The Fotten Secret Language of Gay Men - Atlas Obscura

Contents:

• GAY BRA GLOSSARY
• 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
• HOW TO USE TR DIFFERENTLY FOR GAY

GAY BRA GLOSSARY

Wolfenn Report - aka the Report of the Departmental Commtee on Homosexual Offenc and Prostutn published 1957 after a number of proment dividuals cludg John Gielgud, Alan Turg, Lord Montagu of Beli, Michael Pt-Rivers and Peter Wilblood were tried and nvicted of homosexual offenc.

Molly and tommy: In 18th century England, the term molly was ed for male homosexuals, implyg effemacy; Tommy, a slang term for a homosexual woman e by 1781, may have been ed by analogy wh molly.

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

Ntie – bear – benr – bottom – bum band – bum chum – bumr – bummer – butch – butt hugger – rpet muncher – tcher – chaser – chickenhawk – chicken hawk – cub – drag kg – dyke – fag – faggot – Fairy – femme – flamer – u – fudge packer – gay – gaylord – girliend – GLBT – hasbian – homo – homo thug – the closet – jobby jabber – lemon – lez – lipstick lbian – mge muncher – mo – nellie – nelly – Peter Puffer – pole smoker – poof – Poofter – power top – puff – queer – shirt lifter – sister – versatile – wasbian.

Gay slang vari over time and regns and terms often enter the mon vernacular.Beg earnt, Chicken hawkby Mikhail December 9, 2003FlagGet the gay slang mug.Publicize your YouTube vio on Urban Dictnary jt 3 clicksgay slangthat retard l337 languageexample of gay slang:.

Pwnedby I hate them they're gay Febary 19, 2005FlagGet the gay slang mug.gay slangGettg fucked by the ass afterwards cummg water and cho kHim: I really love gay slangby Anonys Augt 19, 2021FlagGet the gay slang mug.Promote your web se on Urban Dictnary jt 3 clicksMore random fns. Though largely fotten, some of s words n be found dictnari today.“Bona to vada your dolly old eek!”That may seem like a strg of nonsense words om Dr Sss’s The Cat the Hat or Anthony Burgs’s A Clockwork Orange but ’s a real-life greetg gay men the UK would say to each other the 1950s and 60s.

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

To avoid imprisonment, gay men ed Polari, a language that the Oxford English Dictnary says is “ma up of Italianate phras, rhymg slang and nt terms.” It had spng up the 1700s and 1800s as a secret language vagrants, erant performers, sailors and “gypsi” – many of s words, fact, rive om the Romany people sttered across Europe.Brish edian Kenh Williams often spoke Polari his performanc on BBC rad and TV programm the 1950s and 60s, some of which had up to 20 ln listeners at a time, troducg the language to a much wir dience. 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. 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 FOTTEN SECRET LANGUAGE OF GAY MEN

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. 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? But Bra 60 years ago, to the mostly (but not entirely) gay male speakers of a dialect lled Polari, this phrase had a different, dified, licly lurid meang: Dish have rims, if you know what I mean. ) But also u, meang a gay man; chicken (a young gay man); seafood (a sailor); fish (a woman, not kdly); tart (for a prostute); and the aforementned “dish” (for several thgs, butts chief among them).

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

Two qutns e to the fore about all the Polari food words: Obscurg talk about gay sex a society that was hostile to mak a lot of sense, but why was necsary to have special terms for food and drk, which are universal and mundane?

That there is a herent narrative about Polari available for anyone to accs and a dictnary that now allows to be ed is largely to the cred of Pl Baker, a profsor the partment of lguistics and English language at Lanster Universy, whose doctoral this on Polari rulted two amic volum on published 2002, Polari: The Lost Language of Gay Men and Fantabulosa: A Dictnary of Polari and Gay Slang. One was that a popular 1960s BBC Rad show lled Round the Horne had clud two implied gay characters, Julian and Sandy, whose dialogue regularly rporated Polari terms, th mastreamg a ltle, and dullg s utily. As the 1970s saw the blossomg of the LGBTQ rights movement, the predomant style and affect of gay men began to shift om prumptns of feyns and mp to a grtier, more explicly masc prentatn; Polari, wh s roundabout yns, was an elegant f.

) But, as Baker said, as Polari beme more obscure, new metaphors replaced : In Polari, he said, “A young gay man was referred to as a chicken, although this age died out the early 1990s and has sce been replaced by an Amerinism, twk — which is also a food metaphor.

HOW TO USE TR DIFFERENTLY FOR GAY

But even wh Baker’s work and reclamatns like Hoi Polloi and Jarry spurrg ntemporary tert Polari, asi om the loan words ’s given to English (“naff” — which is mon Brish slang for somethg lame and vulgar — meant a straight guy Polari, as Waddgton pots out, rived om “not available for fuckg”; his book Gay Men Don’t Get Fat, Doonan lls the most important word Polari, and “que possibly the history of mankd”), is largely a historgraphil tert. 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.