The Fotten Secret Language of Gay Men - Atlas Obscura

Contents:

• THIS SECRET LANGUAGE ALLOWED GAY MEN TO COMMUNITE WHEN HOMOSEXUALY WAS ILLEGAL
• THE FETS AND JABS OF POLARI, BRA’S GAY SLANG
• THE FOTTEN SECRET LANGUAGE OF GAY MEN
• FROM CLOSET TALK TO PC TERMOLOGY : GAY SPEECH AND THE POLICS OF VISIBILY

THIS SECRET LANGUAGE ALLOWED GAY MEN TO COMMUNITE WHEN HOMOSEXUALY WAS ILLEGAL

“The younger gay men were kd of g out the ’70s and they had different valu, ” says lguistic rearcher Pl Baker the 2018 documentary Polari – A Short Documentary About the Lost Language of Gay Men. Many Christians, gay and straight alike, were ma unfortable by the chang that turned “Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spir” to “Fabens be to the Auntie, and to the Homie Chavvie, and to the Fantabulosa Fairy”.

It was a language that brought gay men together and nnected them to a cultural legacy, one that n still be seen slang today – even if many speakers don’t realise to learn Polari? There’s a nflatn of genr and sexualy here which om some later perspectiv might be seen as problematic—to say that a gay man is lerally a man-woman keys to negative stereotyp about gay men as effemate or women trapped men’s bodi. ” She-g is one of the aspects of Polari that has survived to more recent s, and the practice was so pervasive at a particular bar on Canal Street Manchter’s Gay Village that a “She-box” was stalled a few years ago, ak to a “Swear-box, ” where patrons would have to put a few s if they she’d someone, wh the proceeds beg donated to chary.

To an extent this may have been wishful thkg—for many Polari speakers the ial partner would be a butch man who did not intify as gay, the Great Dark Man of Quent Crisp’s fantasi. Are they simply plic their own opprsn by adoptg language and labels that are ed homophobic ways, and then g that opprsive language on their enemi, knowg will hurt them even more? Internalized homophobia or jt pla nasts might make the tra attack their sexual partner or mand money om them, hence the term rough tra, although this term uld also refer more generally to workg-class sual male partners.

THE FETS AND JABS OF POLARI, BRA’S GAY SLANG

Quent Crisp, spe beg a mp gay man, did not really e Polari his tobgraphi, although the televised dramatizatn of The Naked Civil Servant he do refer to roughs—aggrsively mascule workg-class men who disguised their attractn to other men through harassment: “Some roughs are really queer and some queers are really rough. Vada (“look at”), dolly eek (a pretty face), and chicken (a young guy) are all words om the lexin of Polari, a secret language ed by gay men Bra at a time when homosexualy was illegal. Durg the terim years, when beg openly non-straight brought the risks of social isolatn and crimal prosecutn, Polari provid gay men wh a subtle way to fd one another for pannship and sex.

In the late ‘60s, as gay liberatn groups were fightg for regnn and equaly, Polari h mastream Brish pop-culture the form of Julian and Sandy, two flamboyant, not-officially-but-pretty-obvly gay characters on a BBC rad show lled Round the Horne. Dolan brgs up the pot that gay men shouldn’t have to be “straight-actg” orr to be accepted: “Might not be more fun to embrace a b more mp and actually have fun wh ourselv and wh each other?

THE FOTTEN SECRET LANGUAGE OF GAY MEN

Depuis l’époque où l’homosexualé éta synonyme perversn, voire dél, jqu’x actuell gay pris, la munté gay, lbienne, bisexuelle et transgenre n’a csé développer un langage distctif, le gayspeak. Milant tout tant que ludique, ce langage se vt également le défensr d’un certa style vie, cherchant à exprimer, manière la pl visible, poliquement rrecte et effice qui so, la richse s portements et s cultur du mon gay.

FROM CLOSET TALK TO PC TERMOLOGY : GAY SPEECH AND THE POLICS OF VISIBILY

Sce the tim when homosexualy was a perversn to today’s vibrant Pris, gayspeak has been ed to exprs the needs of a group which, feelg socially reprsed, revented and subverted language.

2Funny and provotive as may seem, this msage posted on Kks & Queens, a gay Swedish webse, not only reveals a visibily and culture that the Lbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgenr muny was long pelled to hh, but also nfirms the existence of a lexin not que like standard English. From the darker ag when homosexualy was at s bt a s and/or a perversn until the prent environment of rabow flags and gay pris, gayspeak has been ed to transgrs social norms, articulate particular needs and emotns, as well as renstct, or re-terpret, realy. When to elaborate polilly rrect fns of the « queer » universe, pk talk displays an extraordary plexy of sexual orientatns and subcultur, a possible means to pensate for lguistic ficiency and to claim a gay space on the social spectm.

Most male homosexuals therefore kept their sexual orientatns very much the closet unls amidst their k when they lled each other female nam—« Miss Kten », « Cha Mary », « Primrose Mary », and « Dip-Candle Mary »3—, a practice still faiar among ntemporary gay men. Until World War Two, rearch on what was then labeled the « language of homosexualy » foced on genr versn, wh homosexualy beg regard as a pathology characterized as sexual viance or perversn: whereas heterosexual language equated wh the appropriate genr, homosexual language displayed equent aquaci between the physil genr and the lguistic genr of the speaker. In the reprsive and secury-ncerned Cold War environment4, to talk about themselv, most gays and lbians relied upon phemisms such as « iends of Dorothy(‘s) », (after The Wizard of Oz, 1939, a classic mil popular wh gay dienc), « whoopsi », « (s)he’s is a ltle...