Poll: Do You Use the Word "Gay" as an Insult?

[Hollock]

Very rarely. My friends been playing Black Ops with a mic on, so it's been getting back into his vocabulary so we've been smacking him a lot recently.

 

[comet5002]

I used to say it all the time. I don't know why I stopped saying it as much, but I rarely do now.

People who get their panties in a bundle over it need to calm the eff down.

 

[Enigmers]

I use it as kind of an expletive sometimes (as in "I lost my wallet on the bus the other day." "That's pretty gay.") but I can think of better and more creative ways to insult people.

 

[Jimi Ennis]

I'm queer so what i say might be skewed... but...

if you use the word "gay" to describe something your commenting on homosexuals, if you use it to mean "bad" as in thats so gay, then your using the negative connection made with the word gay because of societies ideas of homosexuality. its like using "the n word" and claiming it has nothing to do with racism,

that said i do use the word "puff" to describe emotionally fragile people, i.e. "Dude! Harsh!""Shut up you puff" but i always associated the word puff with effeminate straight men rather than gay men,

anyway thats my 2 cents

 

[thom_cat_]

Am I supposed to be Impressed?

I had repeatedly challenged you over your language but you refuse to defend it, you bring up tangential points of your petitions and threads you started.

Your bigotry comes from thick-headedness and hypocrisy of the extent that is far far too common today. You seem like the type of person incapable of admitting you have done wrong, you campaign against the authorities who aren't sensitive to the gay issue yet you don't moderate your own language... that many gay men on this forum have already expressed how offensive they find it.

Maybe your gay friends won't object to you as they know you will do this, claim the moral high ground and just bark them down. You like to play off the public's homophobia and you don't want to give up any ground. You don't want to reciprocate.

You're like those people who are anti-abortion yet Pro-Capital-Punishment

I GET the joke. I understand how it works and I understand it ONLY works by equating "gay" categorically with the negative. Not just noticing some aspect has literally homoerotic aspect, but just merely negative. If that isn't homophobia it just shows how incredibly illogical and prejudiced the human mind can be, you can just will-away reality. See what you want to see, do what you want to do, you don't need a reasoned argument just ANY argument to placate the doubt in your mind.

It seem what you want me to "get" is it's all right to do one bad think if you do another good thing (maybe some campaigning).

I mean have you ever attacked an Aussie politician for using a gay slur or telling a crude gay joke? if you ever even think of doing so you're a fucking hypocrite.

No, you're not challenging me against my language, you're calling me a "thick-headed ...homophobic bigot". I am simply proving that I'm clearly not, and you're taking issue with how I use a word.
Australian politicians don't use gay slur or tell gay jokes. They're not morons. Politicians shouldn't break their image because people like you take issue at the smallest of things.
I don't take issue with gay jokes and nor does anybody I know, BECAUSE IT'S A JOKE.
But slur, yes I will take issue because it's being used harmfully. There is no need for pejoratives that attack sexuality, race, gender or anything of the sort.
I don't see what your point is... you're saying when I say "gay" I'm talking about homosexuals, even being homophobic?
I'm telling you my use of the word doesn't have any connection with homosexuals. It means lame, and I'm not going to call things lame since it's a word that has begun to go out of fashion. People who use "gay" to mean lame often replace it with ghey (and pronounce it with a closed A) as to not take issue with sensitive fucktards like yourself.
Now good day and leave me in peace. You won't change my mind and you'll just continue to insult me and my intelligence without knowing the slightest about either.

 

[Smilas]

Jew is the new gay in Denmark :/

Damn southpark...

 

[Dexiro]

I use the term ****** more often these days

 

[DarkenedWolfEye]

See, to me 'gay' meant something along the lines of 'lame' or 'stupid' before it ever referred to homosexuals. It was an insult first; for some reason, it came to mean 'homosexual'. I'm not going to stop using it as an insult just because some idiot decided that now it means a type of sexuality for some pointless reason. I use it both ways; people are supposed to be able to infer from context how I'm using it. For example, I'm not homophobic if I say "What, fifteen year olds aren't allowed to play violent games? That's so fucking gay."
It's like saying 'retarded'. That means 'superlative form of the word stupid'. Just because there's a mental syndrome that some jerk decided was now called 'retard', I'm not going to stop using it.

You do realize gay was a sexuality and retarded was a mental disorder before they became insults, right?

