloody awful advice on how to score with women.
Only sort of related, but worth the read: What Is Queer Food?
60 & 61 - Yes, I agree. I've seen guys pull it off while retaining their masculinity and without it seeming like a scam but it does sound like a total pussy emo wuss move when described.
At this point, I thinking, "If a guy showed up at aerobics class, what percentage of the girls there would think he was only there in a lazy and desperate move to score?"
Girls: Two guys chat you up. One's hobby: aerobics. The other's? boxing. Who gets more points?
64 - Thinking back, the guys who pulled it off were usually big, jock, fratboy types.
my grammar is hampered by the sheer amount of testosterone in my brain! arrr!
I'll amend my position to bring it into agreement with baa's 53. Maybe later I'll explain why we're duty bound to make fun of unmanly men.
It is now. What're you gonna do about it?
If the options are really weightlifting and lockerroom sex or Jazzercise, I'm opting for the former.
Ogged, I'd appreciate a my reply to 41 too, if you can work it in.
Now I'm not sure which side of the generational divide Ogged falls on.
Jack's an honest Jill. And the options are set up that way because, well, we are in competition with other guys, and if other guys are using their excercise-hours in a more impressive pursuit than we are, then we're not optimizing our time.
Girls: Two guys chat you up. One's hobby: aerobics. The other's? boxing. Who gets more points?
To be serious, the former. I went on one (1) date with a semi-pro No-Holds Barred fighter. He was charming, polite, hot, articulate, and sure, I felt very safe from hypothetical attackers in his company. But the fucking other people up in a ring to prove manliness thing was just kinda an unsuprable bar for me, you know?
Michael, my 75 was posted before your 65. I'd rather the weightlifting and sex for myself. The boxers out there will be unlaid by me.
64-
Becks - you've done it!!!
Emo!
I think that captures exactly what we're trying to get at: lame in that special way junior high way we call gay.
Guys don't like exercise classes because they are emo.
---
Okay, I take it back because on second thought that doesn't actually get it quite right. But we're getting close.
So twee ain't it. What about fay?
No, not quite right. But what ever it is, the quality under discussion is one that simply must be attacked, because it is that which we reject in ourselves and fear having others ascribe to us.
Smoking cock? Fine.
Crocheting? Beat down in a back alley.
Jack, I was thinking more of gym-boxing, with pads and such - not too serious. But what about other things that are equivalently acceptable group excercises for men, such as a martial art or soccer?
I'm afraid that calling someone "fey" would be a bit gay.
79: fey as in clairvoyant or fated to die?
I think we should just stick to "lame."
Think of the classic 'men won't dance' complaint -- that's about not looking "gay". But dancing will get a guy laid.
It's not worth getting laid if you have to act gay to do it.
I think that what we're looking at may fall into emo and annoyingly new-agey sensitive. Do you know the guy in the second half of Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe who cried when Sylvia Plath died [that can't be right--should look it up] and who Lily Tomlin eventually dismisses with "You're not Zen--you're just passive-aggressive!" Not emo, but still whatever we're trying to talk about.
Citing Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe in this context may also be whatever we're trying to talk about.
Crocheting? Beat down in a back alley.
But, you know, why? It's a pleasantly fiddly little hobby -- I crochet fine thread into snowflakes as Christmas ornaments, and I have a big Irish lace doily in my bag to amuse myself with while I commute (although I haven't made much progress since discovering sudoku.) It's all right for me, I'm a woman, but what makes disassociating yourself from crochet so vitally important?
(And ogged? When I lift weights, I'm molding myself into a superwoman. Admittedly, it's a ways off -- I'm nowhere near being able to bench my weight -- but the thought process isn't necessarily all that different.)
What's the over/under on how many comments will appear before someone links to that blacktable article again?
OT, but do you think that if they renamed the squat, the clean and jerk, and the snatch, more women would involves themselves in weightlifting?
91: Well, exactly. Why is all this such a huge deal for straight guys?
emo is kinda close, but "gay," as I heard it, could also shade into a kind of cluelessness--that's the part that brings it close to "lame."
"He's the only man I've ever known who knew where he was when Sylvia Plath died."
I'm not feeling this. Wasn't Plath's most famous work published posthumously anyway?
a kind of cluelessness
Is the essence of what we're talking about Napoleon Dynamite in his hand motion group?
Maybe we can import a name to do the job, kind of like Santorum. "That's so Hastert!"
93 - I'm with you on the crocheting. I have three projects underway.
98 - I should so know this quote. I was in that play in high school. If only I were in D.C. -- the script is sitting on my bookshelf. Although I prefer "We got new advice as to what motivated man to walk upright: to free his hands for masturbation."
I don't know this Napoleon Dynamite you keep talking about.
99-
Matt, Napoleon Dynamite was in no way gay. He may have been the antithesis of gay.
I think understanding this is important to understanding the concept we're trying to define. I maintain that it's markedly different from "lame."
I was in that play in high school.
I'm guessing they had different people playing the different parts.
Ok, good, urple, how is it different from "lame?"
People are misunderstanding the greater project. By mocking and making unappealing feminine action, often by use of the word "gay," we are attempting to encourage all people, men and women, to act in non-feminine ways. The end goal of the "gay" reclamation/renomination project is to make all sex into sexual interaction between equally masculine types. We reclaim/rename the word "gay" to make the whole world gay. THE QUEEN IS DEAD! LONG LIVE THE KINGS(?)!
98 - Oh, wait, it was Sylvia Plath in the quote and not someone else. You're right -- that does seem odd. I didn't know who Sylvia Plath was at the time. That script had a lot of new words and concepts to explain to us freshmen: "G. Gordon Liddy", "geodesic dome", "fellatio", ...
80--Soccer is, at least to me (if not to ogged), hott. I'm of two minds about martial arts.
I'm not going to be very helpful with the linguistic debate because, apparently, I'm the only person here who never ever used "gay" to mean "lame" as a preteen. By the time that slang came into my life, I knew exactly why I shouldn't use it. The nearest equivalent, which AFAIK has so far been confined in use to me and my sister, was "lame-b"--with the "b" pronounced as a sharp plosive. Not helpful, I know.
96:
91: Well, exactly. Why is all this such a huge deal for straight guys?
You see, being too heterosexual is just a form of gayness. You can't want it too much.
106-
I'm not sure how to articulate it, exactly. All I know is that Napoleon Dynamite was clearly lame, but definitely not gay. He plays with knumbchucks, for God's sake.
Gay is something more like effeminate lameness. At least that's how I would use it.
apparently, I'm the only person here who never ever used "gay" to mean "lame" as a preteen
That was actually my experience too. And I'm pretty sure I learned the word gay as an ordinary word before I heard people using it as slang.
112- I first learned "gay" as meaning simply "happy." I learned it both to be an insult and an orientation later.
Can we all admit that (per prior Unfogged discussions) too feminine women are annoying?
True story: I knew two guys in 7th grade who agreed to give each other dead arms (hit the other kid in the shoulder, if that lingo isn't everywhere) everytime one of them caught the other doing something "gay." The goal of this was, I suppose, to beat the gay out of each other. This story wasn't that disturbing in my memory, but definetly is in typing it out. Just slot it under "7th graders are stupid", I guess. Also, I'm not sure who determined what was and wasn't gay, and whether or not there was an appellate body to appeal determinations of gayness to.
Can we all admit that (per prior Unfogged discussions) too feminine women are annoying?
Umm, no. I don't recall these earlier discussions, but women can't be too feminine. Femininity is very attractive.
Of course, what is and is not "feminine" is not very clearly defined, so we may mean different things.
Back in the long time ago days I took an aerobics class that my girlfriend was teaching. I skulked in the back and lived through it. The bad part for me was that it was _really_ hard and I was in pretty good shape at the time. But what really killed it was when, after the class, she said, "The hardest part of having you in my class was not laughing when I saw you in the mirror." The takehome: guys in aerobics classes are funny looking.
I had a friend in junior high who was having a hard time--parents getting divorced, he was kinda heavy, etc.--so somehow it came about that agreed to let him punch me in the arm. Not only did he take me up on it, but he took a running start. God, I had a huge bruise.
Does Squeaky Fromme run squeakyfromme.org herself?
Have I mentioned that this is a vitally important question, much too important to be discussed on a Friday night (when the blogosphere is relatively dead). You needed to post this question during prime-time, ogged.
I take it that Timbot is talking about "girliness." And he's right that girliness--by which I mean things like batting the eyelashes, using an artificially high voice, making oneself generally non-threatingly sexual, is annoying in everyone.
Plent of the regulars have checked in, urple. The Unfoggetariat never sleeps (or goes out, apparently).
The blogosphere is dead, Urple claims in the 122nd comment.
(And, to Weiner's 105, yes.)
I think this is an important point. There's a certain unusual but accepted dignity to weightlifting. I don't think there's any accepted dignity to a guy aerobicizing. And I think that has something to do why the women in the class would look upon such a guy with pity and suspicion.
both soccer and swimming are definitely hott. guys who do martial arts are scary in a jean claude van damme way, or laughable, like when tommy and kriston talk really hard about taking krav maga.
...
The takehome: guys in aerobics classes are funny looking.
was meant to be quoted in 126.
I'm the only person here who never ever used "gay" to mean "lame" as a preteen.
and 112.
Me too. I was pretty out of touch with my peer group, so I may simply have missed it, but I never heard 'gay' in this sense until after college.
Look, a guy in an aerobics class is the ur-gay. If we can't agree on that, we're not going to get anywhere.
I take it that Timbot is talking about "girliness." And he's right that girliness--by which I mean things like batting the eyelashes, using an artificially high voice, making oneself generally non-threatingly sexual, is annoying in everyone.
Okay, I can probably accept that, as long as we're talking about "excessive" girliness. Although if by "making oneself generally non-threateningly sexual", you mean "flirting a lot"... I actually like that. Quite a bit.
both soccer and swimming are definitely hott.
Gawd. America really is dying, isn't she?
126 - See, but "classes" != "Jazzercize/aerobics". Like, my Club Strength class is organized weightlifting but you never see guys in it. In general, gyms have moved away from the stupid dance-y aerobics-y classes that they had in the 80s and 90s because even women think they're gay.
what, have you never watched olympic soccer or swimming? h.o.t.t.
132--well, I disagree on the swimming part.
132-
Don't fret, SCMT. The football players still have the cheerleaders.
i agree that a lot of martial arts guys are scary, contemptable, or laughable, but this isn't necessary.
making oneself generally non-threatingly sexual,
what is this?
OK, to 124 and 122, massive commenting on a Friday night is lame but not gay. So that's another data point.
133 - becks is right. my gym is all hardcore(ish) classes. boxing type stuff, kickboxing. definitely a lot of working out through punching and kicking going on. not a lot of people, even women, are into spandex-type aerobics anymore.
Aerobic kickboxing: Anyone heard of it? How does it rank?
the stupid dance-y aerobics-y classes that they had in the 80s and 90s because even women think they're gay.
I was about to take umbrage to this until I realized that real dance teachers have a lot more in common with drill sergeants than they do with trainers of any description. Carry on!
The football players still have the cheerleaders.
Cheerleading is definitely gay.
Ok, it seems like we all agree that dance-y spandex-y aerobics is gay. So, why?
140: they have something which is what i think you're talking about at my gym, called kombat kickboxing. the name puts me off, and i spend most of my time running on the treadmill or in the spinning class (another male wasteland) but it does look kind of awesome from what i've seen.
Massive commenting on a Friday is ok. Commenting alone is what crosses over into lameness.
140: gay There's no competition or actual fighting.
138 is spot-on. I still think there must be some element of emasculation for an activity to qualify as gay.
And it hasn't been stated explicitly, but I assume we're all aware: only a guy can do something gay. It would never make any sense to call a woman gay, correct?
143: because, like, do you actually even sweat while you're doing it? if you're working out properly, you shouldn't be all happy and bouncy and smiley. and wearing such bright colors.
I think gay really means "stupidly feminine" or "too feminine for anyone."
147: As with the cheerleading, my sense of the word is that women can definitely be gay.
142/148: Male cheerleading is definitely gay. It might even be teh gay.
But the comment was (obviously) referring to female cheerleading, which is teh hott. See 147.
Is urple the outlier here? (Nothing personal, urp, just trying to narrow down the community's sense of the word.)
151: we're obviously talking about totally different things, then. I don't even know what's going on anymore.
Female cheerleading is, at this point, infinitely gayer than male cheerleading. If you want to jump around half-clothed for the tittilation of others, be an adult and hit the pole.
1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34,55,89,144: These numbers are driving me insane!
be an adult and hit the pole.
In my experience, this is exactly what the cheerleaders do after the game.
I taught a student in my school's version of Freshman Comp who was a male cheerleader. He genuinely appeared to be in it because of the close proximity to the chicks (who at the "university" in question were wildly hot).
Totally gay.
158-
That's totally gay *if* also lame, in other words, if it didn't work out very well.
If he actually more or less had his pick of the cheerleaders, it stops being gay and becomes bold and borderline genius.
In Matt Groening's 5th-grade diary, some of the girls want to pitch in to buy the hated teacher a present at the end of the year. I can imagine the boys saying, "That's totally gay!" So, yes, girls can be gay. I find this result surprising.
157: In your experience? Are you saying you tried 158 and it worked?
160-
Um... no. I tried 136 and it worked.
And I imagine the boys woudl onyl be saying "that's totally gay" in reference to their own participation in the gift-giving. Just the girls doing it is not gay, in my worldview.
Maybe it would clarify things if I went ahead and stated clearly that I am a sexist pig. Just so I'm not injecting any unnecessary ambiguity into this conversation.
If you want to jump around half-clothed for the tittilation of others, be an adult and hit the pole.
OK, Tim's 155 suddenly unlocked a mental translator somewhere. The phrase my girl-friends and I used and I think still use for this sort of thing is "insufficiently hard-core." Wordy, yes. Annoyingly ironic, probably. But gender-neutral!
It seems people have finally gone out. To be continued, I guess.
163 reminds me that in School of Rock Jack Black sings about how the other bandmembers are not hardcore. Jack Black's character in that movie clearly is a douchebag. But is he gay?
165-- Not to me.
164-- Are you shutting this place down?
Wait, what? Jack Black rocks in School of Rock.
Oh, yes, cheerleading is definitely gay. I'm a Giants fan anyway, but I especially like that they don't have cheerleaders. It's all about the game, man.
But he's also a douchebag! At least at the beginning. I think gay is probably the rest of his band.
Ah, I'm probably just totally full of shit. You can't actually like that song with a straight face, though.
I think "tool" goes some way toward replacing gay, at least in its capacity to describe people.
L. is right, at least in my experience, but isn't "tool" a regional term? I had never heard it until I started college.
But the fucking other people up in a ring to prove manliness thing was just kinda an unsuprable bar for me, you know?
One, "unsuperable"; two, isn't that rather uncharitable? If it was semi-pro, he was making money doing it (or maybe just making semi-money), and who's to say that he was doing it to prove manliness? Maybe you—you went on a date with him, after all—but it's not obvious.
My little brother's 3rd grade teacher was a male cheerleader in high school- a contemporary of my dad. All dad said about that was: never trust a male cheerleader. Seems reasonable, for many reasons.
w-lfs-n--
One--I knew that looked strange but trusted you'd call me out on it.
Two--I elided the whole part of the date where he talked about how his training regimen for the upcoming competition would increase his chest size by ten inches and his weight by forty pounds. Turn-off!! And semi-pro means, really, the possibility of maybe recouping some of your training costs, although in his case, his ranking had helped him to catch some personal security gigs, which, strangely, is how we met. Then in follow-up phone conversations, prodding gently a little further, I learned sufficient details about his youth that I'm fine with saying it was about proving his manliness, at minimum to himself. Not My Cup Of Tea.
How about just "that's for girls"?
But isn't there some overlap between "tool" and "gay"? Maybe not; like I say, "tool" was not a familiar term to me growing up.
BTW, now that Labs is back maybe he can clarify his understanding of gay; judging from his previous comment I think it's the same as mine but I'm not sure.
Obviously I am very late to this conversation, but it's one I've thought about a lot. I couldn't care less what someone's preferred orifice is, but it's very hard for me to respect a man who behaves in an effeminate way.
I remember once seeing a guy reading a Candace Bushnell novel on the Metro and feeling nothing but contempt for him. I'm not sure if that means I'm a terrible person or not, but I'm pretty sure there isn't much I can do about it.
I avoid using 'gay' as a pejorative, but to the extent it describes a set of effeminate behaviors that are voluntarily adopted by homosexuals, I don't feel that bad about it. At some point the desire to not listen to Kylie Minogue outweighs the desire to avoid being called a homophobe.
I'm not sure I'd ever heard this usage of tool until I began to read Unfogged.
Whoops! It's actually "insuperable".
I blame the wine.
Labs, our linguistic intuitions are in accord. I was conflating the two senses of "gay."
That's good. Now, about your cookware...
Though this disambiguation begs raises a question: In what sense is Ben w-lfs-n said to be "gay"?
I'm on board too. I guess this means Ogged isn't an old man after all (take that, Ted).
Now, about your cookware...
Not to worry, you big faggot: for you, I won't use the non-stick.
Ben w-lfs-n is so gay, he's gay in every delineated sense.
At this moment, I am imagining my coworkers reading this, and I am cringing.
Yeah, I still don't know where the fuck I got Ted.
Funny, I was just thinking that my mom is always asking about the site.
I am gay in the same way that Ben Kingsley is a traitor: the best way.
is it sometimes the best thing to do, sad though this may be?
I think that's right. I'm having trouble thinking of an example, but I imagine participating in something gay for the sake of a friend--but if the intent is noble, I think the action as a whole isn't gay.
You know, there's a less labor-intensive way to write "gay": "ghey".
As soon as one's plumbing motivations, the dreaded "gay" no longer becomes appropriate, methinks. Anyway, good luck with the redefinitions, and good night.
201 - Going with Mark to the Olivia Newton-John concert = doing something gay for a friend. And gay, too. It was the gayest thing I've ever seen and I used to volunteer by doing safe-sex outreach in leather bars during Mardi Gras.
Uh oh, so much for matching linguistic intutions.
I don't even know what to do with Becks' comment.
I could show you. That was my job. I should do a workshop ATM.
Becks, I should take this moment to mention that I think I love you.
208 - My gay best friend. Or best gay friend. I can never figure out which way means "my closest friend who is gay", not "my friend who is best at being gay". He may be the best at being gay, but I don't have the proof to back that up.
No, 210 is really "tool," isn't it?
Yeah, I agree that 210 is more "tool" than gay.
211 - Thanks, Labs. Just don't let Weiner hear or he'll start naming our kids.
142/148: Male cheerleading is definitely gay. It might even be teh gay.
And Dubya was a goddamned head cheerleader! (insert "head" joke here) If only Gore had said, "My opponent is teh gay!," he would have won! But of course a Democrat could never say such a thing. Wrestling seems totally gay, too -- what straight guy would want to be grabbing some other guy like that? Yuck.
btw, why does no one ever comment on the weirdness of saying that something "sucks?" It's obviously a reference to fellatio, which most men of course greatly enjoy receiving, and something that most women (and gay men, obviously) do for their lovers. So why is it an insult to say that something (or someone) sucks? I assume that it originates as an anti-gay remark, similar to calling someone a "cocksucker." One could also see it (and "cocksucker") as misogynist -- obviously women and gays are the people who "suck" and are "cocksuckers." Why aren't gays and feminists decrying the use of these words?
It also seems weird that the word "sucks" is so desexualized these days. Most people don't bat an eye at hearing a five-year-old say that something sucks. If one spelled it out, "____ sucks my penis!," then people would surely be offended. Weird, on all counts.
"Tool" implies a willing submission to the unnatural (meaning often unnecessary) rules of society to the detriment of fun, I think. And that's what you're describing.
