Actually, here's an article that started the conversation on another forum, and that's where the original poster told the story I put in the first post, that we "don't say homosexual".
Opinions on the article?
March 24 2014 5:00 PM
Why Homosexual Is Not a Bad Word
By J. Bryan Lowder
The trouble with writing about how a minority community âfeelsâ about a given term or phrase is that, invariably, some members of that community will not, in fact, feel that way. Such was my experience with âThe Decline and Fall of the âHâ Word,â a New York Times weekend Fashion & Style piece that revealed that gay and lesbian people now find the word homosexual to be âpejorative.â In the article, the noted gay historian George Chauncey went so far as to tell reporter Jeremy W. Peters that the term was analogous to âcolored,â a clearly offensive word that only unreconstructed grandmothers still use with reference to African-Americans. With all-due-respect to Mr. Chauncey, I must confess dissent: My own gay feelings about the word are pretty much in line with the Timesâ you-think-this-but-youâre-wrong definitionââA little outdated and clinical, perhaps, but innocuous enough.â And, as a member of The Community in Question, Iâm willing to grant youâa well-intentioned, LGBTQ-friendly readerâpermission to use homosexual when the occasion calls for it.
A few reasons: For starters, letâs not get in the habit of letting the overseers at GLAAD, on whose authority this article hinges, rescind access to words that really are innocuous. I am very happy for those folks to police truly offensive, defamatory speech, but homosexualâwhich, as a noun in common usage, means a person who is attracted to their same sex (like me!)âjust doesnât reach that level. We can agree that the word has a certain old-fashioned coolness to it, but so what? Lesbian is drawn from ancient Greek and used to essentially mean âlady sodomiteâ (not nice), and, in any case, some contexts are better served by a bit of remove from the familiarity of âgay dude.â
Itâs true, as the Times piece points out, that homo-haters like Rush Limbaugh and Antonin Scalia deploy homosexual as an othering device, pronouncing it in the same sort of latex disdain that I wear when dealing with words like objectivism or Rush Limbaugh. But, come on: In those kinds of mouths, gay is going to come out the same wayâand do we really want to let them determine what we can do with ours?
I say no, but thatâs a matter of strategy that we can debate. To bring more weight to the subject, Peters quoted U.C. Berkleyâs George P. Lakoff, a professor of cognitive science and linguistics, who observed that gay and lesbian do not âuse the word sex,â while homo-sex-ual does. Additionally, the latter contains âhomo,â which, while being a prefix that means âthe same,â is also sometimes used derogatorily. For Lakoff, the whole word is a dog-whistle for homophobes (can we still say that?) who want to make same-sex sex seem icky.
But isnât this a matter of perspective? One of my main struggles as a homosexual has been challenging the tendency of many straight people to treat my partner and me as âroommatesâ or âgood friends,â when, in fact, we have sex. Gay sex. Regularly. If homosexual can help remind them of that important, definitional, politically crucial fact with less effort on my part, I say itâs a plus, not a minus.
While the Times article notes that âscholars expect the use of the term to eventually fall away entirely,â it doesnât really consider the problems that loss could cause. Itâs worth noting that gay has contested meanings as well, and by my definition of that wordâwhich, very generally, has far more to do with a historically and geographically specific constellation of aesthetic tastes, artistic styles and modes of relating than with genitalsâthere are far fewer gay people around these days than there are homosexuals. But again, thatâs my definition, and Iâm not terribly interested in enforcing it on anyone. This point is that just as homosexual doesnât suit everybody, gay, at least by some measures, isnât all-fitting either. Given that fact, itâs probably best to avoid declarations on the subject altogether and to let people name themselvesâthat was, after all, the point of liberation in the first place.
J. Bryan Lowder is a Slate assistant editor. He writes and edits for Outward, Slateâs LGBTQ section, and for the culture section.
<<< It's mine!