And how can you know that for sure? Unless you study the history of etymology, specializing in modern insults, you can't know that for sure. All you present is a theory, not a fact. And I realize that I came across as presenting fact rather than theory; for that I apologize, but I've never seen any evidence that these insults referred specifically to minorities before being general insults, so I feel my theory is quite sound.
Besides, I assumed it was common knowledge that 'gay' meant 'idle enjoyment, or happy' long before it meant 'homo'. Old nursery rhymes and old stories use it to unmistakeably mean 'happy'.

Are you fucking serious. Research? I wouldn't call using a dictionary "research" as it is so incredibly easy and definitive.

"I've never seen any evidence that these insults referred specifically to minorities before being general insults,"

Seriously, dictionary. Have you ever used one? Are you really so obtuse that you won't look in a dictionary yourself and must have the links explained to you? Stop acting like a squirming lawyer, fucking around with irrelevant semantics, it's god damn obvious.

You are just in denial if you think using the term "retarded" as an insult is not insulting to people who are clinically retarded, and their family who will have to care for them for their entire lives. This is why they are constantly having to change the definition of people afflicted with sub-70 IQ, because assholes keep abusing this status to use as an insult:

-Spastic
-Mentally Retarded
-"Special"

All these originated as official terms till the school-yard bully exploited them. Now the bully never thinks they are a bully, they don't think, not in any logical deductive way. They make snap judgements and all their mental effort is placated just to re-affirm their prejudices, such a waste of the human mind. Such a drain on society.

And it takes a certain blend of idiocy and denial to dismiss the modern use of the term "gay" and only focus on the outdated "gay = happy" definition and then over to the modern bigoted term for gay as a general insult.

I'd hardly call briefly mentioning the admittedly outdated definition of the word gay as focusing on only that and nothing else.
Also, you seem to be going off on tangents. Why are we talking about bullies being in denial that they are bullies? I thought we were talking about whether you could use certain words as insults. Please stop projecting and putting words in my mouth; what you're doing is interpreting my words in the most far-fetched way possible and then you bang on about social problems as though they are MY fault.
I'm hardly being manipulative or 'fucking around with semantics', as you accuse me of. To me, 'gay' meant 'lame or stupid' long, long before I heard it used as slang for 'homosexual'. That's all I'm saying. There's no point in spitting a bunch of superfluous swearing at me and accusing me of being an idiot in denial who is apparently responsible for 'a waste of the human mind, a drain on society.'
What I'd like to know is how the hell we went from 'Do you use gay as an insult?' to 'They make snap judgments and all their mental effort is placated just to re-affirm their prejudices, such a waste of the human mind. Such a drain on society.' That question and this issue (that I have yet to see any evidence of; you seem to be reading far too much into things) have nothing at all to do with each other. And more to the point, the issues you're talking about have little to nothing to do with what I said.
I read that damn thing twice, and I still don't get why you're screaming at me.

 

[Torrasque]

Gay, fag, etc.
i tend to use it alot, even though I don't mind homosexuals and even disdain how gay doesn't even mean happy anymore.
I guess it just wore off in high school and online gaming.

 

[Treblaine]

I read that damn thing twice, and I still don't get why you're screaming at me.

Because you didn't read it twice, you skimmed over it twice looking for holes in it not being remotely introspective.

You are cruel, callus and uncaring. And you are utterly in denial about the harm you cause.

I give up, you're a lost cause. I don't know why I ever bothered.

 

[Treblaine]

*Double-post*

 

[Treblaine]

*snip a dozen paraghraphs of squirming excuses and contradictory logic*

I don't know why I wasted my time trying to point out the error of your ways. You are utterly in denial.

 

[DarkenedWolfEye]

I read that damn thing twice, and I still don't get why you're screaming at me.

Because you didn't read it twice, you skimmed over it twice looking for holes in it not being remotely introspective.

You are cruel, callus and uncaring. And you are utterly in denial about the harm you cause.

I give up, you're a lost cause. I don't know why I ever bothered.