Kids? I just want you to take me to the leather bar.
As for 210, I was thinking of cases where my friends demand drunken excess, and I plead, say, work responsibility. Does that change anything?
FL: Things that I've said that are gay:
"What nice shoes that man is wearing"
Things that I've said that are gay:
"No, I can't go out drinking, because I have to get up early tomorrow"
I like emo as a term, because I was the grocery store one time and I saw a couple who had to be around 22, but looked about 40, attired in matching used black tracksuits and bad hair. They were not crying while they shopped, as they had apparently been embalmed.
But that brings to mind nu-metal, which makes me think nu-gay, which in turn would be shortened to nugay. Making it:
FL: Things that I've said that are nugay:
"No, I can't go out drinking, because I have to get up early tomorrow"
Of course, nugay is completely gay sounding.
ash
['Because somehow gaytool doesn't seem to work.']
Frederick, it's time for you to read through the archives, my friend.
I like Tim's definition. I was thinking "acting like the Man, in the hopes that someday you'll be the Man." Same idea, I think. That's toolish. But gay is a less purposive, more personal kind of lameness.
My brother was a cheerleader in high school. He did it to score with women. He wasn't particularly succesful.
In college he hit on the scheme of breaking into buildings with women. This apparently was much more successful.
He was pretty fearless.
219: I think it depends. If it's an accurate assesment - to do your job at an acceptable level, you need to get some sleep - simply gay. If you need your sleep to impress someone, because you're a go-getter, it's tool-ish.
breaking into buildings with women
Wait, isn't this a felony?
According to two high school teachers I know, square is coming back into use. Also, I've been under the impression that tool was more negative than: goes to sleep early.
Or going to sleep early is much worse than you thought.
When I was in school, tapping out was seriously weak. It is not my place to question the code.
He would meet women at a party and then take them to break into abandoned buildings. It technically is a felony but it isn't the type of thing they throw college kids in jail for. He did have to hide in a closet once while police were shinning their flashlights around.
Frederick, it's time for you to read through the archives, my friend.
My historical knowledge of Unfogged is pathetically deficient, it's true. I should've known that you all would have considered "sucks" already.
Ah, he broke into buildings with women, not in order to meet them.
(but seriously, that was actually one of the better references I've seen)
(but seriously, that was actually one of the better references I've seen)
Agreed.
Yeah, I still don't know where the fuck I got Ted.
No harm done. I was just surprised you used it twice.
[In the UK] My little brother, who is 14 seems to use 'gay' in the same vague lameness sense of gay as used in the discussion above. I don't think there's much homophobia latent in his use of the word although being 14 and so at that age when orthodox sexual codes are rigorously enforced I wouldn't be surprised if there were.
We always used 'wanker' which carries connotations of both toolishness and gay but not 'gay' [in the homosexual sense].
According to two high school teachers I know, square is coming back into use.
When I was starting at WHPK, one of the reviews of a then-new Acid Mothers Temple album said that it was great music to freak the squares.
Actually, I do know where I got Ted. When I read "teofilo", I think "tedleo".
Yeah, "wanker" seems less offensive than "gay." Of course, most of us are "wankers," so that's an odd insult, too. In high school, after the first time I'd masturbated to orgasm, I made the mistake of telling a "friend" about this. He proceeded to tell everyone in the frigging school. I was ridiculed and made to believe that I was the only person who did such things . . . .
I've never masturbated Frederick to orgasm, either.
What do you call yours, then, apo?
It took me a minute to get that one, then I laughed.
There can be no apostropher without an apostrophe.
What do you call yours, then, apo?
Peter? Dick? Rod? Lance?
Until Barack Obama was sworn in in January 2005, the first three of those were the names of Illinois' two senators and its governor, making us the most phallic state in the country. Lance, as it happens, was the name of the asshole who told everyone in the school that I was a jagoff (as it were).
What do you call yours, then, apo?
Spanky Johnson.
the most phallic state in the country
from my experience, this is not true.
I don't think Florida really has any competition for that title.
I once blogged on the subject:
With the swearing-in of Senator Barack Obama today, Illinois ceases its reign as the Penile State -- our senators Dick (Durbin) and Peter (Fitzgerald), our governor Rod (Blagojevich). And who can forget the recurrent Dick Daley (mayor of Chicago), the heavenly Dick Devine (Cook County State's Attorney), and the dysfunctional Dick Phelan (former president of the Cook County Board). The less said about Neal Hartigan (former lieutenant governor/attorney general/Illinois Appellate Court justice), the better. Collectively, Illinois' politicians are a veritable Dick Army! Oh, wait -- he's from Texas.
"Barack," incidentally, means "blessed by God" -- but not necessarily in a penile way.
Anticipating w-lfs-n: yes, I'm well aware that the surname of the guy from Texas is really "Armey."
wow, i am coming really late to this conversation. but, going back to what was being said in the early three digits:
it is incredibly attractive & powerful if a guy can do something effeminate or be in a situation that might conceivably question his masculinity, but be SO SURE of himself and his maleness that he is completely comfortable and unfazed, and sails right on. this makes him seem EVEN MORE masculine as well as sensitive and comfortable in his own skin. that is a huge way to get a woman's attention. (at least, it gets mine every time).
After careful reflection on the preceding, I have decided that the best word to use to describe things that are gay is "gay".
The term has been so thoroughly co-opted that it no longer carries any homophobic overtones, except in a latent, historical sense. It's no different from "sucks" really, and shouldn't be considered any more offensive.
Of course both these terms are, as I said, sort of offensive in an historical sense, even if the speaker (in most cases) has no current animus. But--I feel I'm doing my part to strip away these implicitly negative associations by peppering my speech with "wizard cocksucker" whenever and whereever appropriate.
So "gay" it is.
And "tool" isn't even a good approximation, whoever you were that suggested that.
Departing from the consensus (where's the Bitch signal when you need it? I'm pretty sure she'd either back me up, or convince me that I'm wrong) even though I didn't grow up using gay(2), I can't buy what people seem to be saying: that it's a homophone, with nothing to do with sexuality or femininity. The etymology (and the usage I've heard, which generally seems to involve girl cooties; see ogged's original post, also comments 111 and 179, all of which seem to me to be more accurate than 180 and 183) demands that the insult have something to do with gender roles: if it doesn't, how is it distinguishable from 'lame'?
Trying to pin down how I've seen it used, it's an accusation of behaving in a feminine, but also less than perfectly adept, manner. Aweinspiringly stylish outfit on a man? Maybe not gay(2). Outfit that indicates effort to be stylish, but that isn't overwhelmingly perfect? Gay(2). Master chef? Not gay(2). Making a jello salad (note: I'm not advocating this behavior for anyone)? Gay(2). Dancer with the American Ballet Theater? Not gay(2). Exercise class in the gym? Gay(2).
If I wanted to sum it up, I'd say that gay(2) describes situations where a man puts himself on feminine turf, and shows himself as not the unquestioned superior on that turf. And in our society, a man who puts himself in a position like that has to be punished, hard. I really do disapprove.
Me too. I was pretty out of touch with my peer group, so I may simply have missed it, but I never heard 'gay' in this sense until after college.
It was not in use in our junior high. I didn't hear it in that sense until after college either. And when I did, it took me a while to figure out the person was not trying to be offensive.
I'm glad you weighed in -- it's a comfort realizing I didn't entirely miss a current piece of slang. I knew I was out of touch, but would have hated to be that out of touch.
I agree 100% with LB in 257. Except about it being wrong to disparage such people.
Gay used in that sense seems very suburban to me.
"tool" isn't even
Oh, come on. Consider that the clueless lameness definition of "gay" (gay) has been generally agreed to be the "junior high" use. Remember that the junior high age group faces a much different array of specimens of lameness than you all do today, and that perhaps chief among these examples of lameness are examples of mama's-boyism. Running to adults for help or to rat someone out is classic gay, in my opinion. This obeisance to authority figures is also captured by "tool."
It is true that "tool" in its most basic "agent of The Man" definition doesn't begin to address the way that, say, Magic cards are gay, or bow ties in non-tuxedo contexts are gay, or exercise classes are gay. (I would like to note that it was me I! I! I! who suggested it, in the most timid little comment imaginable, replete with caveats. I know it's not the same, Urple, but I really don't think unstruck "gay" is acceptable anymore. "Gay" is fine for the internets, but it's crucial to the nature of the word that there be a verbal equivalent.)
lizardbreath - 257 puts it so well.
luckily gender roles are loosening up for men too. (there might be a certain lag for bloggerdom). i've been noticing 40/60 and 50/50 male/female yoga classes (though of course lots of teachers are men now), and i was amused and pleased to see, the last time i went to berkeley, lots of men knitting.
(really do-able men, too).
california is coming to get you, guys.
1) It's comparatively okay for women to do manly things and not as okay for men to do womanly things because things that are men's things are still considered more valuable things. (Traditional men's roles vs. stay-at-home-mom, sure the second one's valuable but where does the money go?)
It's good to be da king, so it's okay to act like da king.
It's probably also a lack of coordination. Most guys haven't been dragged to dance lessons or socially encouraged to dance, so being thrust into an aerobics class is like a trip to Mars. 'Why... do they all move their arms.. at the same time...while moving.. their feet?'
2) Really, though. You guys need to get over it. One of the most popular boys in my high school was on the football team and after football practice, he'd go to his mother's dance studio and practice gymnastics and competitive dance for two hours.
Of course he got shit for it. Usual response was, 'Yeah, it's such a drag having girls in skimpy clothing around.'
And yeah, same for a woman who should be weight training to build bone density but is afraid of looking masculine. You get over it, too.
3) I don't buy the 'non-goal-oriented' nature of aerobics as an excuse. Running isn't goal-oriented either (woo, I ran for 30 minutes at a faster pace. woo, I did aerobics for 30 minutes at a higher heart rate).
4) My mother reacts to 'sucks' in the way LB reacts to 'gay'. And of course it's misogynist. Maybe not harmfully so, but come on, if it was just lameness you meant, you'd say 'lame' (it's not like that has disappeared as an insult.)
Teofilo et. al are right though, that it doesn't necessarily come with a hatred of gays or even squickiness. But it definitely comes with 'that thing is for a girl or makes your dick size suspect'
So 'girlie man', 'sissy', dandy', 'effeminate' all come close.
'Twee' is more along the lines of 'ingratiatingly cute' or 'purposefully adorable'.
The career of the word "gay" is getting more and more interesting. Originally a common and useful word indicating "joyous," "merry," or "colorful," at some point in the early 19th century, London prostitutes took up "gay" as a descriptor for their trade.... In the 20th century the word was of course taken up by homosexuals as a euphemism for their own tendency. Now something else is happening. I have noticed my daughter (ten years old next week) and her friends using "gay" in the sense of: "patronizing, babyish, boring, contemptible." Anything that it is beneath the dignity of an almost-ten-year-old to pay attention to is "gay."... My guess is that it was originally a teen usage that seeped downwards via siblings and the schoolyard. Though I have little contact with teenagers, I am told that they, or at least a large element of them, are putting up valiant resistance to the PC-indoctrination efforts that have taken over much of today's high-school syllabus, displacing comparatively trivial things like geography, history and mathematics. Good for them.
Now, it's the opera-loving and sodomy-obsessed John Derbyshire, but I think this provides evidence that we don't have two unrelated terms here; just as 'bitch' in "Why must you be such a little bitch?" is, sadly, not unrelated to the term of dismissal for women. And evidence that this use of 'gay' isn't totally harmless. My guess is that 'sucks' is pretty much a dead metaphor, though I can't back this up. (And what does it say that the only things I can think of to say to Tom are "bite me" and suck on this and the like?)
I agree with LB that it's bad to reinforce gender roles in this way; though I do want to have something to say about the emo kids and the guy in 92. So I somewhat share baa's sense that we do need a term for a closely aligned concept. -- Maybe what makes Napoleon Dynamite so totally not-this is his lack of fakery, and the emo kids and 92 guy are offensive because they're faking sensitivity. (Napoleon didn't want to be in the hand-movements club, though, which is the specific thing he did that I thought was gay.)
A data point, which I may have mentioned before: When my first free-improvisation noise group was getting ready to play out, we said we needed some bigger amplifiers because the ones we had weren't loud enough. The drum machine/tape operator said, "Can't we turn these up more?" "They're up all the way." "That is so gay!" he said, then looked embarrassed. This doesn't seem like feminine turf, but it does seem that the problem is a lack of potency.
Small town with a lot of antique shops: twee.
Re 257, I'm sure the two senses of "gay" are etymologically related, but "gay" as used by the youth of the nineties really doesn't have much if anything to do with gender roles.
My guess is that 'sucks' is pretty much a dead metaphor, though I can't back this up.
On this one I'm with you. I am made more comfortable in this regard by the hostile use of 'fuck', which doesn't make much sense as a condemnation of heterosexual sex.
So I somewhat share baa's sense that we do need a term for a closely aligned concept.
I don't disagree that lots of things which set off people's gay(2) alarms are in fact condemnable -- i.e., jello salads. I'd just like to shift the culture so they aren't condemnable either for or through their association with the feminine -- that if spandexy dance classes are lame, they're lame on their own terms, not because they are a priori lame for being femme-y.
1. As someone (tom, I think) said above, no one cares about the sex practices of other people anymore. Actual "gay"-ness seems pretty normal to most people. I think you have to believe this as a baseline or everything else is pretty much lost.
2. I wouldn't deny that "gay"-ness has a gender component; I would deny that this is a bad thing. There are things that are associated with "feminine" that neither women nor men should do - cultural outgrowths that resulted from the domination of women.
3. It probably is used for a broader range of things for men than for women. This is where usage could be problematic. But if there is something like male culture, then there are things people find normal in women that are abnormal in men. Depending on the circumstances, this doesn't bother me too much.
L., re: 267 --
Are you really sure? You're a native speaker of the dialect that includes gay(2) and I'm not, so I could be wrong, but if you would, riffle through some instances of gay(2) in your head. As a term of condemnation, isn't it disproportionately directed toward boys/men?
There are things that are associated with "feminine" that neither women nor men should do - cultural outgrowths that resulted from the domination of women.
I'd like to know what you include here. I don't think it's particularly helpful to have scorn for traditionally female traits either--and it seems this idea often comes out in that way.
269, point 1: I draw your attention to the massive block quote from Derb in 265 (which may have crossposted). That's him, not his kids, but I think we're dreaming if we think that homophobia is dead even among the younger crowd. I bet that picking on kids who are somehow 'different' is still around, too.
There are things that are associated with "feminine" that neither women nor men should do - cultural outgrowths that resulted from the domination of women.
Let me rephrase this uncharitably (and unjustly, I'm not accusing you, personally, of thinking this way, I'm just trying to play out implications): "The use of gay(2) expresses contempt for the feminine, but that's all right because the feminine is objectively contemptible."
And this: This is where usage could be problematic. But if there is something like male culture, then there are things people find normal in women that are abnormal in men.
could be similarly and uncharitably rephrased as: "Of course, contemptibly feminine behavior is appropriate for women, so we won't condemn it for them."
There are things that are associated with "feminine" that neither women nor men should do - cultural outgrowths that resulted from the domination of women.
I can see this in the cases of things like overwrought emotions, coyness, coquettry, and so forth. But that class of undesirable characteristics isn't coextensive with gay; ballet classes, colorful clothing, and having refined table manners aren't usually in the same category as corsets and submissiveness, but just as like to incur the insult.
I'd like to know what you include here.
Cheerleading.
but that's all right because the feminine is objectively contemptible.
Fair if "feminine" is understood to be distinct from naturally female or intrinsically female, and is rather, as above, bad practices forced on women. Teaching people to shoehorn their feet into shoes that are much to small - wrong. Who the fuck notices foot size?
"Of course, contemptibly feminine behavior is appropriate for women, so we won't condemn it for them."
No, I think this is a case where the use is more jokey than usual. If I tell a friend that I hate baseball, he might say, "Dude, at least pretend to be an American" or "Of course you do, Osama." He doesn't particularly think that non-Americans are a contemptible bunch, or think that Americans are particularly praiseworthy. Nor does he think hatred of baseball is tantamount to terrorism. Rather, he's making a complicated yet stupid joke, based on a series of stereotypes. I don't know if he's enforcing a norm so much as pointing it out without much caring about the violation of it.
I gave up on "gay" when I was in High School because the people that used it were total tools. In college, I tried to reclaim it for a few years and stood on the point that it's not actually a homophobic insult, which it isn't, or at least the homophobia is latent rather than explicit:
I think the reason "lame" doesn't easily map to "gay" is because the assault on one's sexuality implicit in "gay" isn't present in "lame." It doesn't even have to be something which a gay man would do for the questioning of sexuality to be there--in fact, I'd go so far as to say that, both linguistically and culturally, heterosexuality is so normative that you could call out a man who has sex with other men as "gay" in this particular usage, and the insult would retain the sting. That double-meaning that makes it such a useful term and a term so impossible to "reclaim" or rehabilitate.
It's possible that my school's usage was markedly different, but it seems that it's the second valence that some of you are searching to recoup, which doesn't seem very possible to me. But I'm a guy who bakes, so what do I know.
You're right, LB, that it is almost exclusively used by and for boys, even though the behaviors that it might describe are objectionable in either gender. Examples of gay: sweaters featuring animals with fuzzy little pom-poms for noses, high regard for abstruse and/or idiotic rules, anime, Jell-O salads, being a fair-weather sports fan, online role-playing games, keeping the plastic mats in a new car. It may come from the negativity associated with homosexuality in the mind of the eleven-year-old boy, or perhaps boys are more likely to use actual insults (rather than recognizing unacceptable lameness with significant glances and giggling, which is the female M.O., in my experience, for inflicting psychological damage on peers).
How did we get here? It's like a lot of the discussion last night never happened. Look at Fontana's 180 for some disambiguation: "gay" is used in two sense, one having to do with sexuality, one not (or far less so). The point of the post was to find a word for the sense that isn't about sexuality. Being a fair-weather sports fan is a great example, L.
As to whether some sorts of femininity should be condemned, of course they should; I don't see how this is controversial. But this isn't at attack on what's femme, and it's not even my attack on heels and makeup--it's about the kinds of things I described in 123--what we would normally call "girliness," or "being a girly-girl:" strategies and behaviors developed by women, in virtue of their subservient position in society, to manipulate men into listening to them. That shit needs to go. To be clear, and example: Monica Bellucci: totally femme, wears makeup and high heels, and is overtly sexual, but not "girly," and not objectionable, certainly not gay.
How did we get here? It's like a lot of... last night never happened.
No, Ogged, She's Just Not That Into You.
Back to the beginning: how about "foo-foo"? (I've seen the term "frou-frou" used similiarly in French, by Gerard de Nerval no less).
It is inclusive of femmy things, and gay things, and hyper-yuppy things, and old-fashioned genteel things. It's a mild pejorative but one doubts that there are homocidal foofoophobes out there, and as far as I know foofooness is not among the abominations of Leviticus.
Look at Fontana's 180 for some disambiguation: "gay" is used in two sense, one having to do with sexuality, one not (or far less so).
Erm, I think you're confusing 'disagreeing with the conclusions reached last night' with 'not having read the conclusions reached last night.'
On your position that gay(2) is only meant to condemn what is truly contemptible about femininity: look back to your original post. Do you actually take the position that exercise classes, per se, are a bad thing that should be mocked for everyone, men and women alike? If so, I'd appreciate a little defense of that proposition. If not, either you need to completely retract the post, or you seem to be taking the position that exercise classes, while all right for women, are contemptibly gay(2) for men. And that takes us right back to misogyny and a wrongfully restrictive view of men's gender roles.
