We (gay people) have been pointing out the hypocrisy of homophobes with this sort of joke for ages and will continue to do it because it’s fucking hilarious. We are, in doing so, celebrating that it’s wonderful to be gay and sad that they don’t see that or see there at times in-the-closet-like behavior.
The last thing thing I need is a bunch of word police telling me what I can and cannot say.
You know who IS making it seem like there’s something wrong with being gay? People like you.
lol, the idea that I’ve said there is something wrong with being gay or being called gay is rich.
You’ve said that using jokes about being gay is derogatory. Literally what you are saying is that calling someone gay has negative connotations. It’s bad to be gay.
Let’s try to put this in simple terms:
If one of my many very gay male friends calls someone a fag they are owning the definition of “fag”. If I call myself a dyke I own that word.
If we joke about homophobes being secretly gay we own the language and we erect a shield against that being used in a derogatory manner against us.
You want to police those definitions and tell people what they can and cannot say and can and cannot joke about. You want to take away that shield.
I suspect you are young and did not live through a time when it was absolutely CRITICAL for the queer community writ large to take control of our language. Literally that was the only way we gained power and the only way we made jokes about fags and dykes NOT be derogatory.
Jokes that treat being gay as bad are themselves homophobic, yes - they do not reclaim the word, they perpetuate hatred. You’re welcome to make those jokes - I’m not stopping you by calling out your internalized homophobia.
You can also reclaim any words you want to. Nothing wrong with that.
I’m an older member of the Comm, old enough to have lived through a large chunk of the AIDS crisis but young enough to spend wayy to much time online (yay limnal) and a lot of newbeans who mainly interact online get a bit of bad faith actor brainrot. They claim things like ‘queer is a slur’, ‘bisexual is transphobic’ and weird shit like that. Biggest whiplash i had was from someone who claimed ‘the q word is a slur’ and then in the next breath ‘reclaimed’ fruit.
Basically their answer to “is the word queer a slur” is a good indication of the mindset.
I am also older… old enough to remember when queer was a slur until we took it back. And fag and dyke and all those.
Words have power and who controls them matters. And few things piss me off more than having people try to take control - without even asking - of words and thoughts that many of us fought so fucking hard to own.
I disagree. If someone came up to me and said “Buenos dias! Donde estas el bano?” and I was like “that is Spanish, by the way”, I have simply made an observation and have not implied that they aren’t allowed to speak Spanish.
No. “That’s homophobic” and “That’s Spanish” are simply statements of fact. It’s left up to the listener whether they should continue being homophobic or speaking Spanish after it’s been pointed out. It sounds like you’ve chosen to double down on homophobia. Not the choice I’d make, but you do you. Nobodys stopping you. No es mi problema.
Honestly? You don’t make any sense to me. Hopefully you make sense to you.
It sounds like you’ve chosen to double down on homophobia.
I’m gay. If a black person uses the N word in a joke are you as presumably Not A Black Person going to instantly assume they are racist? Or will you stop to ask why?
I’m not saying a black person can’t be racist or a gay person can’t be offensive to other people or even have latent homophobia. But as simplistic as it sounds that’s literally the basic argument here. Many straight people saying “hey thar that’s homophobic” and one gay person at least saying “nah, that’s funny” and being downvoted to hell.
But as simplistic as it sounds that’s literally the basic argument here.
The basic argument of this conversation, between the two of us, was that you claimed people were censoring you, and I pointed out that making observations or even judgement calls about what you said doesn’t prevent you from saying it. Absolutely no one is stopping you from saying whatever you want. I don’t think anyone even tried to. I sure didn’t.
If you want to turn it into “well I’m gay so I can say homophobic things without judgement, like black people saying the n-word” you’ll have to do it alone because I have no interest in participating in that discussion.
Oh FFS.
We (gay people) have been pointing out the hypocrisy of homophobes with this sort of joke for ages and will continue to do it because it’s fucking hilarious. We are, in doing so, celebrating that it’s wonderful to be gay and sad that they don’t see that or see there at times in-the-closet-like behavior.
The last thing thing I need is a bunch of word police telling me what I can and cannot say.
You know who IS making it seem like there’s something wrong with being gay? People like you.
As a “joke” it treats being gay as derogatory. You’re welcome to make shitty homophobic jokes if you want to.
