Well, I still think it should be "foo-foo" in the senses you're talking about. Especially because it covers the extended sense while also leaving out many non-foo-foo gays.
But see Metrosexual is the New Homophobe
"The story documents real-life pretty boys' discomfort with being metrosexual. "Regular guys want to look good--just don't call them metrosexuals," the subhead explains.But why not?
"Many men say it means that they are sissified," according to Lisa Arbetter, executive editor of Cargo magazine.
Chicago spa owner, Santha Dulaney, parses this out a little more: "I think it's the 'sexual' thing in there. It's a real turn-off for a man."
Perhaps the word is a wee too close to "homosexual" for some manscaping men's liking. Just because I like a regular facials with fruit extracts doesn't mean I'm a fag, or so the logic goes.
Instead, the metros want to define prissiness on their own, less gay terms.
The article goes on to describe a "butch" salon in Chicago, American Male, which is kinda like a sports bar where you can get a paraffin hand dip.
I hate the idea that straights are butching up metrosexuality. We gave you our Queer Eye; you can't go just throwing kegs and poster-size images of Jessica Alba into it."
Just accept that you hate gay people, women, and Asians (with special emphasis on Indians). See you at the next Klan meeting.
the guy who wrote the blog post SCMT linked to is a classmate of mine. neat!
Why foo-foo, John? I forget to say so earlier, but if Gerard de Nerval used frou-frou, it's good enough for me.
Using a French term without mangling it? Prissy.
Why not "paintywaist?" If it's good enough for Henry Blodget...
LizardBreath, you'll just have to understand that I'm a woman.
Marginally related to 2: I only know one person who proudly self-identifies as a "metrosexual". And I really can't stand that guy.
What did you have against "unmanly"?
B explained the problem with "unmanly."
Saying "frou-frou" in English would be foo-foo.
Well, then, I'll really up shit's creek as a Francophone woman, aren't I?
(May I never have sons.)
Since I'm not going to scroll through 600+ comments to find out, what was the verdict on "pussy"? 'Cause I came across this song while scanning across the dial this afternoon, and all I could think was, "God, what a pussy." And I didn't even know it was Garth Brooks! Truly a case in which it wasn't just what he sang, it was the way that he sang it.
"Pussy" is not unsexist.
Glad to get that sorted out.
"Pussy" is not unsexist.
See, that's the beauty of "prissy." It's redolent of both "prick" and "pussy" simultaneously, one three-letter syllable apiece. You get to call someone a purely genderless, in-between genital. And I've known pretty much the same number of prissy men as prissy women. It's Title IX compliant.
Really, I thought about this for, like, 600 comments. My methodology is sound, people. My seed is pure.
That was me bringing it up, BTW, because, well, I thought it was a useful point of comparison.
Garth Brooks, from what I've heard, is a smarm factory.
That was Ttam R., Matt. No impersonating other commenters.
Francophones speaking English should also find forms of self-reference that do not remind people of telephones or gramaphones.
If you have sons, perhaps you should refuse to teach them English.
I have no problem with "pussy". But, really, I have no problem with any of these gendered pejoratives. I have even been known to whip out the dreaded See You Next Tuesday on the rare occasion when a person warrants it.
I have no problem with any of these gendered pejoratives.
That's the spirit, nutsack!
Apo is always able to surprise. I would have guessed he'd be all over "I have no problem with pussy" instead. (Preview, dammit, preview...)
Actually, wizard nutsack might make a decent new gay.
"Hey man, I signed up for that dance aerobics class."
[chuckle] "Dude, that is wizard nutsack. But have fun."
That would make for an interesting reversal of the typical gender association of good and bad if "nutsack" were the insult and "cocksucker" the compliment.
See You Next Tuesday
Ok, that took me a second. Never heard that one before.
Yeah, yeah, next Tuesday. then what?
Right, next Tuesday. But what does it mean?
Is this some sort of "monthly visitor" joke?
then what?
Never underestimate the snarky apostropher's circumscribed knowledge.
He mentioned it, but did not use it. What are you, the FCC?
I take it that there is silent agreement that WMYBSALB is now to be written WMYBSALP?
26: Making "nutsack" the new gay would be wizard cocksucker.
What's wrong with 'wimp' or 'wuss' if we want to find a non-mysoginist/non-homophobic alternative?
"Pansy" is much better than "prissy," which has negligible function as a noun. Apo is not the hero, after all.
And the #2 Google hit for "pansy" is Pansy Division, a queercore punk band that's reclaimed the name, putting (one hopes) the LBs and Tias at ease. And possibly, to shame.