Even so, I occasionally get disturbed here by the vehemence of the objection to girly-girlness. It strikes me as disproportionate--as if the sympton gets condemned more harshly than the disease, because it's more visible. And I can't help thinking that some general misogyny now gets recast as progressiveness.
I liked SCMT's point 2 in 269. I don't have much else to contribute to the linguistic discussion.
I do want to say that I've seen plenty of guys in ashtanga--power--yoga classes.
That too. I'm sometimes in the anti-girlie chorus, but a large part of that is annoyance in that it isn't a role I play well, not in that there's anything all that wrong with big chunks of it if it's what floats your boat. Sequins and finger sandwiches are a matter of personal taste, not of deviations from the one true way that must be stamped out.
Sequins and finger sandwiches are a matter of personal taste, not of deviations from the one true way that must be stamped out.
Disagree entirely on sequins. And it's written, "One True Way."
There are things that are associated with "feminine" that neither women nor men should do - cultural outgrowths that resulted from the domination of women.
I agree completely. Personally, I think it's about being willfully submissive. Someone who enjoys constantly play-acting at being weaker than they are is simply off-putting, regardless of sex or gender. That's no excuse for being a jerk toward anyone, nor for picking bad cues to define weakness, of course.
I realize that this is all caveman-macho-bullshit. But then, it is playoff season.
I think you're confusing 'disagreeing with the conclusions reached last night' with 'not having read the conclusions reached last night.'
But I don't get what you're disagreeing with. You admit that gay is a usage with which you're not familiar, but you disagree when we describe the way in which it's used?
Do you actually take the position that exercise classes, per se, are a bad thing that should be mocked for everyone, men and women alike?
Take a look at 143, also 148, which seems relevant.
As for girliness, we're just never going to agree.
Look at Fontana's 180 for some disambiguation: "gay" is used in two sense, one having to do with sexuality, one not (or far less so). The point of the post was to find a word for the sense that isn't about sexuality.
Like, LB, I read it, and I also disagree. If we wish to mock FL for saying,
'Sorry, I can't go out drinking tonight, I have to be up early tomorrow',
and all we wish to say about that is that it shows a character weakness unbefitting a junior prof, we have lots of words for that: 'lame', 'goody-two-shoes', 'party-pooper', 'wimp', 'loser', 'no fun', or even 'unlucky, man'.
But if we want to say that none of those are correct ways to describe his actions, which seems to be the consensus here, it really looks like what we're trying to say is 'a real man would drink AND get up early. gayyyyy'. And that seems to imply that while such behavior is unacceptable for FL, it would be okay for a woman.
I'll agree that we're not questioning FL's love for the ladies, but we're sure questioning his masculinity broadly construed. Same with aerobics classes, ballet, etc.
And if we're not talking about gender roles at all, then what's wrong with 'lame'?
"Lame" is the word I would use in that situation, so it may not be a great example. In fact, "refusing to go out drinking" is pretty much the definition of the word lame, as I usually encounter it.
287: nor for picking bad cues to define weakness
Like reading stuff on the Index of Forbidden Books? Earlier you said that you didn't like men to display any feminine behavior, and that goes beyond willful submissiveness.
And, obviously I'm more annoyed about this because you gored my ox, but it kind of pisses me off that in the middle of this discussion about the horror of girliness it's OK to say excuse caveman-macho bullshit because, hey, it's playoff season. Would any of the people who are on about the evils of girlyness be inclined to excuse a sequined, high-heeled, giggling woman who said, "I know I'm being too girly, but hey, it's Oscar night" (or whatever the equivalent is)?
Okay, different example then. (I think 'lame' fits better there, too).
Let's say that FL takes a yoga class. He tells ogged about the class and ogged's response is that it's gay to take a yoga class.
Now, I doubt hypothetical ogged here thinks that practicing yoga is an objectionable personal quality like passive-aggressive attention strategies, or wearing high heels, or overt makeup. I don't think he's going to tell a woman it's gay to take a yoga class. I can't really see this cast as a strike against ages of oppression.
He just thinks it's too feminine and therefore unsuitable for FL.
The playoff thing was a joke, Matt. If it helps, rest assured that upon meeting you I would become a total hypocrite and back off my book-reading assertion, try and fail to refine my position, then arrive at some pathetic "you're one of the good ones" formulation.
To whatever extent I count as a macho asshole by blogospheric standards, I was hardly an alpha male growing up. I'm confident one could find a large number of things I've done/do that count as gay. That doesn't make Candace Bushnell novels any less gay, though.
(I should probably note that my appraisal of those novels is based entirely on the TV series SATC. But that same appraisal is likely what induced the Metro-rider to pick up the book, so I stand by my ignorance.)
Cala, why don't we stick to the examples from people who actually have used gay, instead of ones that are so obviously gendered? That's why L.'s "fair weather fan" = gay is instructive. (I should say that calling things "gay"(or gay) is not something I do, or, as I recall, ever have done--but I'm certainly familiar with the usage.)
And as for 143 and 148, the original point was that men don't join Sherry's exercise classes because they're gay. Do you think Sherry's classes are dance-y and spandex-y? That doesn't strike me as likely, from a bit of reading her blog. Do you think she and other women need to quit them?
If the answer is "no," then either gay can mean "OK only for women," or you need a new explanation for why guys aren't in her exercise classes.
292: In that case, ogged would just be an asshole, since anyone who knows about yoga knows that it can be pretty tough, and that some objectively Awesome Dudes participate in it.
Obviously this is all subjective. One person's exact criteria for what constitutes gayness will differ from another's, but I think the underlying idea of weakness remains constant, and is what is referred to when the adjective is used in the abstract. This is probably also why a relatively effeminate gay guy that I know often uses gay in the way we're discussing it here. He may order himself a cosmopolitan at the bar without shame -- but there's always someone else whose weakness needs to be identified as unbecoming. I suspect it's just a tic of the male psyche.
In my experience girly-girlness is often coupled with valuable traits, like kindness and compassion, that come from exactly the same place--trying to please other people.
Yeah, you want to discourage women from being untrue to themselves, and resorting to manipulative strategies. But if you see girly-girlness on a continuum with some positive qualities, you might end up hating fewer women. And hating fewer women: good goal.
The playoff thing was a joke, Matt.
OK, but I do think there's a bit of male privilege at work behind the joke. I'm not saying it's uniquely your problem; more of an I blame the patriarchy thing here, that (as in so many beer commercials) macho cavemen behavior is to be humored.
Also worth noting that the playoffs don't start till early May, tom.
Hate the sin, not the sinner, ac. They *can* come from the same place, but one is objectionable, the other is not, so I don't see that it matters. And isn't it strange to think that kindness and compassion come from wanting to please?
301: Good point. In retrospect I see that in the context of this discussion that was a pretty dumb way to try to lighten the mood.
Anyway, I'm about to don a helmet and reflective ankle strap, bicycle to the club district and buy myself a vegan falafel lunch (seriously). Back later.
That is, the thought behind 301 is that bad stereotypically male behavior is seen in our culture as cute and harmless ("Men Behaving Badly"), and bad stereotypicaly female behavior is, while perhaps cute, also despised.
298: I agree about weakness, but I think the original exercise class example shows that this weakness can be associated with guys getting girl cooties. That's why what I want to salvage is the idea of guys acting this way inauthentically, like the emo and sensitive-new-age guys.
strategies and behaviors developed by women, in virtue of their subservient position in society, to manipulate men into listening to them. That shit needs to go.
On principle, I'm against stamping out differences and personal choices and tastes that I happen to not like.
Cala, why don't we stick to the examples from people who actually have used gay, instead of ones that are so obviously gendered?
Going out drinking and taking yoga are obviously gendered?
I'm young enough for 'gay' to have been an insult when I was in sixth grade. It has two senses, one for which 'lame' is a perfectly appropriate synonym (and this is more common on the playground), and one that implies untoward femininity. So being a fair-weather fan is gay in sense one, and enjoying aerobics is gay in sense two.
And I think that gay-sense-two does contain a judgment of untoward femininity that isn't limited to obviously problematic things like passive-aggressiveness, but includes just generally 'those things are done by girls, wimpy man'.
Aerobics hasn't involved sparkles and spandex in 20 years. It's mostly t-shirts and shorts or sweats, none of it in little matched outfits.
Crossposted 305 with 304. Again, I didn't think this is Tom Being Evil so much as a problem in society.
And I don't think this thread has advanced, in a certain way, from my 41 in which I contended that the primary raison d'etre for "gay" was that it created two groups between oppressor and oppressee, even though it lacked accuracy linguistically. If anything, I'm for increased linguistic accuracy and against social schisms.
Actually, Weiner's just a pussy, but we'll have to replace that term later.
FWIW, I'll try yet another reason that excercise classes are derided: There are many other ways of getting one's excercise that are simply prefered. Ergo, the tastes of a guy in such a class are questionable.
Wear that outfit for cleaning, won't you? The one I like. I want to picture you in it. And be sure to bend over the toilet, instead of kneeling.
Michael, if you keep this up, I'll have to pin you to the floor of the loading dock with my powerful forearms.
Maybe this has been stressed in the 76,403 comments already posted, not all of which I have read, but I think the reasons exercise classes are derided is because there's a sense of community, of needing other people to effect your goals. Part of the exercise class isn't just having an instructor who shows you how to do whatever it is in question, but also, being there with other people who are also struggling with x, that there's some value in collective activity, that it's more motivating or some shit. That kind of sentiment, of wanting other people to help you effect your goals that are really, in the end, all about you, is not that acceptable for men, while it's ok for women to be into "community."
In that sense, I believe that deriding someone for being "gay" and deriding them for certain kinds of girly-girliness are totally different animals. I think the first is for cluelessness, for authenticity, in a sense, for doing x activity because it struck you as a good idea, and not knowing it was verboten. The second complaint is about inauthenticity, at least the complaints I have about girly-girliness are.
1. This discussion is slightly unmoored; we are not respecting the social context within which we might use the term gay. I would never use it IRL, for the same reasons that I would not tease a coworker about being Shi'a as I tease ogged. Here I have sufficient contact, through comments, with commenters to believe that no one believes (a) that homosexuality is a bad thing (or a good thing - it's just not that important), or (b) that being Shi'a is objectionable. The same contact assures me that everyone recognizes this characteristic of the greater group. (I'm not even sure ogged's Shi'a, though I've always assumed so.)
2. At least part of the OK'ness of this depends on the understanding/belief/luckiness that "manly man" is no longer a particularly privileged position among the greater group and the larger groups those individuals hang out with. If I am a manly man (I'm not), I'm still not in a position to deny anyone access to anything on the basis of it. It's now only a proxy for a set of characteristics I like or dislike. Celtic-philia works the same way; in general, liking the Celtics is an indication that you're an asshole. Like Celtic-philia it's a bad proxy. As a result, I use Celtic-philia as a joke. Same with gay. It's acceptable as a joke because we all recognize that so little depends on it. There's no real bite to it.
3. Certain types of femininity (or feminine worldviews) are objectionable, just as certain types of masculinity (or masculine worldviews) are objectionable. We have words for the latter, as well - like "Chet" or "fratboy," I think.
4. No one, I assume, is particularly wedded to the idea that the use of gay is necessary. For some reason, this seems necessary to say, though I can't think why.
But I don't think "chet" or "fratboy" is necessarily objectionable. Anyway, I think there's a concern that the application of "gay" is inconsistent with any stated principle that it's gender-neutral, which is teh problem. And even if people here don't use "gay," just think of it as a symbol for what we really do think, i.e. you may not call a guy gay for doing X, but you may be making the same judgement.
I think what some are advocating is that guys can chose to be femme or not, but a person making one choice shouldn't deride someone making the other choice.
I'm almost positive Ogged's going to disagree with me. But he's a muslim, so, really, what can you expect?
Not so sure about your 4), given the original post:
We desperately need a word for what "gay," when used as an insult, meant, back when it was acceptable to use it. Obviously, it referred to characteristics associated with feminine men--and I'd like to hang on to that, because we have to be able to keep making fun of them.
(The emphasis on femininity also seems to be in the original post, too.)
Come to think of it, 'candyass' might be an acceptable replacement.
Delurking to agree strongly with LB's 257, and most of her follow-up.
Finding a non-offensive synonym for the "gay = lame" usage is a problem bigger than just finding the right word. As others say, it's not just ribbing someone for being a fair-weather fan (we all know that bandwagonitis is the height of lameness, right?). It's really about putting them in a despised subgroup.
It might be easier to see if we consider the hideous phrase "That's mighty w*ite of you," which was in use until at least the 1960s. I can't imagine anyone today arguing that they should be allowed to use it because of some secondary meaning. It would be universally heard as racist.
Ogged is looking for a word to insult stupid behavior without slamming an entire subgroup (women, gay people, whatever). I think he might find wordS, but it's hard to find a blanket insult without gravitating to a big ol' generalization.
Having said that, I admit that I tease people about getting fancy manicures by rolling my eyes and saying they're acting chichi, which to me means pretentious.
I can't imagine anyone today arguing that they should be allowed to use it because of some secondary meaning.
Look through the archives, and you'll see bad driving attibuted to Asian-ness, and other stuff (I can't remember what) attributed to being black. Given the larger group, it's been understood as a play on stereotypes. I can easily imagine telling a good black friend that something was "mighty white" of him; I can't imagine meaning it.
Moreover, the pretense that there is a super-strong analog between the African-American position and that of Gay-Americans or women (or almost every other group) is one of the things I (not black) find really, really irritating, and occassionally offensive (as in, "women/gay people are America's last n--g-rs"). I wouldn't play misery poker over the difference, but there are differences.
SCMT - i mostly agree with 318. But a) the violence with which excessively feminine stuff gets condemned often and b) the historical place from where a lot of it comes from give "meathead" or "fratboy" a different context from "gay" or "girly."
or, to put it differently: i still find, as a woman, that when i criticize someone's idea to their face, i have to smile and put the objection in a pleasant and self-deprecating way -- because if i just look them in the eye and give the same comment without any softeners, they will react very badly.
this is not so true for men. i don't see them being pushed to use all the softeners.
women still get a LOT of social cues to moderate themselves in those ways.
a study was done of lawyer evaluations in the context of reviewing promotions for gender bias. it found that assertive women often got labeled as "shrill" and passed over, while assertive men were often rewarded for the same behavior.
so that is where, i think, the resistance is coming from among some commenters to the idea that it's totally okay to condemn certain kinds of femininity -- and the idea that it can be a form of redirected misogyny.
I've been reading this thread with a mounting sense of frustration. (Except for the funny bits, where the frustration has been relieved by laughter -- thanks for those, you know who you are.)
The whole premise that we need to have a way to disparage a particular group just seems pretty ass backward to me. We ought to try to lose such tools, distance ourselves from them. The homophobic aspect of it doesn't really come into play in my mind -- I am as I said earlier neither femme nor gay(1); but for much of my life I was and am gay(2) and disparaged as such. So it touches me in a personal way that we are looking for ways to rub boys' noses in it that they are not socially adept/don't understand the social code.
Examples of gay: sweaters featuring animals with fuzzy little pom-poms for noses, high regard for abstruse and/or idiotic rules, anime, Jell-O salads, being a fair-weather sports fan, online role-playing games, keeping the plastic mats in a new car.
This gets it exactly wrong.
Not reading all the comments, but of course LB is totally right. Mocking "feminine" men does three things: it derides the "feminine"; it reinforces the social mandate for guys to act "like guys," which reassures all the other guys that their guyhood is intact; and it expresses the anxiety that men who *like* women get laid more, and tries to use the social pressure of misogyny to psychologically control the competition.
And yes, it's totally misogynist. What is misogyny if not hatred (including dislike, mocking, or discomfort with) whatever we interpret as "feminine"?
Oh, and, of course I mean this (largely) in a social sense. Hence "gay" = "lame" because, duh, "gay" expresses disdain. Why does "gay" express disdain? Because femininity is disdainful. Hence, it not need be feminine qualities per se that are being derided; nonetheless, the fact that "gay" is a derisive term is deeply misogynist.
As to men and knitting: my dad, who does get totally freaked out by effeminate guys, made me a scarf for Xmas. His first knitting project. I couldn't have been more touched. If he weren't my dad, it would have totally gotten him laid.
Kind of depends on what one means by "feminine" in this context. I have many supposedly feminine qualities -- listening skills, empathy, delightfully sensitive fingers -- and I am happy to have them. But there's another bundle of supposedly feminine characteristics -- high-pitched voice, fussy manner -- that's far less pleasing and that goes by the name "effeminate." Some gay men have this second group of qualities and still manage to be fine fellows. But I have never met a straight man with those qualities who was not an ill-natured douchebag.
"That's mighty w*ite of you"
I'd never heard that before but it does remind me of people I know in the Midwest who use the word "Christian" as a synonym for virtue, charity, etc. I'm less offended by someone who calls the act of attending a gym class gay than someone who calls helping an old lady cross the road Christian. (Especially because the word is even used to describe the actions of people who are Jewish or Hindu, as if the only way for them to act virtuous would be to emulate Christians.)
But I don't get what you're disagreeing with. You admit that gay is a usage with which you're not familiar, but you disagree when we describe the way in which it's used?
Ogged: I said I didn't encounter 'gay(2)' in school, not that I've never heard it -- I've heard it a reasonable amount after college. Cala just quoted your original post back at you. Given that it was 'obvious' to you yesterday afternoon that 'gay(2)' filled the necessary function of providing a word with which to mock feminine men, (I figure Urple was probably kidding in 260, but if not, there's someone pretty late in the thread continuing to agree with the post on that point), and that no one's come up with a reason that modern exercise classes are objectionable other than the contamination of femininity, I think my ground for disagreement is clear.
Tim: re your 318 --
I'm generally uncomfortable with arguments of the form "We can throw shit like this around with impunity, because we're all enlightened here." Sometimes they're true: I think it would be hard to find an Irish-American who could be genuinely offended by being jocularly called a dumb Mick. But, you know, gay -- people still get beat up over this crap, and women are still treated in many ways as inferior to men. That doesn't make this the most important issue in the world (Mr. Breath uses 'gay(2)' all the time, and while I find it weird and have commented, I'm not divorcing him over it or anything), but I think it takes it out of the realm of 'stereotypes so dead we can play with them freely'.
But, B in 328, the whole point of the argument of some people here is that words get detached from their origins in such a way that you can't be sure their continued employment is susceptible to that kind of analysis.
The things that people are wanting to maintain the right to mock--fussiness, eye-batting, being uber-girly--are threatening because they signify weakness. And god forbid anyone should present themselves as weak. Vulnerability is so ridiculous and risible, after all, isn't it?
/sarcasm
330: I heard "that's mighty white of you" through the early 1980s, though not that often.
In Spain sometimes people refer to the Spanish language as "cristiano."
The things that people are wanting to maintain the right to mock--fussiness, eye-batting, being uber-girly--are threatening because they signify weakness.
See, I don't hear "gay" employed to mock those things.
#332: Sure; for example, the word "gypped" is generally not recognized as racist. Nonetheless, when the racist origin of the thing is pointed out, thoughtful people will become very uncomfortable with using it. My parents used to tell me and my sister to "keep our cotton-pickin' hands off of" whatever it was; once I finally thought about the implications of that, it was no longer funny.
Etymology matters, because it demonstrates the cultural roots of how we use language--whether or not we are still conscious of that. "Slut" used to just mean a sloppy girl; surely anyone can immediately see the connection between that and the modern meaning of the term, even though no one still uses it in that way. It's not like culture emerges anew from the flames of the phoenix every generation or so.
332-
I hear that argument, I just disagree with it. I haven't seen a usage of gay(2) cited on this thread that both rings true to me and stands up as a gender-neutral criticism.
I know I could just google this, but my pre-google sense is that "mighty white of you" is not a racial thing.