Oh, this is good. I'm 'doing harm' now? No I'm not. I'm ignoring one particular meaning of a slang phrase because I don't see why the word 'gay' or 'retarded' is used that way, and ... this does harm somehow? I'm cruel and callus because I use 'gay' as an insult where the situation warrants it. Go whine to the only people who will buy that: Fox News.
And don't act like you didn't do the exact same thing when you read what I posted. This is really quite hypocritical. And in any case, trying to find flaws in the arguments of your opponent is the way I argue when it comes to some jerk on the internet screaming at me. If you were being reasonable, I might have listened, but you weren't. You were flipping out over implications that you read into what I said.
Don't set yourself up as the mature party and try to talk about subtle problems in society when you're apparently spitting in fury and can't seem to stop insulting me in the the way that involves the most swearing you can fit in there without looking like you have IED.
And I notice you got in a similar argument with Fluffles up there, and tried to finish it in the same way you're trying to finish it with me: with a disdainful 'You are not worth my time, blah blah blah, lost cause, blah blah blah, this is the most annoying pretentious way to end the argument I could think of.'
That has been used many times in my experience with arguing online (it's something of a sport for me) and almost always it smacks of you not being able to think of a response, so you pulled the 'you're not worth my time' bullshit just to piss off your opponent. It's tired and pretentious and, as you can see, gives me ample material to rip on you some more.
I would tease your for double-posting, but that's a bit too obvious.

 

[mark0217]

Sheesh, PC much you guys?

 

[Nannernade]

The only time I use it in that fashion is against my brother because he had a phase where he thought if you touched another man it'd make you gay so he'd say get off my queer, so now my dad and I take shots at him for that by saying get off my queer, that's gay, tons of fun ha ha.

 

[Timotei]

No. Simply, no.

Because I realized as I went though high school that the only people who would use the word in an offensive context were fucking toolboxes.

 

[Treblaine]

I read that damn thing twice, and I still don't get why you're screaming at me.

Because you didn't read it twice, you skimmed over it twice looking for holes in it not being remotely introspective.

You are cruel, callus and uncaring. And you are utterly in denial about the harm you cause.

I give up, you're a lost cause. I don't know why I ever bothered.

Oh, this is good. I'm 'doing harm' now? No I'm not. I'm ignoring one particular meaning of a slang phrase because I don't see why the word 'gay' or 'retarded' is used that way, and ... this does harm somehow? I'm cruel and callus because I use 'gay' as an insult where the situation warrants it. Go whine to the only people who will buy that: Fox News.
And don't act like you didn't do the exact same thing when you read what I posted. This is really quite hypocritical. And in any case, trying to find flaws in the arguments of your opponent is the way I argue when it comes to some jerk on the internet screaming at me. If you were being reasonable, I might have listened, but you weren't. You were flipping out over implications that you read into what I said.
Don't set yourself up as the mature party and try to talk about subtle problems in society when you're apparently spitting in fury and can't seem to stop insulting me in the the way that involves the most swearing you can fit in there without looking like you have IED.
And I notice you got in a similar argument with Fluffles up there, and tried to finish it in the same way you're trying to finish it with me: with a disdainful 'You are not worth my time, blah blah blah, lost cause, blah blah blah, this is the most annoying pretentious way to end the argument I could think of.'
That has been used many times in my experience with arguing online (it's something of a sport for me) and almost always it smacks of you not being able to think of a response, so you pulled the 'you're not worth my time' bullshit just to piss off your opponent. It's tired and pretentious and, as you can see, gives me ample material to rip on you some more.
I would tease your for double-posting, but that's a bit too obvious.

*Yawn* straw man arguments... straw man arguments EVERYWHERE!

You're still a homophobe, why won't you just admit you are a bigot? That just makes you a coward as well, you refuse to accept the repercussions of your prejudice.

This is the only interesting and relevant part before you start whining about me daring to challenge you:

"I'm ignoring one particular meaning of a slang phrase because I don't see why the word 'gay' or 'retarded' is used that way, and ... this does harm somehow? I'm cruel and callus because I use 'gay' as an insult where the situation warrants it."

Because you know damn well how OTHER PEOPLE interpret "gay" and "retard". Yes, there are people on this planet other than you.

"I don't see"

Denial. It is so blatant, you practically admit it. You are wilfully ignorant.

Don't be so thick headed acting as if you have NEVER hear of the term "gay" to describe homosexuals or the world "retard" to categorise the mentally handicapped. Don't. Don't fucking insult me with more of your bullshit. It IS the popular and most widely spread use of the term.

I think the ENTIRE REASON you use "gay" and "retard" as insults is because you know what they stand for and you HATE THEM. You are certainly are disgusted and disturbed by them, afraid of them.

But what's the point. I've made this argument already, you'll just ignore it. You'll either not respond or come up with the most ridiculously convoluted cop-out so you can still pardon yourself. Convince yourself you aren't a bigot and go on yelling "GAY!" and "RETARD!".

If this doesn't get through to you, nothing will. I've made this argument already but you've ignored it, why should I bother for a third time?

 

[Fallen-Angel Risen-Demon]

Why would I call someone happy as an insult?
Boggles the mind!