I only say that because, in 600+ comments, I don't think it went mentioned how fucking sexist gay gays can be and often are.
If it need be said, I am teh Michael drunk right now.
47: it needn't be said, what with the noun form of "prissy" being "priss", and having been used as such in the other thread. Fag.
Speaking of Pansy Division, they have a page of free downloads here. The clean version of "He Whipped My Ass in Tennis, Then I Fucked His Ass in Bed" is hardly worth it, but Pre Basso Continuo's tribute song, "You Don't Have to Be Gay to Like Pansy Division (But It Helps)" is pretty good.
Making "nutsack" the new gay would be wizard cocksucker.
Can you imagine how long it would take to explain this joke to the uninitiated? It might stump the NSA.
Reading this thread and skimming the err 645 comments of its forerunner leaves me with an adjectival contemplation on the nature of the frat haus.
Critical Mass.
Now I know why I miss this place, sometimes
#11: I still kinda think this entire convo is sexist, as per Tia's #559 in the previous thread. But hey, carry on and don't mind me. I only note for the record that a lot of what passes for "prissy," or whateverthefuck we're calling it, in men, is behavior that I either have no problem with or actively admire.
Well B, "prissy" to me carries distinct connotations of being overly fussy, fixated on trivialities, and something of a pain in the ass, none of which I'd hope you'd find admirable in either gender.
But if the conversation has shown anything, it's that we all have different definitions for the same words.
which brings us back to B's point about meaning being negotiable, no?
I know I'm way late to the party, and probably wasn't invited in the first place, but I'm with B, in that I think the desire to denigrate "excessive" is sexist. But more to the point, I don't think "prissy" quite covers the same territory as gay.
On the other hand, I think the apostropher is right that "prissy" is generally always bad. Except in movies where the heroine starts out all prissy-like and then has a makeover montage and ends up being hot and likeable. Hmm.
Well, we'll never get an exact match, but a lot of what you give up in the move from "gay" to "prissy" is, I think, homophobic and maybe sexist, so it's probably for the best.
Anyone have a line on the etymology of 'prissy'? OED says only, "perhaps blend of 'prim' and 'sissy'" and has the earliest usage as
1895 J. C. HARRIS Mr. Rabbit at Home iv. 40 Once, when I was courting, I spoke of a sitting hen, but the young lady said I was too prissy for anything.
Joel Chandler Harris? Great, now we're all racists, too.
I'm pretty sure I called that in #2, Apo.
Nutsack! The first letters of the words in 34 spell "nutsack," dammit!
What if they gave a cock joke and nobody came?
'Prissy' works; it's not as overtly sexist and seems to indicate that behavior worthy of the term 'prissy' is objectionable on either gender; in practice, it'll be used kind of like 'this thing has girl cooties.'
I don't like the noun from though. Insults shouldn't end with sibilants.
I, too, appreciate ogged's "nutsack".
My Dad used to use the noun 'gutless wonder,' at least when throwing the insult my way.
But has no one spoken up for 'wimpy' or perhaps 'sissy?' To me 'prissy' has an overtone of 'too fancy' as if it were a combination of 'prim' and 'sissy.'
None of these necessarily has gender overtones, but as Cala says I bet they all would be used that way.
Which is kind of silly because I used to get my ass kicked in some super hard aerobic classes. Those suckers were not easy.
I bet they all would be used that way.
Does this mean that nutsack is the new prissy?
For what it's worth, my friend who has a Ph.D. in some kind of gender and sexuality stuff says "prissy" is sexist, too.
Isn't prissy == effeminate + uptight?
I haven't seen any dictionary entries that peg the word as implying femininity.
has a Ph.D. in some kind of gender and sexuality stuff says "prissy" is sexist, too.
This is shocking.
I fear this has devolved into question-begging, now.
Well, to move the question begging to a fresh thread, is a monthly knitting event at work (as Becks describes on the 'To Read' thread 'prissy'? Because my linguistic intuition is that it is. And my reaction to the situation is that that's a lousy reason to shut it down.
is a monthly knitting event at work ... 'prissy'?
I'd be more inclined to describe it as "sweet!" If I liked my co-workers, I'd totally be up for this.
Monthly knitting event = prissy? Depends on how it is done. If it involves dressing up and tut-tutting about the lower class then it would be prissy.
Otherwise it is more, umm, how shall I say, a 'conventionally female' event. Unless the guy taking it was Rosie Greer I think he might be suspected of being a sissy or a wimp.
Answering you in the other thread.
Well, this is my own definition at work, but under the same logic as this comment, I would say that fearing knitting is prissy.
. . . the snarky apostropher's circumcised knowledge.
I would say that fearing knitting is prissy.