"That's mighty w*ite of you," which was in use until at least the 1960s. I can't imagine anyone today arguing that they should be allowed to use it because of some secondary meaning. It would be universally heard as racist.
I learned this use from Owen Johnson, in particular from his Laurenceville Stories. There, the opposite of "white" is "green"-- when Stover shows up at Laurenceville, he does a lot of things that are pretty green (inexperienced, childish, showing bad character) but later shows true merit by doing things that are white (seasoned, manly). I took it to be a wood-based term.
My parents used to tell me and my sister to "keep our cotton-pickin' hands off of" whatever it was; once I finally thought about the implications of that, it was no longer funny.
I actually used the phrase once in a conversation with a black co-worker (never having thought about the etymology) and got the most minimal of funny looks for it. Sitting at my desk a couple of hours later, I started thinking about it, and nearly died of the embarassment. She appeared to have cut me the necessary slack for ignorance, but wow did I feel like a jerk.
338 --
Also pre-google, but my guess is different. I think there are phrases using 'black' as a signifier of evil that weren't racial in origin ('black hearted'), although they need to be dropped anyway because they just sound too unpleasant now. I think 'mighty white of you', on the other hand, comes from turn of the last century racial science -- not just white as opposed to black, but really really really white in the northern European sense as opposed to swarthy furriners from hot countries where they cook with garlic.
"pretty" came from "praettig", "crafty, sly", thus showing that pretty women are deceivers!
"knight" came from a word meaning "servant", and we can easily see that warmakers are, witting or no, in the service of preserving their societal order!
casa, "house", came from a word meaning "hut", and we can recognize in this that however grand our this-worldly possessions are, they are nothing more than mean traps for our higher natures!
al-wazir, "vizier", became in Italian aguzzino, "hangman's assistant", and we can immediately see the connection between the aiding in the carrying out of capital punishment and aiding the state's administrative functions, how one is a prop to the other!
"prig" used to mean "tinker"! The connection here is so obvious I won't bother with explication.
Some sources say it's a race thing. Puzzling why "green" would be the opposite.
"The things that people are wanting to maintain the right to mock--fussiness, eye-batting, being uber-girly--are threatening because they signify weakness. And god forbid anyone should present themselves as weak. Vulnerability is so ridiculous and risible, after all, isn't it?"
I don't think fussiness comes off as especially weak, just self-important and irritating. Many people use fussiness to grind down others in ways that are small but plentiful.
And the traits that, I think, are not coming in for mockery here could easily be construed as showing weakness or at least vulnerability. I mean things like empathy and a concern for others' feelings. But has anyone here spoken out against that stuff?
I can't say for sure what Ogged meant when he said we have to keep making fun of "feminine men." But the phrase rang a bell with me because of my own experience with one sort of feminine man. I have never met an effeminate heterosexual man who was anything but a jerk.
According to this and another web source the first recorded use of "cotton-picking" is from Bugs Bunny, but before that "cotton-picker" was a derogatory term for the obvious reasons. I'd never thought of it before--seemed like another euphemism for "motherfucking" to me. I feel dirty.
I'm positive "mighty white of you" and "whitest man I know" are racial in origin--I've looked it up before. See 2c here.
Too bad, if true, Weiner. I liked my carpentry metaphor.
My dad used to use the phrase 'That's mighty white of you', but only to my mom (white); all these years I thought it was a silly parental in-joke. In context it always seemed to mean something saracastic, like 'Oh, how kind of you to notice li'l old me' with a sort of condescending tone.
Puzzling why "green" would be the opposite.
Guessing, I'd say it wasn't. I think you saw two color metaphors ('green'=callow and 'white'=upstanding and honorable) and systematized them, when they were not in fact part of a system.
men who *like* women get laid more
Men who like men get laid the most.
341-
Come on -- just because some etymology is dead doesn't mean that all etymology is dead. The argument here isn't that etymology is always illuminating, it's that it is illuminating in this case.
Sorry. Pointing out the obvious is my middle name. (I occasionally suspect Farber of being a longlost cousin or something.)
And why should it be illuminating in this case, and not others?
ben, I don't think LB and I or BPhD are denying that 'gay' has shifted usage at all, just that it's pretty lame to ask for 'a word that, like'gay', makes fun of effeminate men' and then deny that 'making fun of effeminate men' is what that new word should do.
(If I'm misspelling 'effeminate', sorry. It doesn't look right no matter how I type it.)
I have a low opinion of arguments from etymology.
I first encountered this usage of 'white' in The Iceman Cometh, I think, the black guy is always talking about being 'white'; like telling a story in which someone says to him, "You black son of a bitch, Harry says you're white and you better be white or dere's a little iron room up de river waitin' for you!"
A young tree, when you bend it, is greenish on the inside. ('Greenstick fracture' is from the way it splinters but doesn't snap.)
When it's an older and harder tree, its core is white.
I always thought that 'green' just meant 'new', and 'new' often means 'clueless'.
The things that people are wanting to maintain the right to mock--fussiness, eye-batting, being uber-girly--are threatening because they signify weakness. And god forbid anyone should present themselves as weak. Vulnerability is so ridiculous and risible, after all, isn't it?
Well, sort of, yeah. Weakness is not worthy of respect -- I hesitate to say it's a tautology, but it's close. One shouldn't be a jerk about it, of course. But it seems to me that respect is based on the perception of strength/aptitude in all its many, many forms.
I'm a little old to have used gay, but I think its relation to orientation is pretty multilayered. For example, a straight guy going out with gay friends to a gay bay: not gay. Being unwilling to go with gay friends to a gay bar because you think it's gay: totally gay.
And why should it be illuminating in this case, and not others?
Because no one can tell you the origin of 'pretty' but everyone can tell you that 'gay' means homosexual--in fact, it seems that ability to tell you that is much more widespread than the ability to tell you what it allegedly does mean?
(And before anyone jumps on me for my last comment, I should make it clear that I don't subscribe to the conflation of all feminine traits into one aspect that one either likes or dislikes. Admiring physical strength doesn't mean I don't also admire empathy, for instance (or consider it to be a weakness).)
Someone upthread raised an interesting point about the word "pussy." I wouldn't use "gay" pejoratively (unlike, e.g., BPhD :-) ), but I do sometimes use "pussy" that way. For example, in the same comment thread as BPhD's linked comment, I called myself a pussy in terms of drinking, since I mostly drink things that don't taste like alcohol (Kahlua, champagne, pina coladas). Somehow "pussy" doesn't seem as bad as "gay." I also call people "dicks," so I don't think "pussy" is necessarily misogynistic -- though I realize my personal practice is of limited significance. (It's odd that calling someone a "cunt" is very offensive, but "pussy" much less so. The last time I looked, the dictionary said "pussy" was "usually considered vulgar," while "cunt" was "usually considered obscene.")
I like Cala's suggestion of "candyass" instead of "gay."
Re Becks' comment: I get really pissed off when people talk about something being "the Christian thing to do."
When I was a little kid (35-40 years ago), "Indian-giver" was a term of derision kids used for someone who gave you something, then tried to take it back. Obviously very offensive, as well as a perversion of history.
And why should it be illuminating in this case, and not others?
Because usage, IME, confirms that it is used as a misogynistic insult, as one would expect from the etymology.
357: Dude, I was expressing solidarity with the Farb, my fellow sufferer in pointing-out-the-obvious-ness. And while I'll argue all day and night about the social implications of word usage, that doesn't mean that there aren't often more important things to worry about.
#335: The specifics I offered were things that have been pointed out in this thread as deserving mockery. It's no coincidence that the things we want to mock are things that are, broadly speaking, seen as "feminine." You can, quite reasonably, argue that weakness is mockable, and that therefore weak things have been designated as feminine, rather than the other way around, but the association between weakness and femininity is there nonetheless.
"Mighty white of you" is completely racist, inasmuch as it means "decent" and, nowadays, "somewhat condescending."
So what's the association between weakness, femininity, gayness, and jello salad?!?
That one may be weak -- I was trying to think of a culinary endeavor that a man would get mocked for. Given that all jello salad should be mocked, I'm not sure that it really makes its point.
(Did I tell all you people that I made homemade gumdrops before Christmas? Surprisingly good, and surprisingly like gumdrops. But richly mockable.)
Because usage, IME, confirms that it is used as a misogynistic insult, as one would expect from the etymology.
In other words, the etymology didn't actually contribute anything, since you would still have had to consult usage anyway. Semantic change goes both ways (pejoration/degeneration & meliorization/elevation—and neutrally, of course); I'm not sure on what basis you can really expect that because word X used to mean something negative, it still will.
I left out some steps for "prig" (from here): tinker -> thief -> dandy/fop -> stickler for religious dogma -> conceited, self-important, didactic person. It's pretty easy to see how all the transitions could have occurred by means of attitudes about the LHS (tinker -> thief is surprisingly current) except maybe for "dandy" to "stickler for dogma"—that's how semantic change occurs, after all. But that doesn't mean that those who employed "prig" to mean "thief" had the attitudes about tinkers that a) those who employed "prig" to mean "tinker" did or b) those in whose lives the shift from "tinker" to "thief" took place did. And if they did happen to share those attitudes, that doesn't mean that in using "prig" to mean "thief" they were aware of, invoking, or referring to prig-meaning-tinker.
I would have thought that pretty/praettig would be more supportive of your case—don't be deceived by a pretty face, Lucifer most beautiful, surface appearances, etc. But you'd still have to go to current usage anyway.
I actually used the phrase once in a conversation with a black co-worker (never having thought about the etymology) and got the most minimal of funny looks for it.
My grandmother, talking to my grandfather when they were in a store 20+ years ago, used the word "niggardly." A black man gave her a very wounded look, and she felt terrible. She considered explaining to him that the word didn't mean what he thought, but was afraid that might be perceived as telling the guy that he was dumb. (IIRC, there was some school board member or some such in D.C. maybe 10 years ago who got fired for using "niggardly" at a meeting. He did ultimately get reinstated when someone explained what it meant.)
That's not mockable. That's cool. How does one make gumdrops?
Jello salad is distasteful. but not strike-gay. Whipping up a soufflé because one is having the guys over to watch ladies' figure skating is strike-gay.
;-)
"Mighty white of you" is completely racist, inasmuch as it means "decent" and, nowadays, "somewhat condescending."
All this time I thought it was an instance of "acting white", as described by, say, John McWhorter.
B, on the off chance that
"Mighty white of you" is completely racist, inasmuch as it means "decent" and, nowadays, "somewhat condescending."
is directed at me, it's missing the point. I was speculating that the phrase had a non-racial origin, and, if that were correct, I'd think it wouldn't have been racist originally, though it might become so if its origins were widely misunderstood. It now looks to be firmly established that the origins are race-based, and so my speculative etymology is incorrect. But, in this context, whether it's racist or not is independent of its meaning "decent."
In The Enforcer, Dirty Harry uses 'mighty white' as a expression of thanks to a bunch of black militants. It's pretty funny there, but you really have to pick your spots.
What I really want to know is, the definitive etymology of the term "gaylord" as an insult. Was it just that "gay" had lost its power from overuse, and in 1984, it seemed natural to step up to the Lord of Gay, Olympic gymnast Mitch Gaylord?
Or maybe this was just my elementary school.
Damn dying internet connection. I meant to post this right after my last comment:
Trying to make sense of what's being called "gay" in this thread:
1. Insufficient autonomy. (tattle-tales)
2. Weak inconsistency (fair-weather fan)
We're still left with knitting, cheerleading, and aerobics. Cheerleading has been totally classed as gay, knitting and aerobics only for men. Cheerleading is a spectacle, not an activity, which some guys here want to do away with, and that might explain it. The other two aren't really spectacles.
I don't care if a guy knits, so I don't think I can address this.
As for aerobics - ok, maybe we should admit we just don't the acticity in high esteem. I confess that when I think aerobics, the first thoughts that come to mind are "middle-aged" and "in poor shape." I know upon more reflection that this isn't necessarily true, but, it just doesn't have the same respect as other things which I think of as a) more intense and physically rewarding (weightlifting) or b) get you fit and teach you a skill (soccer, boxing). Also why cardioboxing or such don't get as much respect - I don't think of them as intense as boxing workouts, and you also aren't really learning a skill.
So,
3) Choosing what is easier and less beneficial out of an array of options.
(Analogy: the "genre" novels in the bookstore.)
I'm not assuming that this is an exhaustive list.
End.
Now to read all the other comments to find that this commetn is out of place/redundant/just plain wrong. If only I had a cock joke to throw in to make everything all right.
There's a good Indian restaurant in the north loop in Chicago called Gaylord's.
Funny, there's a Gaylord's in SF, but this one is not that good.
So what's the association between weakness, femininity, gayness, and jello salad?!?
See the link in 63.
How does one make gumdrops?
Hyper-stiff jello, cut into cubes and rolled in sugar.
In other words, the etymology didn't actually contribute anything, since you would still have had to consult usage anyway.
Given that we're talking about a semantic shift that occurred no later than the 80's (apo's too old at 37, it hadn't made it to NYC by ac's and my schooling, and we're 34), I think the connection to the prior meaning is still live, and it helps pull together the usage evidence and make it comprehensible.
Ah yes, the link in 63 does clear everything up.
374: If my memory serves me well, "gaylord" was around before the summer of 1984. Mitch just gave the term a face. That team also included Tim Daggett "the Faggett".
#334: Sure, macho guys maybe get laid more. But quantity isn't quality, one, and the ability to act like an ass and be rewarded for it doesn't make one not an ass. And guys who don't like women damn sure don't get laid by me.
Labs, I wasn't directing it *at* you, personally; just at the idea that the phrase isn't racist, more generally. And surely the equation of "white" with "decent," in the U.S., cannot in good conscience be said to be free of racism, not by a long shot.
Re. arguments from etymology: language is how we understand and express our understanding of the world. Culture isn't invented out of whole cloth: it has a history. It's ludicrous to argue that etymological arguments aren't important, and I think it's ridiculous to distinguish between etymology and usage too sharply. Language changes, surely, as do beliefs, ideologies, and attitudes; nonetheless, looking at the history of how these things evolve often goes a long way towards unfolding the way we, as social groups, think. The logical conclusion of rejecting etymology, it seems to me, is the freshman argument that textual analysis is "just reading too much into things." You can argue that the interpretation is *wrong*; but to argue that interpretation, as interpretation, is useless, is just silly.
1. cotton-pickin? A couple generations back, cotton picking was quite common in Arkansas, regardless of race. In the Grapes of Wrath, just about everybody picks cotton. I'm not at all convinced that this is racist. It makes eminent sense for a white farmer/sharecropper to say to her white cotton picking children.
2. And it took me a while to figure out that "mighty white of you" wasn't something that you said to a white person.
I'll concede that cotton-picking may well be about class and/or yankee disdain as well as race, but I think it's generally true that, nowadays, we in the U.S. associate cotton with slavery.
I fear I may be approaching waters hobby-horsical.
There is or was a street gang in Chicago called the Gaylords. I don't think it has anything to do with being gay, although if not it always seemed odd to me that street gang members would choose that name.
And it took me a while to figure out that "mighty white of you" wasn't something that you said to a white person.
I may be doing that pointing out the obvious thing, but of course back before people got all concerned about racism and ironic and stuff, you would say it to a white person: "I, white person A, congratulate you, white person B, on your commendable behavior, in every way characteristic of all that is best about the white race."
"mighty white of you" wasn't something that you said to a white person
Sure it is.
I heard "mighty white of you" fairly often growing up in NC, and it was never used as an actual compliment. It carried an eye-rolling connotation of roughly "least you could do".
This may be a regional usage.
LB:
I disagree with 331 as follows:
(a)But, you know, gay -- people still get beat up over this crap But not by anyone here, and not by any person anyone here willingly associates with, which is the importance of recognizing that certain language that might be OK here is not OK elsewhere. If you think people here are likely to be sympathetic, even minutely ("I can understand it, but it's still wrong"), to gay-bashing, you would have a very different take.
(b)we're all enlightened here I'm not sure "enlightened" is the right word; this is a big part of our difference, I suspect. I think the difference is structural; in my society (effectively everyone I have personal interactions with), homosexuality is some neither to be praised or disparaged. It just is. In that sense, not being homophobic is "enlightened" in roughly the way being in favor of democracy is "enlightened" in America. It isn't a mark of distinction; it's a basic prerequisite to being an American.
(c)and women are still treated in many ways as inferior to men
I think we move here once we pull the sting of homophobia from gay. This one, unfortunately is, I think, much harder for a bunch of reasons. I won't even attempt to deal with most. Limiting the group to the commentariat and the like-minded, I would argue that you have to distinguish between
feminine: all those things we think of as negative consequences of female domination; here including submissiveness, treating oneself as a prize to be won, cheerleading, figure skating as sport, etc.female: everything else we particularly associate with women; here including, perhaps, the importance of personal relationships and the like that (I think) Cala referenced.
Now, one might argue that men are not properly positioned to determine what falls into femininity, and likely to be unduly harsh. But at this point, we've been closely instructed on it for a good fifteen to twenty years by women, and it's only natural for us to believe we can start reading on our own. (Admittedly, we may read differently than women, but as women are treated, more commonly, as equals in this specific set of people, that becomes less problematic.)
That's how it was in my region (western PA.)
You mean cotton-picking by hand, surely, not just "cotton." But I'm going to object that that's just relying on a bit of historical ignorance. I'm quite open to the notion that it turned into a class thing, but to me it just seems the kind of thing that started out as a way of parents chiding their kids. Of course, I have no proof.
Ben, *I* liked etymology arguments.
First part of 393 to 388, and insert a "your" into the second part.
isn't it strange to think that kindness and compassion come from wanting to please?
Well, maybe not wanting to please exactly, but from seeing from the Other's point of view. Part of the reason women do that more easily is a question of power structure--in the Hegelian or intertextual sense. There are more rewards for women who see from men's point of view than the other way around.
394 meant to state the reference in 393 was to 385, not 388
I want to return to Ogged's #278, specifically this:
strategies and behaviors developed by women, in virtue of their subservient position in society, to manipulate men into listening to them.
I think it is generally true that people tend to disdain strategies and behaviors associated with oppressed groups; and I think it's also true of strategies and behaviors that express said groups' will to power. What's interesting to me is, why? Is it because covert expressions of the will to power are somehow degrading to our sense of the nobility of humanity ('scuse the phrase); that their very indirectness is a reminder of oppression, and that we find oppression degrading? If so, this is generally laudable, perhaps, though extremely problematic. Or is it directly because said characteristics are associated with *that* particular oppressed group, and that the fact that they're expressions of a will to power is irrelevant? In which case the disdain is just purely contemptible.
A hypothesis: we should, really, not disdain these indirect behaviors, inasmuch as they express a will to power *in spite of* oppression; we tend to see them from the point of view of the oppressor (passive-aggressive behavior *is* irritating when it's directed at you), where perhaps we should admire them as ingenious techniques designed to get around some serious social opprobium.
Was I ever on a different planet as far as "how white of you" is concerned. Whenever I heard the phrase used, which was rarely, it was a mild insult to the recipient. As in, "You play badminton? Wow, how white of you."
#391(a): Sure, which is why none of the people arguing against the term "gay" on this thread have gotten obnoxious about it in the past; as someone pointed out upthread, I've used it myself on this board. But since O. asked the question, the answer is, yes: using "gay" derisively is objectionable and misogynist, just like making fun of Muslims is. We do it *on purpose* to be objectionable, in a joshing way, *because* doing so signals "we're friends here, so we can give each other shit." If the term weren't inherently shit-giving, one wouldn't be able to use it in that ironic in-group way to show that we're the kind of friends who can hassle one another without hurting each other's feelings.
"How white" is more straightforward than "mighty white." In fact, I always kind of thought that "mighty white of you" was insulting b/c it came from black usage--in fact, that's the only place I've actually heard it used.
