The Fotten Secret Language of Gay Men - Atlas Obscura

Contents:

• POLARI: THE LANGUAGE GAY MEN ED TO SURVIVE
• THE FOTTEN SECRET LANGUAGE OF GAY MEN
• DICK LESCH’S GUI TO SEVENTI GAY SLANG
• THIS SECRET LANGUAGE ALLOWED GAY MEN TO COMMUNITE WHEN HOMOSEXUALY WAS ILLEGAL
• THE LOST GAY LANGUAGE OF BRA'S '60S
• THE HISTORY OF THE WORD “GAY”
• GAY SLANG OM THE 1970S
• DO YOUR GAY SLANG KNOWLEDGE REVEAL YOUR AGE?
• FROM CLOSET TALK TO PC TERMOLOGY : GAY SPEECH AND THE POLICS OF VISIBILY
• GAY SLANG 101

POLARI: THE LANGUAGE GAY MEN ED TO SURVIVE

”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. 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.

THE FOTTEN SECRET LANGUAGE OF GAY MEN

Many untri around the world have their own versn of queer slang, om Brish gay slang rived om the rhymg slang Polari to beki – the Philipp’ queer language that borrows om a slew of sourc, cludg pop culture, Japane, Spanish, and the untry’s lol languag.

DICK LESCH’S GUI TO SEVENTI GAY SLANG

But the Onle Slang Dictnary c 1960s gay male culture as the earlit known source, particularly rtoonist Joe Johnson’s characters “Miss Thg” and “Big Dick”, which appeared early issu of The Advote. ”In 1959, when Lesch was twenty-four, he left his fay home, Kentucky, for New York Cy, where he found work as a pater, a bartenr, a rator, a journalist, and as the unpaid print of the Mattache Society, one of the first gay-rights anizatns.

When the Stonewall rts broke out, three years later, he was the only openly gay reporter on the scene, verg the event for a new gay-focsed magaze lled The a recent Friday eveng, Lesch’s buzzer rang. ” Some of the fns were more nuanced: an “ntie, ” Lesch had wrten, was “an ageg or middle aged homosexual, offtim effemate character, ” or “a person of settled meanor who utns agast temperate acts. Photograph by Rebec FudalaNext up was Lesch’s llectn of magaz and newsletters, cludg After Dark (“Oh, bls you—they’re real llector’s ems, ” Bmann said); Christopher Street (“We have the archiv”); Female Mimics (“That’s fabulo”); the 1969 Time issue on homosexualy (“Cute”); and the monthly bullet for the Mattache Society.

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.

THE LOST GAY LANGUAGE OF BRA'S '60S

Oz magaze published piec about gay rights, notably so issue 23 which ran an extract om The Homosexual Handbook (1969) by Angelo d’Arngelo among a uple of other featur; the UK’s first gay magaze, Jeremy, advertised regularly Oz and IT; later issu of Oz rried ads for another gay mag, Follow Up, and there’s a letter one issue om a gay eak plag about the state of the few gay pubs London where the clientele was apparently not eaky enough. Rodgers’ book was reissued 1979 as Gay Talk: A (Sometim Outrageo) Dictnary of Gay Slang (Formerly entled The Queens’ Vernacular) but has been out-of-prt ever sce, unsurprisgly sce so much of is now pletely outmod. Jt as the Dictnary of the Vulgar Tongue (1811) by Francis Grose giv a more-or-ls unmediated sight to the liv of the workg and crimal class of 18th-century London, so Rodgers’ dictnary tells somethg about the way gay people, pecially gay men the US, were talkg to each other for much of the 20th century.

THE HISTORY OF THE WORD “GAY”

Gay slang has been ed and ed by those wh the gay subculture who themselv feel the most opprsed—the flagrant wrist benrs, the screamg queens, the men who look like women, the women who don’t shave their motach. Gay ants would like to see go, and argue rightly that gay jargon is yet another lk the cha which holds the homosexual enslaved and opprsed—yet s wispread e and plex vobulary dite that gay liberatn has still along battle ont of .

Referrg to each other as “Mary” and “girl” (which evolved to “gurl” to distguish between the real al and a reference to a feme gay person) beme part of gay culture — and soon a part of the way gay men were stereotyped and nigrated as well. And while the followg vio offers a lightful tr of olr fellas tryg to gus what some of the curant gay termology refers to, we’re pretty sure that if you gathered up a handful of gay lennials and asked them to intify what “spaghetti” means, what part of the anatomy was once lled “blds, ” or what you were nfidg to someone if you nfsed an appete for “angel food, ” they’d draw a few blanks, too.

GAY SLANG OM THE 1970S

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. 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.

DO YOUR GAY SLANG KNOWLEDGE REVEAL YOUR AGE?

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...

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

Dpe the achievements of gay rights, the stigma attached to a « love that dare not [always] speak s name », to quote Osr Wil, ocsnally lgers the way some gays e « them » to refer to their partners and « refully word speech to hi explic genr referenc »16.

GAY SLANG 101

For many Lbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgenr—or LGBT17—people today, pk talk works as a hive force agast discrimatn, although they also adm that gay exprsns have actually shifted om the physil nfement of the 18th century molly ho to a lguistic nfement.