Yeah, totally. And just a few short days ago, if a friend had made a big show of not attending a knitting event, I would have been inclined to say, "don't be a faggot." Now, of course, I can happily say, "Quit being such a priss. Fucking priss. Priss, priss, priss."
To me Nellie Olson from "Little House on the Prarie" defines prissy.
But it is interesting to me the change in what is defined as 'manly,' especially by men. My father tells me that a 'ladies man' was a guy who would stay home from hunting and woo the ladies. He was derided by the 'man's man' for being wimpy, although I suspect what really pissed them off was that he was stealing their women. Now ogged says we must demonstrate our masculinity not by daring nature and roughing it but by daring to attend a traditionally female event.
That seems to be a rather clever bit of jiu-jitsu.
My father tells me that a 'ladies man' was a guy who would stay home from hunting and woo the ladies.
See also ancient Greece. Manly men like Achilles screw other men and fight. Effiminate men like Paris hide in the city making out with Helen.
Anyone can play football but only a real man acts in the school play.
Heh heh.
Really, though, I was always puzzled why a real man wouldn't want to be in theatre. It is a great chance to show off and be surrounded by attractive women. What is more masculine than that?
I always figured a gay guy might be able to better tolerate the sporadic income of theatre life since he probably would not have a family to support but other than that why is theatre 'gay?'
I was always puzzled why a real man wouldn't want to be in theatre. It is a great chance to show off and be surrounded by attractive women.
Surrounded by attractive half-naked women all the time. The quick-change areas backstage aren't exactly designed for privacy purposes.
but other than that why is theatre 'gay?'
Showtunes.
Samuel Johnson on why he wouldn't go backstage at a theatre: "The white bubbies and silk stockings of your Actresses excite my genitals."
Surrounded by attractive half-naked women all the time.
Your mileage may vary here. My one big theatrical acting experience involved dressing drag (hey, it was Shakespeare) so if you'd wandered backstage of that particular show, one of the young lovelies wandering around in a brassiere might have been me.
Huh. Maybe that's why theatre is 'gay.'
I have been told that in Australia a man who pays too much attention to women is suspected of being a wuss [a term I haven't seen here so far, though I did skip several hundred posts], even if he's heterosexual. Rural Minnesota isn't a whole lot different, and there's also the related fear that an unmanly man will steal all the women.
This takes the argument back to violence, domination, and bullying. In the macho women should belong to the men who can protect them, not to the men who are nice to them or who make them feel good. And men themselves are organized into violent domination heirarchies, with the ones at the bottom being the faggots, who are even worse than women because they don't have women's good points (breasts, vaginas and uteri) but only their bad points.
In my youth (50's--60's) there was a tremendous paranoia about homosexuality and latent homosexuality. (A lot of the movies, e.g. scripted by Tennessee Williams and Gore Vidal, had this subtext -- "Suddenly Last Summer" is the most vivid.) But in those days proving your heterosexuality in practice was hard for young guys, and it was also forbidden. One outcome was that nobody could feel completely good about himself, except for Mormons and hillbillies. who got married at 14.
But the homosexuality theme was completely interwoven with weakness, passivity, and victimization. Thus several kids including me got special attention in HS because they were at risk for bullying, but mixed in with this was the suspicion that sissies might be homosexual too.
Regarding macho, I succeeded in attaining the level of macho required not to be bullied, but I was pretty aware what I was doing and I always thought that the higher levels of macho were crap.
In conclusion, while I personally also do find men who are emo and precious and affected and histrionic annoying, some of the trend of this thread does seem like a resurrection of the old bullying in a non-homophobic form, and I think should be suspect.
Going back to illicit anecdotal experience, the most emo and vulnerable of my son's friends was the first one to get married. He had lots of gay traits and talked to my son's mom about interior decorating, but he wasn't gay.
Wowee. Has anybody told Teresa about this?
Regarding macho, I succeeded in attaining the level of macho required not to be bullied
Dude, I am so turned on by you.
The next logical step is to knit a zombie to eat it.
John,
Near as I can tell there still is paranoia among adolescent boys about homosexuality.
Just found myself wondering whether the paranoia Tripp mentions in 98 is socialized or innate. Kinda silly thing to wonder about I guess and the obvious, Occam-y way to answer it is to say "socialized"; still the idea that it might be an interesting question/interesting to examine a world in which this paranoia is an adaptive behavior is bangin round my brain.
"examine" s/b "postulate" in 99.
postulate a world in which this paranoia is an adaptive behavior
Considering that human survival depends on maintaining cooperative groups, an exquisite sensitivity to the boundaries of acceptable behavior in the group is adaptive. Of course, since many groups are not homophobic (LB cited Homer's Greeks) there'd be no pan human adaptivity to paranoia about being seen as homosexual. Just about being seen as an outlier.