"mighty white of you" was insulting b/c it came from black usage
I don't think I understand what you mean.
I mean I was just out ice-skating with my family -- an activity at which my utter lack of physical grace makes me appear both lame and gay(2) -- and let me tell you, it sure halped a lot for all you fucking hipsters to be out on the ice pointing and smirking, thinking me insufficiently masculine.
Also, as much as one would like to separate the sin of manipulative strategy from the sinner, you end up denigrating a whole category of person, because it is too bound up with personality and/or cultural notions (like a distaste for weakness).
I was thinking of the related idea, that women used to be mocked or scorned for being too athletic. It's just as misguided to turn it around and criticize women who aren't athletic at all. Surely the point is that you should be able to play sports if you want to, not that you should be forced to go against your nature because of some fairly arbitrary notion of the Ideal Woman.
Similarly, all women used to carry an expectation of girlyness--which I think of as a bundle of traits, some of them manipulative, some not. Is the goal now to eradicate that personality altogether?
My original comment died in the land of fuzzy internet connections. I wanted to point out that, although I have nothing to add to the etymological disccussions, I have seen guys in yoga classes-ashtanga yoga aka power yoga classes, that is.
A few point of clarification:
1. Of course those who act weak need to be mocked and derided. No points for surviving at the cost of your dignity.
2. Of course gay has roots in misogyny and homophobia, that's why we need a new word--because it's now used in a way quite independent of those roots, but you can't say "gay" without implicating its etymology.
3. Of course many of the weak traits that we deride are associated with women, because women are the group that's been oppressed most consistently and for the longest time--it's inevitable that they've adopted a lot of the strategies of the weak. But people in this thread have consistenly made the distinction between the feminine and the effeminate (or girly)--it should be possible to disparage the strategies as such, without also disparaging the groups who have traditionally adopted them. People have been scrupulous about that distinction (and I amended my position way back at comment 69).
Is the goal now to eradicate that personality altogether?
Yes. We are boldly marching to a New World Order, one in which there will no longer be "men" and "women," but only "people who stand up to pee" and "people who sit to pee."
I never said the categories were strictly analogous; I think we all think of you as a guy, Ben, but none of us thinks you pee standing up.
People have been scrupulous about that distinction (and I amended my position way back at comment 69).
Here, we're running into matters of linguistic intuition. My sense is that once you've coined your new word, used to deride the sort of stereotypically feminine behavior that we disaprove of equally in both men and women: (a) it will not recognizably denote the same behaviors denoted by gay(2) and (b) it won't have any application to why men avoid exercise classes.
We do it *on purpose* to be objectionable, in a joshing way, *because* doing so signals "we're friends here, so we can give each other shit." If the term weren't inherently shit-giving,
I think this begs the question(s) at issue. "Queer" has been successfully reclaimed by an aggressive project to do just that; I don't think "queer" as applied to gay people is inherently objectionable at all. Here we're not talking about a project, just something that is in the midst of happening. Precisely where we are in the ongoing process of delinking gay and "gay" is open to debate. But, to my mind, you aren't going to get there by etymology.
B, I'm going to belabor this one more time.
Labs, I wasn't directing it *at* you, personally; just at the idea that the phrase isn't racist, more generally. And surely the equation of "white" with "decent," in the U.S., cannot in good conscience be said to be free of racism, not by a long shot.
My objection isn't about personal/impersonal. It's that "mighty white of you" and the equation of whiteness and decency is racist only if the phrase uses "white" to pick out, say, caucasianness or "the white race." The only suggestion that the phrase isn't racist comes from a contrary etymological claim (one that turns out to be false). No one has said that the phrase is ok even if it's talking about white people.
Suppose my potted history of the word were correct: imagine a possible world where "white of you"/"green of you" originated in craft metaphors, where white meant sturdy and properly developed, while green referred to a raw untutored state. "White" might then mean "decent" or virtuous more broadly without being a racist term. My point is that the "white=good" feature of the term is not sufficient to make it racist, simply because that equation is possible without a race-based history.
If such a possible world also had an unfortunate white/black history, the term would be a bad idea because of the likelihood of mistake, as in "call a spade a spade" (which, as my googling suggested, doesn't have racial origins but is nonetheless a bad idea because this ostensible fact is not widely believed). But it wouldn't be racist in the same way as it is in our actual world.
Okay, the discussion has moved a long way from matters that interest me personally, but I just thought I should clarify some things about my contributions upthread:
1. There are two distinct usages of "gay," as Labs and Cala have demonstrated. The first is the default, meaning "homosexual," which can be either neutral and descriptive or derogatory in the specific sense of "effeminate." The second, which we've been calling "gay" or "gay(2)" is roughly equivalent to "lame" and doesn't (synchronically) carry any explicit associations with literal gayness. L. gave some examples of how it's used.
2. Although the two senses are obviously derived etymologically from the same (homophobic, misogynistic, etc.) source, the second is not necessarily used with any conscious intent to reinforce misogynistic social norms. Whether there is something subconscious going on is the debate that we are having right now. All I can say is that more than one person has insisted to me that this is a completely different word with a different meaning. The spelling "ghey" (for which Ben was pilloried upthread) arose to indicate this. This is not to say, however, that the two words are etymologically distinct.
3. I am a linguist, and as such my only interest in this issue is the existence of "gay" and its meaning as distinct from "gay." I have never used the word myself and I don't intend to (I generally use "lame" for the intended meaning). I don't agree with Ogged that we need a word to make fun of effeminate men.
4. I have not yet seen a rebuttal to my 9.
Hope this clears up some things.
But it wouldn't be racist in the same way as it is in our actual world.
What if it were spoken by someone who mistakenly believed in the racist etymology?
This touches on an interesting thing I saw mentioned in an article on Katrina. Apparently 'coon-ass' is a Louisana slur applying to Cajuns; an archetypical coon-ass would be James Carville. The article was making fun of some ignorant non-Louisianan for thinking it was a racial slur directed at blacks.
As another ignorant non-Louisianan, I would have made precisely the same error, and I bet lots of other people would too. I wonder if there's any substantial population using the referenced term as an anti-black slur, out of a pure misunderstanding of its actual referent.
If I had the education to understand 9 (what does it mean for a language to be gendered or non-gendered? I can speculate, but don't know.) I'd take a stab at rebutting it. I'll rebut anything!
Whether there is something subconscious going on is the debate that we are having right now.
I don't like 'subconscious' here. How about "Whether the societal effect of this use of the word 'gay' reinforces misogynistic social norms..."? I don't mean to be making claims about the subconscious of any given speaker of the word, just about its systematic effect.
From my admittedly idiosyncratic perspective, in which the word looks suburban, and not a word self-consciously sophisticated/p.c./poseur Manhattan kids would throw around, there is a definite connotation of the pejorative.
It's hard to argue a negative, but the fact that we didn't use it suggests that it arose in places where you were not likely to run into out gay people, and couldn't make easy entree into a place where you did.
LB:
What if it were spoken by someone who mistakenly believed in the racist etymology?
One obvious first thought is something like the distinction between sentence-meaning and speaker-meaning-- in this case, we can see the difference between what the term means and what the speaker does with it.
As a white person who spent her youth in rural East Texas, I doubt the racial connotation of "cotton-picking". E.g. many white kids helped harvest cotton as a money-making activity ("pulling bolls" was what we called it) in the late summer. Kids in farm families sometimes didn't start school on time because they were needed to help harvest. Of course many more blacks did this job and did it for a living. I just don't think that particular phrase was racist.
teo: I was drawing the distinction a bit differently:
'gay': refers to something as homosexual. May not be derogatory, or may be, depending on context
'gay: Always derogatory, but with two senses:
gay(1): 'lame', 'stupid', typical playground, which while derived from worries about being effeminate somewhere along the line doesn't really retain the meaning for the kids slinging it around, and;
gay(2): a criticism made of a habit/person for being too effeminate, which ranges from everything from passive-aggressiveness (which we agree is a generally bad quality) to aerobics classes for men (which is only a bad quality if you're worried about girl cooties).
Like LB, I suspect that it's going to be difficult to come up with a term for gay(2) that includes all the situations we want to include but excludes any notion of feminine = bad for boys.
A connotation of the homophobic/misogynist pejorative, I should say.
"Whether the societal effect of this use of the word 'gay' reinforces misogynistic social norms..."?
OK, LB, you and I appear to be at least on the same battlefield. (Battlebots away!) And it is precisely because I worry about the societal effect that its usage in small, controlled, well-understood groups does not seem problematic to me (for certain small groups). Certainly not necessarily so; I deny the inherence that B seems to see.
You call the internet a small, controlled, well-understood group? Chopper mentioned the other day that 60 people clicked through to get a look at him in all his manly glory -- I haven't listed all the commenters here I know and counted, but I don't think there are 60. IOW, a lot more people are reading this than you or I know anything about. (Well, maybe not a lot more, but at least some more.) That doesn't necessarily have to change anything; I just wanted to say that it's not realistic to think of this as a private space.
Teofilo's 9: I maintain that both gendered and non-gendered languages exist. Rebuttal?
Like LB, I don't know what that means. That doesn't stop me from guessing:
1) Some words in English are applied to women ("bossy") that are almost never applied to men
2) And vice versa ("wiry")
3) Using words that way is gendered language, because the gender of the person dictates which words you use to describe him/her.
4) In contrast, non-gendered language would be words like "skinny," which can be used for men or women.
5) Implications for the current discussion...um, that it IS possible to come up with a gender-neutral insult?
(OTOH, maybe you meant those languages where the speaker's gender dictates word choice? Enlighten the non-linguists!)
"Wiry" not applied to women? Since when?
it's not realistic to think of this as a private space
I think we've talked about this a bit before. Obviously, anyone can access it, and in that sense it's not private. In fact, however, depending on the stat program you believe, between 700-4000 people visit each day, so it's a fairly private space, and further, I, like Timbot, apparently, treat the blog as the space created by the bloggers and commenters. Maybe that's part of the problem with these discussions: I think "but it's just us here," and perhaps others are thinking that this is somehow "public."
"Bossy" not used for men? I've a male friend who is, his wife and I both agree, very bossy.
Well, I suppose I do consider it private, on some level as well-- at least, the joking that is literally about gay men (i.e., ATM) would strike me as unpleasant in 'public', and doesn't bother me all that much here because I know it's all meant in a friendly spirit. (Although I do wonder, from time to time, if it might not shoo away casual readers of the comments who don't realize there's no malice in it.)
But 700 readers a day seems private to you? You don't have curtains up in your bedroom, do you?
I think "but it's just us here," and perhaps others are thinking that this is somehow "public."
But even then.... To the extent that one would draw lessons on general practice from Unfogged, even if a non-commenter, I'd deny that one could reasonably decide that it was anything but bad to be homophobic. Anti girlie-girl-ness (and possible attendant misogyny) may be more problematic; I'm fairly anti-girlie-girl-ness, so I may not be a faithful narrator.
I'd deny that one could reasonably decide that it was anything but bad to be homophobic.
For someone who reads most of, or at least a broad cross section of, the comments, sure. (Thanks for the fellowship, guys!) On the other hand, I could see a reasonable person coming in on the middle of some of the Mineshaft banter and thinking we were a bunch of homophobic twerps. They'd be wrong, but I could see thinking it.
I thought we liked our ability to scare people away?
I thought we liked our ability to scare people away?
Yeah, exactly. That's a feature, not a bug.
Oh, sure. I'm not saying stop or anything, just saying that it's an area in which our power of frightening people who don't have time to read all the comments might be having a semi-unfortunate effect. Just musing.
See, I view scaring people off every now and again as an effective comment-management tool. If everyone came to the party, each post would have 1000+ comments and nobody could keep up.
Absolutely true. Generally keeping lurkers afraid of suddenly being expected to conjugate fero in the perfect passive is a good thing, or else there'd be so many comments that I would get fired for never getting anything done. (I always wonder how apparent it is when I'm really trying to write something -- I end up commenting at about triple the velocity.)
I just occasionally worry that there are some casual readers who aren't so much frightened, as stalking off in a huff thinking ill of us. It's probably not a significant problem; I find things to worry about whether or not they actually exist.
I just occasionally worry that there are some casual readers who aren't so much frightened, as stalking off in a huff thinking ill of us.
I'd be worried if there weren't.
I just occasionally worry that there are some casual readers who aren't so much frightened, as stalking off in a huff thinking ill of us.
You worry about this even though no one knows who you are??
I mean, let's be clear: you're not worried that you're actually being bigoted, as you know it's all in jest. And you're not worried that regular readers will be offended, as the joke is obvious (and no regular "could reasonably decide that it was anything but bad to be homophobic"). So, your actual worry is that there may be some misc. persons out there who may think there are some bigots posting anonymously on the internet? This seems, um, silly, especially as anyone familiar with the internet knows that there are some bigots posting anonymously on the internet. You're not one of them, and no one who reads broadly what's posted here could conclude that this is a site full of bigotry. So it's hard for me to see the problem.
I'm not anonymous, though. I'm pseudonymous.
expected to conjugate fero in the perfect passive
latus, -a, -um sum
latus, -a, -um es
latus, -a, -um est
latus, -a, -um sumus
latus, -a, -um estis
latus, -a, -um sunt
Do you share this worry w-lfs-n? You may be only pseudonymous, but I sure hope "LizardBreath" is a fully anonymous name.
latus, -a, -um sumus
latus, -a, -um estis
latus, -a, -um sunt
Nope!
#401: What I mean is that I think "mighty white of you" is a phrase that comes from black usage, and is therefore derogatory--that is, it's used explicitly to imply that the person so labelled is being "decent" in a condescending, superior manner.
#413 (I think): Yes, Labs, I agree with you there. I find it impossible to believe, though, that that particular phrase, as I've heard it used, wouldn't be racist even if its origins were neutral. Just as I find it impossible not to find the white = good, black = bad distinction racist, even though its origins are arguably not race-based.
Re. Ogged's statement that we need to mock weakness b/c surviving at the expense of one's dignity is risible, in casual everyday use I kind of agree with this; but my more thoughtful response is that it demonstrates a really regrettable aspect of human social behavior. And I think it also really begs the question of whether or not mocking weakness is, in and of itself, kind of a crappy thing to do, especially when it involves mocking perceived weakness in men--given that weakness is generally considered "effeminate" and I think that fear of weakness really is bad for men (and the culture at large), in broad terms.
Re. the social space of the internets, surely part of the problem is that, even among an in group of friends as we mostly are, the fact (clearly demonstrated here) is that some folks will find certain things offensive, even if mildly and not worth commenting on most of the time, and that others won't. The question then becomes, how do we decide what's acceptable? No one here, I think, is saying that it isn't acceptable to call Ben gay here ATM or trying to enforce some kind of "from here on out" rule against such jokes. What always puzzles me, though, is why when a substantial proportion of people object to something (in this case, largely women, plus Matt, who for taking the "girls" side has been called a "pussy," albeit jokingly and in an entirely acceptable ATM manner), the argument becomes about whether it is or is not *reasonable* to hold such a view, as opposed to people simply saying, "okay, point taken, especially since the women here find it misogynist (and we accept, in general, that they are likely more sensitive to and aware of such things than we maybe are); nonetheless, we're gonna continue to do it because we trust no one is *really* bothered by it." To which my answer would be "carry on."
I don't worry about people being offended and walking away in a huff, btw. I do worry about the opposite effect: giving the impression to the casual reader that misogyny is perfectly a-okay, even among really intelligent men and feminist women. I don't worry enough about this to lose sleep over it or anything, but it is the kind of thing that has been known to bug me.
You know, it's really idiotic of the wikipedia folks to use "facio" as the paradigm third-conjugation verb, since it has an irregular singular imperative and an irregular passive.
Shame there's absolutely nothing you can do to change that.
Hrm -- how to put this. 'A gentleman never insults anyone unintentionally' (a quick google attributes this to Wilde.).
Say we're all in a semi-public place, a bar perhaps, kidding around. Norm, Cliff (I think of myself as Cliff) and the rest, and occasionally (not very often, 700 times a day or so) strangers come in and listen to the chit-chat. And most of them wander back out because they're bored, or because they don't like us because we're mostly (although not entirely) a bunch of Bush-hating pinko liberals, or simply because we're annoying. And some people keep listening, but most don't say anything because they don't want to get sucked in to the massive timesink that is Unfogged comments, or they think they couldn't keep up with the sparkling wit (difficult to imagine, but say it's possible) or something. This is all good -- if everyone who stopped in started talking you wouldn't be able to hear anyone. And the occasional one comments, and sticks around, which is good because people drop out and you need the occasional infusion of fresh blood.
I just don't like the idea that people are sticking their heads in the door, catching some of the Mineshaft banter, and walking off thinking "Hmphf. Bunch of bigots." Because such a person might think that without being anything worse than a little quick to judge, and I'd feel as though I owed someone in that position an apology. But obviously, I would never know who to apologize to.
(This is, almost certainly, a tempest in a teapot. (A)I'm trying to write something, and I'll do anything to avoid it -- even invent imaginary concerns. (B) The Mineshaft banter is almost certainly more transparently goodnatured than I am worrying it might be, and probably there's very little chance that anyone reasonable would actually be confused.)
Ooo, yes to 442. Commenting on stuff isn't necessarily a way to say "Stop that" -- much more a way to say "If you're bothered by this on some level, you're not alone."
443. The nerve. The mother-fucking nerve!
a) No amount of transparency is transparent enough for some people; so you're just going to have to accept that some misjudgement
b) The proper metaphor isn't drinking at a bar, it's a conversational orgy during an orgy in the basement of a bathouse.
I don't believe bat-houses have basements -- aren't they open at the bottom?
Unfogged: An Eclectic Online Symposium for the Discriminating Gentlman, Lady, or Other.
lati, -ae, -a sumus
lati, -ae, -a estis
lati, -ae, -a sunt
Stupid Latin.
Traditionally, LB, I think they're open from all directions.
In any case, were any of you aware, due to the peculiar structure of its larynx, that even if a giraffe could talk it would be unable to pronounce the word 'lasagna'?
Come to think of it, if the offending behavior is undignified, and that's the problem, why not just use the word "undignified"? I realize it's not funny, but surely there's some hilarious way of impugning someone's dignity....
And on that note, I am out to dinner where, it is to be hoped, I shall not end up on the floor of a public restroom with strangers crawling under the door to make sure I'm "okay."
B, good points. that particular phrase, as I've heard it used, wouldn't be racist even if its origins were neutral-- it might clarify things a bit if you knew that I'd never heard this phrase outside of 19th century adolescent fiction (& in this fictional world, there aren't any black people).
"aren't they open at the bottom?"
Oh mais oui.
(B follow-up: that might sound cranky; I didn't mean it that way. Just that you and I might hear the phrase differently given different exposure to it, is all.)
Actually, I was serious when I called Weiner a pussy.
And on that note, I am out to dinner where, it is to be hoped, I shall not end up on the floor of a public restroom with strangers crawling under the door to make sure I'm "okay."
Good luck! Drink slowly!
460 to 456.
Re: 455 -- and I hear it filtered through 19th and early 20th century British fiction, in which it's transparently racist. Generally goodhumored, but clearly racial.
much more a way to say "If you're bothered by this on some level, you're not alone."
Wouldn't it be more valuable to let this be a place where we can discuss things that tend to offend people, with an understanding that we're trying to figure it out, rather than find things to condemn? (I'm asking--I'm obviously guilty of baiting people pretty regularly.)
Sure, that's exactly what I hang around here for, but doesn't that have to include discussing that they offend people and why? (Also leaving now. Will almost certainly comment more later, it's like some kind of sick compulsion.)
Meh, I suppose they do, but I tend to assume that people know what would be offensive if spoken elsewhere.
