From “gay” to “poofter” to “fairy” - the words ed by others to fe gay people n say a great al more about them than .
Contents:
FLEMG’S FAGGOTS, GAYS AND QUEERS
* gay fagots *
Joe Jackson’s 1982 h Real Men was the first time I had heard gays referred to as faggots. I was jt out of the closet and my first gay relatnship London. Jackson’s lyrics about how only our iends and other gays uld ll faggots was enuragg, g as did om a straight man sgg a song jt before AIDS h.
Faggot, often-nsired a slur, has been reclaimed many tim over by gay men, cludg a new play by Declan Greene, The Homosexuals, or “Faggots”, currently showg at the Malthoe Melbourne.
The play looks at gay male relatnships and their polics, and is apt as middle-class gay men and lbians stggle wh acceptance all over aga the face of their ll for marriage equaly. And merry-old-England there was abe: one night when leavg gay club Heaven, a bunch of lads lled and our female iends “pooh jabbers”.
Faggot is an offensive slang term for a gay man. Though origally (and more harmlsly) meant "a bundle of sticks," the word faggot should be ed very refully or avoid pletely. * gay fagots *
But words ed by others to fe gay people n say a great al more about them than . From prostut to gays. Let’s beg wh the most mon term, “gay”, which baby-boomer homosexuals appropriated for their liberatnist e the late 1960s and early 1970s.
And “gay-hoe” was the term for a brothel. “In the past one asked if a woman was "gay, ” much as today one might ask if she “swgs, ”“ wrote Whe.
"Homosexual” (or “homosexualist”) has siar 19th-century origs and was origally ed 1869 by a Hungarian doctor, Karoly Maria Benkert. In eighteenth-century London was first a term for prostute then for homosexual.
The meang of FAGGOT is a gay person—ed as a term of abe and disparagement. * gay fagots *
In 1920s New York, scribed an effemate homosexual who sought social/sexual relatns wh “normal men”, acrdg to Gee Chncey while a “flamg faggot” was an extremely obv, flamboyant gay man. This tenncy for the words for prostute to be later ed for homosexual dat om 18th-century England when they often shared mon social spac, argu gay historian Rictor Norton.
The words gays e for themselv. Bee of the sardonic nature of gayns, all of the above would have to be clud also the vobulary of gay men and queers.
Historilly-specific, nnot the style of gay men mid-1970 to mid-1980s (motache, short hair, fad, baggy Levis and pocket and/or neck handkerchief) as exemplified by the lead sger of the Bronski Beat at the time of their h sgle, Smalltown Boy. “Nance” and “nancy boy” as well as “Nelly” and “nelli” were terms ed by both gays and straights also nnotg effemacy or youthfulns.