Thanks for that insight Michael -- excellent point.
To pull out my one 'other cultures' data point, I say socialized. In Samoa (did I ever tell you I was in the Peace Corps) they've got very strong, definite gender roles, but one of the available roles is fa'afafine, which is somewhere on the gay man/drag queen spectrum (they have sex with men, some who can carry it off do full drag, others dress in varying degrees of effeminacy, some who can't carry it off do full drag. Travelers' note: If you're a straight man traveling in Western Polynesia, and a lovely, tall, slim woman makes a pass at you (a) consider whether you're open to broadening your sexual horizons and (b) look closely at her adam's apple. Bio-women from that part of the world run short, curvy, and unlikely to be making passes at tourists. But I digress.)
It's not a disfavored role -- being a fa'afafine is absolutely okay (although it is often played up for comedy schtick) and straight boys don't seem to worry at all about being mistaken for fa'afafine. You are or you aren't, but it's not an issue.
LB -- but with Michael's insight in 101, paranoia about being viewed as homosexual could be adaptive and innate without being universal -- that is to say it could be the expression within our society of an innate attribute. (Or does that make it "socialized"? I'm so confused.)
And -- does that apostrophe signify a glottal stop, or that the vowels on either side of it are pronounced as one long 'a'?
Glottal stop. And sure, I'd say that paranoia about outsider status is universal, just that homosexuality isn't necessarily a marker of such status.
I'm looking at my 104 and thinking about 2 out of 3 words in it longer than three letters should be in scare quotes. Did everybody read John Holbo's post today about inverted commas?
Thanks for that insight Michael -- excellent point.
[blush]
it could be the expression within our society of an innate attribute
Right. There's apparently an innate pan human tendency towards spoken language, but the choice between po-tay-to and po-tah-to is learned and culturally determined
I'd say that paranoia about outsider status is universal, just that homosexuality isn't necessarily a marker of such status
Wow, consensus. And the paranoia about outsider status is not solely human. I believe one sees the same things among other social animals, such as wolves and some apes.
Sorry, missed Holbo, but I was reading a long discussion Wolfblog (a blog by and for Canus Lupus) about whether there's another sound which could be used for some of the meanings of WoofARF! without indicating a politically unacceptable attitude.
Wow, consensus
Hold on now, only You and I and LizardBreath are on board. Plenty of room for -gg-d is going to come upset the applecart.
One is an anecdote, two is a coincidence, but three (including LB!) is a universal attribute of humanity. Quick, person the barricades against the barbarian outliers who would destroy our applecart!
I plead to the jury that the defendants mean well and that once they have been released, light nourishment and plenty of fresh air will see to it that they regain equilibrium.
What was this thread about again?
34 was almost funny.
Foucault said that the big issue with classical man-on-man sex wasn't anything called "homosexuality", but domination, with a big active/passive older/younger stereotyping.
I talked to a prison psychiatrist once, and in that context there's a big active/passive domination heirarchy myth, with the active partner not regarding himself as gay at all, but according to the shrink, "if they'll flip, they'll flop" -- role switching was common, if not acknowledged publicly.
Actually, wizard nutsack might make a decent new gay.
I nominate "viking tittyfucker" as a contender to replace gay.
Red State Update reviews Brokeback Mountain.
Red State Update reviews Brokeback Mountain.
Apologies if this posts twice. Your site is acting up again.
Newsflash: apparently cheerleading is very not prissy.
Prisses get head injuries too, B.
Nice try. Those cheerleaders are harder men that the linebackers. Padding and helmets are for wusses.
Prissy was never a very good fit for what Ogged is talking about, because let's face it, what could be prissier than this?
I never claimed I was free of prissiness.
Then we'll have to take the priss out of you.
No no, you're supposed to punch me.
You know I would only do that if you totally weren't expecting it, Matt.
ogged, Matt, everyone else is busy laughing at my sophisticated cross-dialectal pun. Hop to!
Isn't it time for you two to go "get Amish" together?
I clicked through the link, B. My favorite was the first sentence: "Gone, mostly, are the days when people still believed that cheerleading is as much a "sport" as the Miss America pageant is a "scholarship competition."" Ah, sweet, sweet disdain.
I've heard when the Jews take away part of your manhood, they call it a priss.
Foo-foo/frou-frou is still better.
ash
['Don't want no foo-foo haircut, sittin' on my heaadddddddddd....']
Really an excellent site - it's always a pleasure to come back