I could see a reasonable person coming in on the middle of some of the Mineshaft banter and thinking we were a bunch of homophobic twerps.
That's along the lines of the defense of gay, incidentally. I take it this has been covered in the 400+ comments I didn't read, so suffice it to say that someone has it exactly right, above.
A doctor's appointment, an art class, look what you miss. Sorry I didn't (further) have your back earlier, LB. As for this being a private space, everyone knows what we mean, etc., I'm sure any regular reader knows we don't mean to disparage men who have sex with other men, but this post and thread have totally shredded my previous unarticulated understanding that any jokes about men being too girly were not really jokes about the men but jokes about about stupid stereotypes and misogynistic assholes--they were jokes about the men all along. That is still a problem with gay(strikethrough), whether or not we think butt sex is teh hott. I did read the whole thread, but obviously returning late, not with scrupulous attention, so maybe somewhere Ogged amended his position that we must make fun of the indignity of a man in a Jazzercise class, but I didn't see it. Incidentally, I have taken aerobics classes and cardiokickboxing. There have been men in both classes. Anyone who wants to disparage the activity because there's no goal, or whatever, can head straight to my will-not-date list. Obviously, some people are genuinely hurt and offended by this shit. I am, for one, also see Jeremy Osner's comments in this thread.
It is retarded that Tom would disrespect a man for reading Candace Bushnell and not, say, Stephen King. I'm sure he's got lots of other excellent qualities, but that, nonetheless, is juvenile and essentially misogynistic. I watched and enjoyed Sex and the City (which, despite the sometimes annoying materialistic fantasy, was essentially a complicated and intelligent show about negotiationg love and hedonism, and how to admit both into your life at the right times) and sobbed all through the final episode. I have sucked the cock of a man who did same (minus sobbing). I am quite sure he never, ever used "gay" in any kind of disparaging sense.
I am sure BPhD has already extensively problematized all this "hating the excessively feminine" stuff, and I really don't have time to treat the subject with the length it deserves, but I told a friend of mine about my discovered-on-New-Year's weight gain, and she told me she the same thing had happened to her, and she had cried and screamed about it. Oh, I know, that's vanity, that's not being able to control your emotions over something entirely meaningless, etc. etc., but my only reaction was to sympathize because I've done the same thing in my life. Men who complain about women worrying about the size of their butt, etc. are equally, if not more, annoying, because they demonstrate precisely zero empathy for the people they want to sleep with. It all comes from somewhere, and all these "feminine" traits have their positive and negative attributes. Vanity and attention to beauty, e.g. are closely related. Everyone's free to decide who they're attracted to, but I'm not so convinced that criticizing girliness is hating the sin and loving the sinner. I think it's hating the sinner a little bit too.
I really have to go. I wish I could polish this up better and be sure to say what I mean, but I can't.
I have had good luck with "common" as a generic condemnation for use when common people would say "gay". as in:
hmmm you're going to an aerobics class at the YMCA? seems a bit common to me
I'm still uncertain what Ogged and Timbot are talking about when they get on about the "girlygirl" thing. There's talk of being just too much of a girl, talk of being nonthreatingly sexual, talk of using girlishness to manipulate, and talk of giving up dignity for survival. Somewhere in there is something that they disdain.
dsquared's suggestion cracks me up, because "common" is a pejorative that I do use in real life, but only with a few close friends, and it's something I wouldn't joke about, because, I guess, I do believe in it.
LB: Hrm -- how to put this. 'A gentleman never insults anyone unintentionally' (a quick google attributes this to Wilde.).
Seconded.
Say we're all in a semi-public place, a bar perhaps, kidding around. Norm, Cliff (I think of myself as Cliff) and the rest, and occasionally (not very often, 700 times a day or so) strangers come in and listen to the chit-chat.
This is also a 'being part of the clique/claque' problem.
And most of them wander back out because they're bored, or because they don't like us because we're mostly (although not entirely) a bunch of Bush-hating pinko liberals,
I would bet reasonable sums of money that I loathe and dispise George Bush more than anyone who posts here. I might be a liberal, depending on what that means this week. I am not a pinko. I am definitively not a Republican, either.
or simply because we're annoying.
Sometimes. God knows, I am.
And some people keep listening, but most don't say anything because they don't want to get sucked in to the massive timesink that is Unfogged comments,
Bandwidth hog is more the problem, I think. Or it is for me.
or they think they couldn't keep up with the sparkling wit (difficult to imagine, but say it's possible) or something.
Or not quite operating on the same side of the comedy street!
This is all good -- if everyone who stopped in started talking you wouldn't be able to hear anyone.
That's why cliques exist.
I just don't like the idea that people are sticking their heads in the door, catching some of the Mineshaft banter, and walking off thinking "Hmphf. Bunch of bigots."
I consider this highly unlikely. The sort of person you seem to be describing is looking to be offended. Catering to outrage-junkies is not productive of anything, least of all, good (or 'good') behaviour.
Because such a person might think that without being anything worse than a little quick to judge, and I'd feel as though I owed someone in that position an apology. But obviously, I would never know who to apologize to. (This is, almost certainly, a tempest in a teapot.
It's simply not practical.
(A)I'm trying to write something, and I'll do anything to avoid it -- even invent imaginary concerns.
Here, let me help you with that!
(B) The Mineshaft banter is almost certainly more transparently goodnatured than I am worrying it might be, and probably there's very little chance that anyone reasonable would actually be confused.)
Maybe. Hard to say. A significant chunk of the in-jokes are purely of the 'I guess you had to be there variety.'
ash
['Ok, now, where's the other one you posted way back there?']
I very much like this "common" proposition.
I would bet reasonable sums of money that I loathe and dispise George Bush more than anyone who posts here.
Assuming that "posts" encompasses "comments," I don't know how that's possible. I hate him with every fiber of my being. I'm sure I'm not alone in that here.
unarticulated understanding that any jokes about men being too girly were not really jokes about the men but jokes about about stupid stereotypes and misogynistic assholes--they were jokes about the men all along
Yeah, there are real differences of opinion here. I can't speak for anyone else, but while I wouldn't not hire an effeminate guy, it's very unlikely that I'd hang out with one.
Obviously, some people are genuinely hurt and offended by this shit. I am, for one, also see Jeremy Osner's comments in this thread.
Insofar as the offense comes from a misunderstanding, then it's good and informative to discuss and work out. But again, there are also real difference here. We're a community, but this is also a place where I'd like people to be able to say things they hesitate to say elsewhere, so it's pretty much impossible not to give offense, at least some of the time.
And finally, it would be good to just get away from using "feminine" as the word for what's being hated (my fault entirely, I know). Since none of the women at the meetup were anything approaching "girly," I expect that you all know what I mean to disparage. Certainly not freaking out about weight gain, which is something I do with some regularity.
"Common" has it's place as a pejorative, but I don't see it as a replacement for gay. Since most behaviors labeled gay are outside of the mainstream (e.g., men in gym classes), "common" doesn't seem to fit.
I don't like "common" at all as a replacement, because it has it's own distinct meaning as a pejorative, with very little overlap with gay. A friend suggests "precious," which also has its own meaning but could be adapted pretty easily, I think.
and it's something I wouldn't joke about, because, I guess, I do believe in it. and I very much like this "common" proposition.
You have got to be kidding me. So class distinctions (ogged believes in them - shocking, shocking!) are significantly less invidious than the girly-girl and effeminite distinctions we are talking about here? Does anyone really doubt that class plays a far greater role in shaping our lives that sex or sexuality? That it is a far greater bar to future hopes than any barrier we normally discuss? Really? If so, then all we're really talking about is whether the greater "we" that comments here feel comfortable - this place self-selects for education and therefore for either class or class expectations. And if that's all we're really talking about, then all is well - there's a feedback loop than ensures that the commentariat feels comfortable here: not commenting. As we all comment, nothing that has been said to date is worrisome.
All is well! Hooray!
Certainly not freaking out about weight gain, which is something I do with some regularity.
Cripes, you're a girl. (I do, too.)
Maybe I'm being thick, but a usage that approaches strike-gay I don't think has much to do with class. Poor people don't go to exercise classes.
It seems more like "banal, boring, trite" and generally is an approximation for "insufficiently hardcore."
Agree with Tim's 478. "Common" is too edgy for me.
Do you actually take the position that exercise classes, per se, are a bad thing that should be mocked for everyone, men and women alike?
Well, I would. Bouncing up and down at someone else's direction? What the fuck? (In bootcamp it's supposed to be humiliating.)
If not, either you need to completely retract the post, or you seem to be taking the position that exercise classes, while all right for women, are contemptibly gay(2) for men. And that takes us right back to misogyny and a wrongfully restrictive view of men's gender roles.
(I thought you said 'double-standard' back there somewhere, but I can't find it.)
I would take the position that exercises classes are silly, period. A woman in an exercise class is silly, but might be physically attractive in spite of the clothes (I keep thinking late 80's, early 90's, Jane Fonda and leg warmers), whereas a guy in an exercise class isn't attractive to a guy, thus totally without redeeming features, unless (wait for it) you're gay. (And I doubt many gay men would find that hot.)
I don't think that is hatred of the feminine, unless 'feminine' stands for uniformity, obedience, and really stupid clothes.
Of course, you might argue boot camp stands exactly for the above, but you don't do boot camp because you LIKE it, you do it because it's your job. (Or your duty, if you prefer.)
ash
['HTH in your quest to distract yourself.']
What I hear in the insult "gay(2)", is "unmanly". It's easy to get this mixed up with "effeminate" since one does not think of women as "manly" so what is the opposite of "manly"? "Womanly" which in a male is == "effeminate".
The things that are being described as "gay(2)" like being in a (specific type of) exercise class, or not going out drinking with your buds because you have to get up early for work, or cheerleading, or generally being weak and ineffective -- I think they all fit with what I think "unmanly" means, in various shades of its meaning. So there is your insult if you want it, go ahead and use it. (Reckon you could use "unmanly" as an insult against a woman with close to as much force as it would have against a man, in the proper context.) I think you will come off sounding stilted and anachronistic; I think the drive to ridicule other men for appearing weak and ineffective is a regressive one.
In 483, "generally being weak and ineffective" s/b "generally appearing weak and ineffective". That is my understanding of the usage of "gay(2)" under discussion here.
"Unmanly" is the best suggestion yet made.
Although, my only concern would be that it's a little too nasty (which is ironic, since the whole idea is to find something that gives less offense than gay). What I mean is, I can tell my friend that he's being "gay" and he knows that of course I'm joking with him and just giving him a hard time. If I told him he was "unmanly" I think he might be genuinely hurt/offended. Even if I was smiling at the time, it just seems like it has more potential to be taken seriously. Unless you're really careful with the delivery.
Since none of the women at the meetup were anything approaching "girly," I expect that you all know what I mean to disparage.
Apparently not. Or, there's a disagreement about whether you can define it as narrowly as you want to. It's hard for me to condemn girliness, even if I don't count as girly overall by your definition, because I have on occasion acted in a very girly fashion or have some qualities others would define as (and perhaps condemn) as very girly.
I certainly have relatives who are quite girly--and they are because they exist in a more sexist environment, growing up in working class parts of the UK. It's directly a function of environment. And while I don't envy their relations with men, I can't help noticing that they're all much nicer than I am. A bunch of them are nurses and spend their lives looking after the sick and the disabled and the elderly, for very low pay and low status.
Presumably you mean to say that you don't respect women who have class advantages and still rely on traditional feminine strategies?
Start a new fucking thread on something else.
I mean, "Start a new fucking thread on something else, PLEASE".
But John, I haven't alienated every single reader yet.
Start a new fucking thread on something else.
Or, more churlishly: like a thread about an amazing hero, whose story is relevant and inspiring, so that it can be turned into a discussion of the merits of euphemism?
Presumably you mean to say that you don't respect women who have class advantages and still rely on traditional feminine strategies?
Class and environment matter if we're interested in assigning blame for the behavior, but not if we're just evaluating it as behavior: girliness can be always bad, but more excusable in some people than in other, if you like (I'm not sure I'm agreeing to that, but it sounds reasonable).
Apparently not.
Apparently, but I don't know why not. It's been said about a dozen times that people don't mean "feminine," broadly construed, but something more along the lines of what I mention in 123.
And now I have no idea how we've ended up here, when I just wanted a word to replace "gay."
Yeah the euphemism stuff (to which I contributed) is a little weird and out-of-place. But: did you read the interview Michelle linked to in 38? Wow.
Y'know the other day I was sitting around with my friends thinking, we desperately need a word for what "black," when used as an insult, meant, back when it was acceptable to use it. Now I don't want any of the racial connotations, mind you, because I'm certainly not a racist. I just want to be able to apply a different label with the same connotations to the exact same group of people.
Let's all get started by identifying proper usage of "black", shall we? As in, "Oh, you're unemployed and on Medicaid, are you? That's so black."
"Oh, you're unemployed and on Medicaid, are you? That's so black."
That would be an interesting exercise, actually. My guess would be that most welfare states have a term for the traits that have been grouped, in America, under the "lazy black" stereotype. I can think of "dole bludger," and I'm sure there are others, probably even plenty in American English that I'm forgetting right now.
Are you kidding me? Chuck Norris is soooo black.
9 was a joke (playing off of jm's mention of "gendered language debate" in 8), as was my reference to it in 414. I can explain the actual issue (which is quite trivial) if people really want me to, but no one ever seems very interested when I talk about linguistics so I think I'll just leave it.
#463: IS anyone being horribly offended? I don't think they are; I think we're doing *exactly* what you say you want, which is discussing things that are considered offensive and why.
"Common" is problematic b/c it's classist as hell. "Unmanly," I'm sorry, also carries the connotations of misogyny; the connotation is that "manly" (i.e., "like a man") = good. Although, in fact, "manly" is kind of insulting, imho.
I still don't see what's wrong with "undignified," "risible," or even "pathetic." I do see what's wrong with "retarded" or "lame," though, in a mild kind of way.
Ben, if you read my blog you'd know what the "bathroom floor" thing is all about. Hmph.
"Unmanly," I'm sorry, also carries the connotations of misogyny
Ogged did not say in his initial request, that he was trying to get away from connotations of misogyny which are present in "gay" as an insult; he implied that he was trying to get away from connotations of homophobia. Obviously there are going to be connotations of misogyny in any word you use as an insult against people for failing to display traditionally masculine characteristics. I don't see how you could characterize this as a shortcoming.
Ack! Please excuse the stylistic shortcomings of 501. It's late, I'm tired.
stylistic shortcomings of 501
I can see the defamation lawsuit from Levi Strauss Inc. already.
It might just be a niggling objection, but part of what I react against on the femininity question is the idea that how a woman acts with men determines the whole of her character.
And I don't care if John Emerson is bored by that comment. I just don't.
494 was in response to 491, not 493. I'd apologize for the confusion if I didn't think it would undermine my chucknorrisness.
Damn! I wanted to gaily call 500!
Or, more churlishly: like a thread about an amazing hero, whose story is relevant and inspiring, so that it can be turned into a discussion of the merits of euphemism?
I was the villain in that. However, I only count four relevant comments to that post, so the thread would really have been a dead one had I not hijacked it. Nor could I have hijacked it unless people had been a lot more interested in talking about euphemisms than about Mr. Thompson. Like it or not, posts having anything to do with sex get 1-2 orders of magnitude more comments here than posts dealing with dead heroes. (See also the post on Adm. Stockdale.)
#483 I think the drive to ridicule other men for appearing weak and ineffective is a regressive one.
As a general matter, I agree. Being called "unmanly" by Chet is wrong. Being called "unmanly" by me, who listens to the Go-Gos, is scant months behind ogged on his way to technical virginitiy, and has probably read more romance novels than all the women who comment here combined, is a joke. Being called unmanly by ogged, who weighs maybe a buck ten dripping wet, is a joke. It is necessarily a joke. (Dsquared's "common" insult works the same way. A Welshman calling anything common is necessarily ironic. (Given dsquared's standing in the left blogosphere, this too is a joke.))
The girlishness thing: we're talking about Daphne Moon, for whom no one feels much affection. Weiner can't possibly be on the other side of this one. Moreover, it works the same way as in the Wooster books - Bertie can make such criticisms because he is so ineffectual himself. Those criticisms have little weight. Same here - none of the guys who comment here strike me as the sorts of "manly men" who are assumed to have control of the discourse.
Moreover, we are all 47 year old balding men.
Ben, if you read my blog you'd know what the "bathroom floor" thing is all about. Hmph.
BPhD, I take it you ate dinner tonight without incident! Congrats! :-)
I don't care if ac doesn't care if I'm bored. I just don't.
Moreover, we are all 47 year old balding men.
Speak for yourself. Some of us are as hirsute as ever.
what I react against on the femininity question is the idea that how a woman acts with men determines the whole of her character
ac, I agree with you in that I don't think women should be defined by their relationships with men. However, I tend to side with the anti-girly-girl crowd, because I think the worst of the girly-girl behaviors are those that women employ when around men that they don't employ around women. So, in a way, girly-girls are asking to be defined by their relationships towards men, which I object to.
Fred, the archives, always the archives.
It is necessarily a joke
Yeah granted. This is probably why I feel comfortable enough to get my dander up which I do not generally do in mixed company because the results tend to be bad.
Fred, the archives, always the archives.
Ack, my gay(2)/common/unmanly/lame/risible/pathetic unfamiliarity with Unfogged history embarrasses me for the second time in the same thread.
(And note that my 402 was at least half in jest as well.)
494 was in response to 491, not 493. I'd apologize for the confusion if I didn't think it would undermine my chucknorrisness.
What the hell are you talking about? 494 was my post, and if I say it was in response to 493, it was in response to 493. You don't get to decide which post I'm responding to. And I don't even really understand why there was confusion -- it seems obviously in response to 493 to me.
lalala ogged isn't ghey or gay but is worried that he maight be ghey-strike but he's not because he doesn't do aerobics!
518 -- It looks to me like JDC is referring to his 495 rather than your 494.
518 -- It looks to me like JDC is referring to his 495 rather than your 494.
Either that or he thinks himself so chucknorissish as to be able to tell me which posts I am reponding to, over my own objection. I'm not sure which it is.
I have to call total bullshit on the people who are claiming they use "gay" as some bizarre means to fight the patriarchy by attacking traditional gender roles. The use of the insult is typically to instruct men not to be feminine ("Man, you're taking aerobics classes? That's so gay"), which reinforces a traditional male gender role, rather than tearing down a female one.
I also notice that while there are words and insults specifically designed to mock and degrade the overly-feminine and girly-girlish, there really aren't any to specifically mock and degrade the overly-masculine and the manly-men - and if there were, it wouldn't exactly be the same thing, would it, since men - actually hypermasculine or not - run the world and that which is masculine gets the automatic advantage of being that which is powerful. This is why "white" is a toothless insult: can you imagine Dennis Hastert taking genuine offense at being called a cracker, or would he just chuckle while he cut another few billion dollars worth of food stamps from a spending bill?
I have to call total bullshit on the people who are claiming they use "gay" as some bizarre means to fight the patriarchy by attacking traditional gender roles.
I think I might be the person you were thinking about; it was a joke.
521: Sorry about the mistake. 520 has it right. Me number pretty one day.
524 -- the accepted locution is, "520 right".
So, in a way, girly-girls are asking to be defined by their relationships towards men, which I object to.
Isn't it possible to say that if a woman is manipulative with men, but is still capable of being a good and loyal friend, or a good mother, that the problem isn't necessarily a character issue?
523: So is the notion that there should be an insult specifically used to mock femininity "just because"? Or because it doesn't count within a small group of truly enlightened people?
Nonono! that's only "the accepted lousy html". The accepted locution is, "520 gets it exactly right".
521: Sorry about the mistake. 520 has it right. Me number pretty one day.