Are you gay?
Are you not ok with being gay if you are? Are you not and experiencing latent homophobia?
Because that’s the only way you can possible conclude that it’s derogatory to call someone gay.
lol, the idea that I’ve said there is something wrong with being gay or being called gay is rich.
You’ve said that using jokes about being gay is derogatory. Literally what you are saying is that calling someone gay has negative connotations. It’s bad to be gay.
Let’s try to put this in simple terms:
If one of my many very gay male friends calls someone a fag they are owning the definition of “fag”. If I call myself a dyke I own that word. If we joke about homophobes being secretly gay we own the language and we erect a shield against that being used in a derogatory manner against us.
You want to police those definitions and tell people what they can and cannot say and can and cannot joke about. You want to take away that shield.
I suspect you are young and did not live through a time when it was absolutely CRITICAL for the queer community writ large to take control of our language. Literally that was the only way we gained power and the only way we made jokes about fags and dykes NOT be derogatory.
Jokes that treat being gay as bad are themselves homophobic, yes - they do not reclaim the word, they perpetuate hatred. You’re welcome to make those jokes - I’m not stopping you by calling out your internalized homophobia.
You can also reclaim any words you want to. Nothing wrong with that.
You are interpreting this particular joke as saying being gay is bad. I’m not. So I’m reclaiming the words and rolling with it. 'MMmmkay?
Please explain the joke to me, because I don’t get it.
Perhaps that’s the problem. You have no sense of humor.
A good question to answer that one is to ask if they thing Queer is a slur.
I’m curious what point you want to make.
I’m an older member of the Comm, old enough to have lived through a large chunk of the AIDS crisis but young enough to spend wayy to much time online (yay limnal) and a lot of newbeans who mainly interact online get a bit of bad faith actor brainrot. They claim things like ‘queer is a slur’, ‘bisexual is transphobic’ and weird shit like that. Biggest whiplash i had was from someone who claimed ‘the q word is a slur’ and then in the next breath ‘reclaimed’ fruit.
Basically their answer to “is the word queer a slur” is a good indication of the mindset.
I am also older… old enough to remember when queer was a slur until we took it back. And fag and dyke and all those.
Words have power and who controls them matters. And few things piss me off more than having people try to take control - without even asking - of words and thoughts that many of us fought so fucking hard to own.
The bisexual one really sets me off.
Nobody’s telling you what you can and can’t say. They’re telling you that what you said is in bad taste, and youre telling them to stop saying that.
LOL. I’m pretty sure saying “that is just homophobia, by the way” is exactly trying to tell people what they can and can’t say.
I disagree. If someone came up to me and said “Buenos dias! Donde estas el bano?” and I was like “that is Spanish, by the way”, I have simply made an observation and have not implied that they aren’t allowed to speak Spanish.
LOL. And you seriously don’t see the difference between “hey that’s homophobic” and someone speaking a different language and pointing that out?
Wow. Ok then.
No. “That’s homophobic” and “That’s Spanish” are simply statements of fact. It’s left up to the listener whether they should continue being homophobic or speaking Spanish after it’s been pointed out. It sounds like you’ve chosen to double down on homophobia. Not the choice I’d make, but you do you. Nobodys stopping you. No es mi problema.
Honestly? You don’t make any sense to me. Hopefully you make sense to you.
I’m gay. If a black person uses the N word in a joke are you as presumably Not A Black Person going to instantly assume they are racist? Or will you stop to ask why?
I’m not saying a black person can’t be racist or a gay person can’t be offensive to other people or even have latent homophobia. But as simplistic as it sounds that’s literally the basic argument here. Many straight people saying “hey thar that’s homophobic” and one gay person at least saying “nah, that’s funny” and being downvoted to hell.
The basic argument of this conversation, between the two of us, was that you claimed people were censoring you, and I pointed out that making observations or even judgement calls about what you said doesn’t prevent you from saying it. Absolutely no one is stopping you from saying whatever you want. I don’t think anyone even tried to. I sure didn’t.
If you want to turn it into “well I’m gay so I can say homophobic things without judgement, like black people saying the n-word” you’ll have to do it alone because I have no interest in participating in that discussion.
It’s not homophobic you nitwit.