This was a gay (unmanly? which is it now?) response. You should have stood your ground and convinced me I was wrong. (It wouldn't have been very difficult -- I'm effeminate in that way). You're soooo not Chuck Norris.
531 and 531 alone—how about "520 nails it."
And, acronym finder.com is returning no results for ICNQ. So you're going to have to enlighten your un-netsavvy interlocutor. Unless of course you were just mocking my lack of html skillz.
there really aren't any to specifically mock and degrade the overly-masculine and the manly-men
"Meathead" and "chet" come to mind. Also "oaf," "lout,"
and "galoot," which aren't quite as right, but close.
Isn't it possible to say that if a woman is manipulative with men, but is still capable of being a good and loyal friend, or a good mother, that the problem isn't necessarily a character issue?
I think this falls into "A really nice person who is rude to the waiter is not a really nice person" territory.
IOT:
"Enlightened" has been addressed somewhere above (#393). Honestly, the best thing that has happened for gay rights in my lifetime is that no one cares. Not that they're supportive, but that they honestly don't care one way or the other. Remarkable.
Also a defense of going after "feminine" as used above, which I stand by. If "the stars are God's daisy chain" strikes you as unworthy of mocking, we just disagree.
My dear five-hundred thirty-three,
Read it out loud. Or you might find it here.
How you treat people who are (as a class) more powerful than you is equivalent to how you treat people dependent on your tips?
538 comments - noteworthy.
538 on topic comments - yikes!
With one friend gay is nearly entirely restricted to mean "frustrating," and I feel comfortable exchanging the word with him, since I think we've mutually, sympathetically decided against the word's strict reference to feminine or unmanly
characteristics. Losing luggage over a flight? Gay.
But with another close friend, I feel somewhat uncomfortable using gay in the more conventional, jokey sense, because I think he disparages traits that he deems unmasculine and unintentionally employs the word to suggest, or enforce, behavioral standards.
Or because it doesn't count within a small group of truly enlightened people?
Yeah, that avenue. Isn't that what makes comedy comedy, that it's the transgressive language used among private parties who share pre-established barriers regarding the content of language, but put on the big stage?
At the risk of stepping into the etymology wars, and recognizing that the slang with which I grew up has passed, not into hisotry, but into oblivion (why can't I just be a man and say it, and stop beating around the euphemism?)
I'm vaguely troubled by the terms lame and tool, too. Consider this:
Lame is to legs as gay is to tool.
Lame: a dysfunction of a body part (legs), whether from genetic or accidental cause, that renders the part unable to perform properly. By extension, apparently, someone whose social faculties are dysfunctional, unable to properly perform socially.
At the risk of pointing out the obvious (there I go again, using the self-deprecating style normatively indicative of weakness), the term tool was a synonym for prick, schmuck, dick, et al.
Contempt for weakness is the essence of fascism. It's the ugliest and lowest of emotions. And it's ever-present and pretty much universal. Some things that may be described as weakness, for example moral cowardice, are of course worthy. But one cannot say one hates weakness and be a virtuous person.
Tia:
It is retarded that Tom would disrespect a man for reading Candace Bushnell and not, say, Stephen King.
I can do both. Although I should probably note that my own reading habits are also totally laughable (largely due to questions of volume and a predilection for scifi [cue Farber]).
I'm sure he's got lots of other excellent qualities, but that, nonetheless, is juvenile and essentially misogynistic.
My other excellent qualities are overrated, but I do genuinely appreciate your moderation. But I don't think it's misogynistic, unless you're assuming Bushnellianism and femininity are, to some extent, synonymous. I really hope they aren't. I try not to be a jerk about it, but I tease SATC fans regardless of their gender. That sort of fussy materialism is unappealing on anyone. I do, admittedly, think it's sillier for a guy to be a fan of the series, but that's just because it's something of a cultural phenomenon among women, and therefore paying it more attention than it deserves sort of makes sense.
I watched and enjoyed Sex and the City (which, despite the sometimes annoying materialistic fantasy, was essentially a complicated and intelligent show about negotiationg love and hedonism, and how to admit both into your life at the right times) and sobbed all through the final episode. I have sucked the cock of a man who did same (minus sobbing). I am quite sure he never, ever used "gay" in any kind of disparaging sense.
Well, as I mentioned, I don't actually ever use 'gay' in a disparaging sense, although I do generally think less of people who display excessively effeminate behavior. I'll readily admit that this is the root of the Bushnell-reading objection I initially wrote, but now I can't resist the bait... SATC was really, really terrible. Carrie's constant voiceover seemed to carry an assumption of wit, but really it was just a collection of plodding analogies and awful, awful puns.
Again, I watch equally awful male-oriented entertainment (I can tell you a *lot* about professional wrestling). But I'm prepared to admit that entertainment's stupidity.
bphd:
And I think it also really begs the question of whether or not mocking weakness is, in and of itself, kind of a crappy thing to do, especially when it involves mocking perceived weakness in men--given that weakness is generally considered "effeminate" and I think that fear of weakness really is bad for men (and the culture at large), in broad terms.
Mocking weakness when the person can't help it is crappy. But voluntary weakness is stupid and should be discouraged. I think the point that was made previously about such behaviors being adopted as survival strategies is an interesting one, and something that I hadn't considered. But times have changed; there are, generally speaking, viable alternatives to that kind of behavior, and consequently I feel little shame over my distaste for it.
Schneider mentioned "tool." I am unconvinced that the current usage of "tool" is the same as the older one that he's referring to. (It could be, I'm just not sure.) There are, to my knowledge, three derogatory uses of "tool":
1. Someone who is used by someone else (generally unwittingly and for malign purposes). This is presumably the oldest usage and flows directly from the literal meaning.
2. Penis. This was common in the '50s and '60s, I believe, but is obsolete today. Its etymology is also pretty clear and comes directly from the literal meaning.
3. The current usage, something like "obnoxious go-getter." The etymology of this one is not clear to me, although it may come from sense 2 (cf. prick, etc.). It is a regional usage, apparently restricted to the East Coast.
I'm not sure if MHS's "tool" is 2, 3 or some intermediate stage (in which case 3 would seem to come from 2). It depends if he meant that it refered to people or not, I suppose.
That's about the extent of my knowledge on this topic.
I agree with the comments saying that context, or perceptions of context, is important here. To use a non-gendered example:
When I first got here the Asians are bad drivers jokes really bothered me. I suppose this wouldn't seem odd because I really do find the stereotype offensive, except that in certain contexts I've made the same kind of jokes myself. This was especially true a few years ago when I was re-learning how to drive after a few years of not using a car (though I suppose it's true that I'm not entirely Asian - yes this means I can also make whiteness jokes referring not to the content of my character but the color of my skin). But I'd only make these jokes around immediate family or friends who knew they weren't meant to offend and who also made similar jokes in the same context. Now that I'm more familiar with (what I perceive to be) the tone around here the jokes don't bother me so much, although I still - because of the public aspect of the blog - wouldn't be comfortable making them myself.
Similarly, in college I objected to a friend's repeated use of the word "pussy" as a derogatory term for insufficient masculinity. (This got me accused of "cultural imperialism" but he cut it out after that.) But here I haven't really jumped in with a lot of comments partly because the context is different and I wasn't sure just how seriously to take the post, and partly because I'm simply not familiar with the usages of "gay" being discussed, but mostly because from the start people were objecting in the ways I'd object. And because there are so many comments.
hmmm in responses:
re 469, I operate a different standard of behaviour when insulting people as opposed to going to the opera with them and I recommend others do too.
I don't actually believe that class distinctions are as important as sexism; yes, even at the level of, say, Princess Diana.
The word you types are looking for is "pouffy". Unfortunately it is also a homosexual slur.
The real problem here is that you are trying to find an insult which isn't demeaning, unpleasant or socially divisive. Carry on this quixotic quest if you like, but I warn you that if and when you find it, it's going to be a pretty shit insult. Sadly, the philosophers have taught us that it is impossible to be simultaneously nice and nasty; I made my choice a long time ago, you bunch of bastards.
Mocking weakness when the person can't help it is crappy. But voluntary weakness is stupid and should be discouraged.
This seems to me structurally quite similar to somebody saying, If homosexuality is genetically determined then it is a handicap and should not be criticized; but if it is chosen behavior it is immoral and worthy of rebuke. Just sayin'.
Re: 546
On a purely linguistic note, there's another sense of 'tool' that may be MIT only (or not, I just haven't heard it elsewhere) as a verb, meaning to do work, particularly laborious academic work: If you were tooling all weekend, you were doing problem sets, not digging your vegetable garden. This may be connected with tool(3) above: Someone who tools too much is likely a tool(3). But I don't know -- they could have nothing to do with each other.
The real problem here is that you are trying to find an insult which isn't demeaning, unpleasant or socially divisive. Carry on this quixotic quest if you like, but I warn you that if and when you find it, it's going to be a pretty shit insult. Sadly, the philosophers have taught us that it is impossible to be simultaneously nice and nasty; I made my choice a long time ago, you bunch of bastards.
Not so much, Taffy. The question here is exactly who ought to be insulted and why, not how to do it nicely. (And to be shamelessly complimentary, you remain readable because of a generally nice, if quick, judgment on who to be horrible to.) Once someone ought to be insulted, there's no reason to show mercy; there's simply disagreement as to whether there's a need to insult men for expressing feminine traits at all.
Tool(3) is simply an extension of tool(2): an obnoxious go-getter is one who single mindedly pursues a single type of gratification, whose existence and identity are wrapped up in scoring a particular reward. To act like a dick.
This is another example of the tendency to define a person in terms of a body part, e.g. you are lame, you are all heart, he's a real dick (tool).
I think this relates to the point Ted (The Poster Formerly Known As Teofilo) made in #9. IIRC, a gendered language is one which attributes gender to nouns. Le plume de ma tante est sur la table. Pens are masculine, tables are feminine. Pens and tables have gender, even if they only have sex if they get really, really lucky (and even then, studies suggest, only 8% enjoy it).
Speakers of a gendered language are not shocked by the notion that gender is not sex: gender is constructed and arbitrary, while sex is a natural and inherent quality. The most familiar examples of gendered languages, for English speakers, are the Romance languages. That's why English speakers so often confuse romance with sex.
But English speakers, mixing gender with sex, take gender qualities as natural. That's why one hears statements such as "of course women don't do well incompetitive careers, because they bear and nurture children they're naturally more empathetic, cooperative, and better listeners". Failing to recognize that gender is not sex leads to the belief that biology is social destiny. Having a dick means being a tool.
Assuming that "posts" encompasses "comments," I don't know how that's possible.
I've been doing it since 1987. I have practice.
I hate him with every fiber of my being. I'm sure I'm not alone in that here.
Only every fiber? Not like a barely magnetically-contained hot fusion reaction (i.e. pure plasma)? Not like Nagasaki? Not like the heart of the sun? Not like an unstable O-class star going supernova, complete with massive X-ray release? Not like a Seyfert galaxy?
ash
['One George to be its father and the other to be its murderer.']
That's impressive, ash. I had no idea that my hatred of Bush was (comparatively speaking) so short-lived and insubstantial.
Speakers of a gendered language are not shocked by the notion that gender is not sex: gender is constructed and arbitrary, while sex is a natural and inherent quality. The most familiar examples of gendered languages, for English speakers, are the Romance languages. That's why English speakers so often confuse romance with sex.
This sounds like a lovely explanation, but really; confusions and stereotypes about gender roles aren't limited to Anglophones, and while it's hard to measure these sorts of things quantitatively, there seem to be plenty of cultures that are sexist that have gendered tables and chairs. (Italy? France? Spain? Germany?) I'll buy that maybe those cultures are less stereotyped now, but isn't that a much more recent development (last 50 years) than the development of gendered nouns?
On the other points, if we're looking for an insult it's not supposed to be nice. There's four questions here:
-What sort of characteristics does gay cover?
-Is gay shorthand, in one sense, for effeminate? (Or 'weakness', which I think is the nice way of saying aerobics class has cooties.)
-What is an equivalent word that allows us to capture this weakness but isn't rude to gay men?
-Should we be mocking/insulting/teasing people for being gay?
When I first got here the Asians are bad drivers jokes really bothered me.
Would it help if I said they weren't jokes?
What about "dorky"? It indicates "uncool," but without the anti-gay/misogynistic connotations.
"Dork", of course, means "penis", and is arguably homophobic in origin as an insult, and is therefore right out!
I can not keep up with the comments on this thread, but I call bullshit on 508. "Being called unmanly by Ogged is a joke"...except that it isn't. It's obviously being done somewhat seriously in this thread. For the most part, everyone who wants to reserve for themselves the privelege of mocking girly men is simultaneously trying to claim they're really too sensitive to be capable of being a real asshole. It's trying to be the jock and the nerd all at once. Unfogged commenter =/ sexist is not an identity. I think there was some old thread, maybe from some kerfuffle between Ogged and BPhD before my time that I don't understand, in which Ogged claims that the men of Unfogged are about the least sexist you could find. In my estimation, that's been pretty much disproved here.
Dialogue between Tia and (very masculine) less sexist man last night:
T: Would you think anything of it if you saw a man reading Sex and the City on the train?
LSM: I might question his taste.
T: But would you think anything different if he were reading The Firm?
LSM: I might think less of him for reading The Firm.
T: I was seen reading and enjoying The Firm in junior high.
LSM: I saw that! That was you?
T: What if you saw a man in a dancy aerobics class?
LSM: What about it?
T: Would you think anything of it?
LSM: What's all this is about?
T: I was reading this blog thread where people were saying that it was undignified and unmanly for a man to read Sex and the City or take a dancy aerobics class, but less objectionable for women, if objectionable at all.
LSM: So what, that stuff is okay for gay men, but undignified for straight guys?
T: I'm not really clear on that. Maybe it's only okay with them to be gay if you're straight-acting--if you pass.
LSM: Well they're meatheads.
T: I know, and they think they're not. That's the hilarious thing. They think they're enlightened.
LSM: Well, you see a lot of that in the world.
Ogged, you can be friends with who you want to, and platonic, like romantic, attraction, has a lot of uncontrollable elements, but that's a l'il different from setting up a space on your blog proclaiming that you reserve the right to mock men for deviating from your ideal of manliness, and inviting other people to do it. If the set of things men can be mocked for =/ the set of things women can be mocked for, and the reasons you're mocking don't totally exclude "it's just girly," that's sexism, or the word doesn't really mean anything. And things are sometimes offensive for a reason, and this is offensive because punishing people for being deviant is not only heart of the junior high school stupidity, it's being a tool of many of the grossest, most pernicious forces in the world. It's being The Man. No amount of proclaiming that that can't be you doesn't make it not you when you gleefully do His work. And as I said back in the 40's, mocking a few swishy guys is not just that; it's punishing them for being class traitors, and thus reaffirming the demarcations that are used to some of the worst work in society.
Tom, I was just using you as an example, and there were lots of others I could have culled. I don't care if we agree on SATC's merits or not (and I like puns), but not respecting a man because he likes a more femmy kind of trash than you do is sexist (see above).
Analogy: I don't enjoy watching wrestling, boxing, or football, or any sport, really, but for the sake of argument, let's leave it at some hypermasculine ones. I would probably make a poor hang out partner for a woman who enjoyed spending an afternoon getting drunk and watching boxing and yelling loudly and maybe getting into a tussle with her friends. Such activities may even seem dumb to me. But would I call her out as unwomanly on my blog? Only if I were a total fucking tool.
<applause, foot stomping, laudatory but inarticulate shouting>Quite.</applause, foot stomping, laudatory but inarticulate shouting>
On the topic of making fun of girly-men, I've never claimed to be anything but serious. I think it's a defensible position, as I, and a few others, have argued upthread. And unless you claim that there's are no significant differences between men and women, saying that something is proper for one but not the other isn't necessarily sexist.
Can't I say that (barring the simply physical) that while there are certainly, from a descriptive point of view, substantial average differences between the sexes, there is from a normative point of view no justification for the social enforcement of such differences? (Answer: apparently so.)
And unless you claim that there's are no significant differences between men and women, saying that something is proper for one but not the other isn't necessarily sexist.
I think I'd agree with that, broadly.
Where I think I'd disagree is that something like the original example, liking aerobics, counts as a significant difference ('back in the veldt, women had time for coordinated activities while men had to be more goal-oriented to kill the sabre-toothed tigers'), and such a significant difference that it deserves immediate mockery.
I thought we'd agreed that aerobics (at least the dance-y kind I was thinking of), was stupid for everyone.
There may be categories of things that are stupid for everyone. But so many social changes are just a question of practice--of getting used to the idea. Men seeing other men do x, and realizing it's ok.
565: I'd agree to that, but here's something that seems to have been missed: dance-y, spandexed, purple aerobics classes haven't been commonplace for about 20 years now. (I remember my mom having dance tights for her workouts as a kid; when I took aerobics in college everyone wore shorts or sweats.)
And this less-jazzercise-frou-frou sort of aerobics is presumably the ones the men are still avoiding, where people are moving to music but aren't trying to look like Martha Graham escapees from Flashdance.
So when you say, 'men don't do aerobics because that's gay', presumably they have to be finding something gay about the classes now, or else they would have joined up in classes as soon as the legwarmers went out circa 1986.
So then it's a poor example of 'proper for one but not for the other'. What's a good example? (I'm asking in all seriousness, because I can't think of an example that wouldn't be either self-evidently sexist (e.g. Behavior X is bad because it indicates weakness and foolishness. Of course, it's okay for women) or elevating your personal tastes (even those broadly shared) into some kind of moral imperative (e.g., men who care about the esthetics of their clothes are just bad.)).
So really, what are you thinking of?
Are you trying to define the limits of that project? The line at which it's not progressive social change, but something else?
561: ogged, would you like to tell us what things are proper for men but not for women? Because it seems to me you can't have "category of things inappropriate for men" without "category of things inappropriate for women." And the latter of those two has been pretty fucking pernicious for a long time, and the proposition that such a category exists has been the source of much of the sexist ideals of our history.
So really, what are you thinking of?
Actually, I can't think of an example of "ok for x, but not ok for y," either, which is why I left that comment vague. --I was imagining that other people might want to make the case, and I didn't want "traditionalist" arguments presumptively classed as sexist.
Thinking about this a bit more, I don't think I'm up to anything very complicated. In colloquial terms, I think it's just "guys, don't act like wussies; ladies, don't act like ditzes." I'm not really so wedded to calling any particular behavior wuss-like or ditzy--opinions will differ, after all--but I do think it's important to maintain that there are inappropriate ways to act.
565: where? I think you're imagining a consensus. I've made arguments about why I would have resistance to joining them, and how I, and I think most guys, would view them as less preferable to other exercise activities, but I don't think I've quite said they're stupid. If I have, I retract it.
One trait that's often characterized as gay much to my chagrin is an appreciation for fiction. I dislike the notion that a high non-fiction:fiction ratio serves as some kind of determinant of a person's seriousness, intellectual fiber, etc.
But is it in fact accurate to say that reading fiction is a leisure more feminine than masculine, since much more fiction is produced with women in mind for men? I reserve scorn for what Bushnell hath wrought: the litany of books lining the new fiction shelves that feature the line drawing of heels, a martini glass, and a laptop, titled with an Internet-y tie-in (Instant Messages). Those books: stupid for everyone. Their other-gendered cousins—AD&D books or what have you—are the same order of pap, but they're not driving fiction sales.
I prefer to think that this is the reason serious people I know disparage fiction—there's at least some germ of accuracy to the notion that the current fashion is for women. But maybe I'm being too generous, and people mean by the offhanded gay/non-fiction:fiction ratio comment that reading fiction indicates weakness and foolishness (which is appropriate for girls).
The denigration of fiction is not manly; it's philistinism and a symptom of cultural decline.
And the idea that current fashions in fiction control what fiction is available to be read is just odd. The same bookstore with the line-drawings of the high heels still has Thackeray on the shelves.
Teh problem with the original product: of all the things I've heard called "gay," I would agree with the derisioin of only a small number of them. I suspect that the same is for Ogged. But we've mostly focused on some sort of unmanliness, and very briefly mentioned its multitude of other uses.
But, if we saw a girl acting a ditz, would you have ever said/though/expected to hear someone proclaim, "gay"? I don't think so.
And wuss? I called you a wuss for not putting up your personal. Even were I in the habit of gay-calling, I wouldn't have called it gay.
And now I think we need a splendidly divisive post for you to lay out the groundwork for the differences between genders and/or sexes!
Is the denigration of fiction just a DC thing? It seems so odd.
Plus, they're not even driving fiction sales. You just think that because they are very heavily- and well-marketed.
I do think it's important to maintain that there are inappropriate ways to act.
See, I'm fine with this. I will make intolerant judgments of people for their poor taste or bad behavior all day. It's just the gender-roles-enforcement judging (which you do appear to be sidling away from) that bothers me.
Let me try and state your position. You want to be able to mock 'effeminate' men because you dislike behaviors you see as 'effeminate' in men and women, and you would also like to mock 'effeminate' women. You don't care so much about enforcing gender roles, you just want to stamp everything pink off the face of the planet. If this is the case, I haven't got much of a problem with you, except to say that you should maybe lighten up a little, Jazzercise never killed anyone, and anyone whose tastes differ from yours should giggle at you and then ignore you.
My sense of 'gay(2)', though, and similar mocking of effeminate men, is that it's generally done by people who approve heartily of femininity for women. The guy who will mock another guy for going to dance class probably wants his girlfriend made-up and simpering. That, on the other hand, annoys the hell out of me, for reasons that have been described at length on this thread.
Okay, maybe here's a charitable way to read what ogged is saying:
'Not all gender differences, culturally inculcated or innate, are intrinsically bad. Being manly, in and of itself, is preferable to being a wuss. Likewise, while being ditzy should be repudiated by all women, being kind and compassionate shouldn't, even though it was a traditional gender characteristic.
It's not bad, or necessarily sexist, to say that men should pressure each other to maintain good manly standards, just as it wouldn't be bad or necessarily sexist for women to promote kindness and nurturing instincts while rejecting ditziness.'
Alright. That doesn't sound wholly unreasonable, until you look at the methods proposed (which is why we need an example), and you find that all the methods proposed to keep someone suitably manly involve denigrating something as 'for girls'. Jumping jacks are gay unless someone is yelling at you!
Not only is that sexist, it's really not instrumental to achieve dignity, strength, and a stiff upper lip; it would be like me trying to promote kindness, nurturing, and compassion by telling little girls they shouldn't play sports because that would make them unfeminine.
I apologize if the discussion has moved beyond this now, or Ogged has modified his position (no time right now), but I just wanted to make sure to note that "saying that something is proper for one but not the other" is in fact necessarily sexist. Even if you granted not only that there are socialized differences between men and women, but that some of them are probably biological (and I usually fall in the "some are probably biological, but we don't know" camp), all that means (and god I hate to drag out the bell curve and the long tail again) is that there are traits that are clustered more densely in the female population and others in the male. It does not mean that there won't be men who are less male-identified than the norm, and the converse for women. Punishing these people for failing to conform to your standards of masculinity or femininity is sexism.
Maybe the denigration of fiction is just more apparent in DC. Or only happens in DC. Maybe I just need different friends.
Or simply to tell your current friends to bite you.
I know, and they think they're not. That's the hilarious thing. They think they're enlightened.
Well, I'm not so sure I'm enlightened. I'm pretty sure I behave in as considerate a way toward others as any militantly enlightened person could reasonably expect. Beyond that I'm not too worried about which bars I do and don't pass. I'm just trying to explain the aversions I have that automatically kick in (and which I suspect most men share).
And maybe this is a point worth expanding on: making it safe for anyone to pick and choose gender roles is a good and worthy project, but expecting to totally eliminate those roles and judgments based on them seems pretty unrealistic to me -- not to get all evo psych on you, but as ogged mentioned, there are, of course, real differences.
It also seems little naive to try to define what behavior others should and shouldn't consider to be silly. It'd be nice if our relatively uniform group could reach consensus on what habits make people look like twits, but apparently we can't. Oh well.
In retrospect this should have been perfectly obvious -- even from city to city in America there are different tics that define what constitutes a faux pas that are arbitrary and stupid but non-negotiable. That the gender-related behaviors we're discussing are related to genuinely serious topics with serious implications for people's lives has made this conversation a little charged. But I'm not really convinced that thinking a guy in a leotard looks stupid seriously contributes to oppressing homosexuals, women, or anybody else except the leotard-wearers of the world. We're here, we jeer, get used to it.
549: This seems to me structurally quite similar to somebody saying, If homosexuality is genetically determined then it is a handicap and should not be criticized; but if it is chosen behavior it is immoral and worthy of rebuke. Just sayin'.
True, but isn't that kind of a charged formulation? Treating a transgression differently based on whether it was voluntary or unavoidable is something we all do constantly, in many different venues.
Not that I'm trying to call homosexuality a transgression. I'm just saying that your analogy is a little antagonistic.
the gender-roles-enforcement judging (which you do appear to be sidling away from)
Look, changing one's mind is a great thing, as is refining a position, but I was never doing the gender-roles-enforcement in the way people seem to think I was. My very first comment in this thread was an amendation of my position, and that was way back at comment 69. And no one who has read the blog with any regularity could have believed that I was saying that I was in favor of girliness in women. My big regret is that I originally had "hyper-feminine" in the post, but, inexplicably, took out the "hyper."
Honestly, I'm not sure if that would have helped. What you seem to saying is that what counts as an unacceptable hyperfeminine activity for men isn't an unacceptable hyperfeminine activity for women; at least your criticism of aerobics and even your modified position (not 'feminine', just 'weak', but can't give an example where there isn't overlap) didn't also say, 'Wow, that's just too femme, even for women, to stand and dance to music.'
Re: 584.
Hrm. I'm not trying to require that everyone meet my standard of enlightenment before I'll associate with them -- not everyone can levitate in the lotus position before their keyboards as I do.
Nonetheless, there's a big gap between "Come on, there are differences between men and women, and we just are going to find some behavior risible in men that is acceptable in women," which is trueish, from a descriptive point of view, and not all that terrible, and "We must have techniques for mocking feminine men."
If some behaviors strike you differently coming from a man and a woman, there's not all that much you can do about that and there's a limit to how much you need to worry about it. If it's important to you to be able to punish other men for deviating from appropriate gender roles, on the other hand, you're pretty much a twerp.
I understand you to be taking the first, rather than the second, position, to be clear -- just wanted to point out that it's the second that is setting me off.
(And ogged, sorry about the 'sidling'; in retrospect that looks tendentious. Did I get you pretty much right otherwise in 579?)
I find it hard to draw a line between being flirtatious in an acceptable way, whatever that is, and tapping into old, manipulative, traditional feminine wiles. Not that I'm such a flirt myself (ok, well, maybe), but most women I know have annoyed me at one point or another while in pursuit of a man--being different, more girlish, giggly, &c. And I have to make a separation between what they're really like and how they are with men. Of course, as people get married, and their lives are defined more and more by their relations with men, this becomes increasingly problematic.
It may be that I don't see as much of an advance in this area as you do. Everyone is a good feminist in college; in the real world it seems to slip somewhat.
I should probably point out that I don't find gentle mocking of aerobics/figure skating all that objectionable. I find it pretty stupid, but it's not the most serious sexism around; it's unlikely that ogged or tom or Tim or anyone wouldn't hire someone because he took an aerobics class or something. But it's still sexism, just not a particularly harmful kind (especially since it's usually done as joshing between friends).
I'm finding this thread increasingly bizarre. I really don't understand what you don't understand or you disagree with, ac.
You say: And I have to make a separation between what they're really like and how they are with men.
As a guy, my (or, I think, ogged's) experience of what that person is really like is the same as what that person is like with men. So you and I find the same things distateful (manipulation, etc.), but that is all (or most) that I, as a guy, get. There's no (or little) other bit to balance against that.
If the sum total of the person you knew were those traits that annoyed you, wouldn't you find that person distasteful?
not everyone can levitate in the lotus position before their keyboards as I do.
Hmm, I haven't tried it with a keyboard.
And I have to make a separation between what they're really like and how they are with men. Of course, as people get married, and their lives are defined more and more by their relations with men, this becomes increasingly problematic.
Huh. I'd say marriage has the reverse effect. Back in my single days, while still concerned about man-acquisition I would certainly get all goofy around men, both those I wanted ("All right, blinking appealingly isn't working. Hrmmm... maybe if I try the full 'pull out the hairpins, run fingers through hair and toss,' maneuver followed by removing my glasses, ostensibly for cleaning, so that I can glance shyly up through my eyelashes at him?" Note to those looking for tips -- it didn't work.) and those I didn't want ("Oh, drat, I laughed at his joke. He's going to think I want to go out with him now." Note -- usually an overstated fear.). Not defending this, just saying that sexual desire will make people act silly. Or at least will make me act silly.
Now that I'm off the market, dealing with men is much easier. My relationship with Mr. Breath certainly has a fair amount of romantic schtick going on, but with all other men it's much easier to be natural.
My relationship with Mr. Breath certainly has a fair amount of romantic schtick going on, but with all other men it's much easier to be natural.
Intersting what you choose to classify as "natural", no? Who's to say your single behavior, which was after all driven by your very human sexual desires, wasn't more natural?
it's unlikely that ogged or tom or Tim or anyone wouldn't hire someone because he took an aerobics class or something.
WHAT?!?!? Wouldn't hire him? On a bet, none of us would bar simple friendship and hanging out with him for going to an aerobics class or something. Hell, if tom's example had been five or 10 years earlier, and he'd used The Bridget Jones Diary, he could have been talking about me. And yet, if we'd met, I doubt very much that he and I couldn't strike up a friendship in spite of his knowledge of my strange love of foresworn lit. Instead, if we became friends, he would make fun of my chyck-lit tendencies and I would make fun of what I assume (from prior catherine comments) is his Marfan head.
Who's to say your single behavior, which was after all driven by your very human sexual desires, wasn't more natural?
Me. After all, I was acting within perceived societal constraints, and therefore behaving in a highly awkward and ritualized fashion. Now I spend much less time thinking about social rules for dealing with 'men'.
I think the hiring is a reference to my comment 475, Tim.
Now I spend much less time thinking about social rules for dealing with 'men'.
You're just more used to these unnatural behaviors.
Geez, all I was saying that I don't seriously take evidence such as jeering at Jazzercise as evidence that the person is a major tool who would refuse to hire someone (OR BE FRIENDS); sorry if that somehow gave offense...
My bad, Cala. I have a sense that people are inferring stronger rules from "we make fun of [hyper]-feminine characteristics in men" than can be justified by any of the evidence on this blog.
Will overreact more later.
Anyone know what the record for comments is on an Unfogged post?
Over a thousand, and pretty recently too. 600 ain't nothing.
591- Tim, Ogged is saying "none of you guys are hyper-feminine, so I'm not talking about you"--but I think most women, or a far greater number women than Ogged thinks he's talking about, have their hyper-feminine moments. It seems like much more of a continuum to me, not something we can congratulate ourselves about. Oh, we're so free of all that traditional crap.
Also, yeah, you're a guy, you only get to see one aspect of a woman. That's why, in my opinion, you don't get to condemn her whole character. I think you should be more imaginative or generous about the complexities of women's inner lives.
Especially since the hyper-femme woman isn't operating in a fucking vacuum.
LB, aren't trends going backwards in equality within marriage? Fewer women keeping their own name, &c.
And those sorts of comprises don't even come up, when you are on your own.
It occurred to me just a bit ago in the shower that the word you may be looking for is "prissy," which describes a set of behaviors equally unpleasant in males and females. Works well as a noun, too: "Why must you be such a little priss?"
LB, aren't trends going backwards in equality within marriage? Fewer women keeping their own name, &c.
Maybe -- I see a lot of articles about this, less in the way of stats. But I really don't know.
Anyone know what the record for comments is on an Unfogged post?
Over a thousand, and pretty recently too. 600 ain't nothing.
Hard to tell. Looking around at the parents of my kids' friends, I'd say no, but on the other hand the ones I think of are the ones I like, so that isn't really a fairly selected group.
And now I have no idea how we've ended up here, when I just wanted a word to replace "gay."
I hope you are pleased by 605, Ogged, since that does seem to be what you were looking for.
The arguments I get into here feel like fights within marriage. Suppressed annoyance comes bubbling up eventually. Like what eb was saying about the Asian drivers--you remember past discomfort. I've had inklings before of misogyny dressed up as progressiveness around here. This is where I addressed it.
Since we talked about Asian drivers, I've been testing myself, saying "that's gotta be an Asian driver," so as to guard against confirmation bias, but I've been right every time. Asian drivers suck.
Anyway, yeah, "prissy" might be just right.
And every woman I've known has moments of prissiness, including women I love--I still don't like the prissiness though, and think it's reprehensible. But see, if I say that I'm understanding of prissiness in women, given social pressures, but even less tolerant of it in men, I'm a sexist. That doesn't seem right: equally reprehensible in both sexes, more understandable in women. Take it how you will.
Clearly, the reason you are all fighting is that you made the mistake of meeting up in real life. Now people can actually have their feelings hurt, whereas previously one could always hide behind the possibility that everyone's persona here is just an elaborate put on.
I'm curious, however, about what exactly Ogged meant when he said, about effeminate men, that "we _have_ to be able to keep making fun of them." When I first read this I took Ogged to be saying something rather modest – namely, that it is really fun to make fun of your male friends for, e.g., listening to the Cure, but that it would be nice to be able to do so without being excessively homophobic. In other words, I took him not to be justifying his behavior so much as wanting to diminish the offensiveness of the kind of unjustified behavior that we're allowed to engage in among friends. Are you really committed, Ogged, to some kind of larger claim about hyper-femininity? That seems crazy and excessive to me.
Should we really think of a 1000-post thread as something to be proud of? Wouldn't this be an inherently problematic accomplishment, like the world's largest ball of string, or the world's largest baseball card collection?
Wow pjs, I sure am grateful for the door-to-comity that you've opened, but no, I think I do mean something more like the second claim: Abolish the prissy! Spartan citizenship for everyone!
Being able to recognize the characteristics of an Asian bad driver is different from being able to predict from knowing a driver is Asian that that driver drives poorly.
In other words, I give up.
So is Carson Palmer hurt? What's the deal.
All of you: stop being so gay and get with sucking my cock already.
Of course, lots of Asians are very skilled drivers; it seems to be a point of pride among young Asian guys, in fact. But there's a distinctively bad way of driving that's also unique to Asians. You'll have to sort it out with your people.
there's a distinctively bad way of driving that's also unique to Asians
I don't challenge this phrasing.
is Carson Palmer hurt?
Yeah, though I don't think we know how badly yet. That totally sucks. For some reason I'm rooting for the Bengals in this one.
Apostropher, now that we've got a Chicago/Carolina matchup, I'm afraid I'm going to hate you for the next week. See you on the other side!
But see, if I say that I'm understanding of prissiness in women, given social pressures, but even less tolerant of it in men, I'm a sexist. That doesn't seem right: equally reprehensible in both sexes, more understandable in women. Take it how you will.
That seems perfectly reasonable, or at least not particularly sexist. I still think you're elevating a matter of esthetic distaste to a level of importance it doesn't qualify for ('reprehensible'?) But that doesn't make you sexist.
Just nuts.
I know god is going to give me prissy children.
Unless you get that TiVo reset, no one else will.
What you say is humorous, Lizardbreath.
I'm rooting for the Bengals too. I awoke to the NFL at the time of the Icky Shuffle, and besides, always liked the helmets. And I've always disliked Pittsburg. The team, the city, and all of its inhabitants.
Just nuts.
I don't know how serious you are about this, but the fact that you might be serious is one of the reasons I do posts like this: the position I've described in this thread puts me about center to center-permissive on the American tolerance continuum, I think. That's not to argue for the rightness of it, but just to note that (I believe) the rest of you are the outliers here, not me.
It is my goal in life to live up to John Emerson's expectation that this site be primarily devoted to abusing you. I feel it's the least I can do for all the entertainment you've given me.
Don't try to make nice with me, young lady.
No, the "center to center-permissive on the American tolerance continuum" position you're talking about is culpably sexist. That position condemns prissiness for men and celebrates it for women.
The position that I, personally, am more comfortable with is "Do whatever, regardless of your gender. If doing aerobics in a feather boa makes you happy, you go." Non sexist, and reasonably non-interfering in other people's lifestyle choiced.
Where you've come down: "Prissiness is Bad for everyone!" is non-sexist, but, shall we say, peculiar. (I should say that I'm with you insofar as prissiness entails passive aggression, just not where it means the disapproval of all clothing beyond the unisex jumpsuit.)
That position condemns prissiness for men and celebrates it for women.
Hmm, that seems center-intolerant but now we're really talking out of our asses, so let's say you're right, because no lefty ever got fired for having contempt for the American public.
They're doing an MRI, and will know at halftime.
But see, if I say that I'm understanding of prissiness in women, given social pressures, but even less tolerant of it in men, I'm a sexist. That doesn't seem right: equally reprehensible in both sexes, more understandable in women. Take it how you will.
That's how I feel about mechanical ineptness. But every time I say something understanding and enlightened, such as "there there, Honey, I know you're not naturally inept, you're just a poor helpless victim of social forces", I get smacked upside the head. The accompanying muttered imprecations includes phrase that sound suspiciously like "goddam condescending sexist pig".
Of course it's not sexist to be understanding about something we'd mock iif the offender were male.
That position condemns prissiness for men and celebrates it for women.
No way. Prissy is always annoying.
Who's to say your single behavior, which was after all driven by your very human sexual desires, wasn't more natural?
Me. After all, I was acting within perceived societal constraints, and therefore behaving in a highly awkward and ritualized fashion. Now I spend much less time thinking about social rules for dealing with 'men'.
That answer was irony, or sarcasm, or one of those other things outliers use to mark group affiliation, wasn't it? I do hope you weren't serious.
You're just more used to these unnatural behaviors.
Or the social constraints for married women are simpler, like those for sequestered nuns. "No" covers so much of the territory of relations with men.
Tarnation. I gues one can't use italics around something italicized. That second paragraph was a quote. From 596. Sorry. I'm just naturally confused.
625: You may dislike Pittsburg and its inhabitants, but you should say whether you mean Pittsburg, CA, Pittsburg, KS, or Pittsburg, TX. And what does that have to do with the Pittsburgh Steelers?
(The non-w-lfs-nian alternative is a meeting at dawn -- chez ogged.)
Also, ha ha! The Palmer injury was unfortunate, though, and I hope he will be return at full strength -- it's at least a torn ACL.
"No" covers so much of the territory of relations with men.
Indeed, life was much, much simpler for me when I was a practicing Mormon virgin, and everyone I knew was just ever-so slightly embarrassed of being crass around me.
(I got a lot of great reading done then! And I was convinced that almost everybody was interested in my intellect!)
of course I meant Pittsburg, Kansas. The connection to the Steelers is both remote and painful.
Do I get to choose the weaponry? I've got some office supplies around.
Abolish the prissy! Spartan citizenship for everyone!
I'm picturing Ogged's ideal world as an Ingmar Bergman film.
I've got some office supplies around.
I was a practicing Mormon virgin
This is a wonderful phrase. Delicious.
My thoughts on this matter are distinctly LizardBreathian.
Bush won the 2004 election by calling Kerry gay, or having his surrogates do it.