Jump to content

Gay

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Aranel (talk | contribs) at 22:33, 31 August 2005 (Reverted edits by 69.168.48.221 to last version by Texture). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

You must add a |reason= parameter to this Cleanup template – replace it with {{Cleanup|July 2005|reason=<Fill reason here>}}, or remove the Cleanup template.

For other uses, see Gay (disambiguation).
Look up gay in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Until several decades ago, the word gay meant something like "jolly" or "mirthful". In contemporary usage, however, that meaning is unusual; the term is usually synonymous with "homosexual." When referring to a group of people, the term often means "male homosexual" -- if gay women are referred to, the phrase "lesbian and gay" is often used instead.

Gay is difficult to define, however, and its connotations are context-dependent.

Some example uses:

  • Gay is a sexual orientation (attraction, preference, or inclination)
  • Gay or homosexual sex involves acts between or among people of the same sex or gender
  • Gay is usually chosen instead of homosexual as an identity-label by individuals
  • Gay is usually used to describe the "gay community" (as opposed to the "homosexual community") by both insiders and the mainstream media
  • When gay is used in other ways, its connotations vary widely depending on the context and speaker.

Usage and terminology

Overview article: Terminology of homosexuality

Some people reject the term "homosexual" as an identity-label because they find it too clinical-sounding, too focused on physical acts rather than romance or attraction, or too reminicent of the era when homosexuality was considered a mental illness. Some people find the term "gay" to be offensive or reject it as an identity-label because they perceive the cultural connotations to be undesirable, or because of the negative connotations of the slang usage of the word. Sexual orientation, behavior, and self-identification are not necessarily aligned in a clear-cut fashion for a given individual. For example, someone can engage in same-sex behavior, but not self-identify as "gay". See sexual orientation for a discussion of these complexities. See sex for a discussion of the complexities surrounding the concepts of sex and gender.

Sometimes the term "gay" is used to describe both male-male and female-female relations. More rarely, it is used as a shorthand for "gay, lesbian, bisexual, etc.", sometimes including transgendered, transsexual, and possibly intersexual (some intersexuals find this offensive). It is very commonly used to refer specifically to gay men; the precise meaning may need to be made clear from context. The term lesbian is more unambiguously female.

"Gay" as a descriptor

The term "gay" can also be used as an adjective to describe things related to gay people or things which are part of gay culture. For example, while a gay bar is not itself a homosexual, using "gay" as an adjective to describe the bar indicates that the bar is either gay oriented, caters primarily to gay men, or is otherwise part of gay culture.

Using the term "gay" as an adjective where the meaning is akin to "related to gay people, culture, or homosexuality in general" is an accurate usage of the word. This is much different from using "gay" in the pejorative sense, where the use of the word is meant to describe something solely as negative, and not describing any of the characteristic qualities of gay men or gay culture.

"Gay" as a pejorative

When used with a derisive attitude (e.g. "that hat is so gay"), the term "gay" is purely pejorative and can be deeply offensive. The derogatory implication is that the object (or person) in question is inferior, weak, effeminate, or stupid.

This usage has its origins in the 1990s, when homosexuality was widely known about but still taboo. Today, the usage is common among young people, who may or may not link the term to homosexuality, much as some people may not intentionally link the term "jew down" (to talk down in price) to Jewish people, or "I was gypped" (I was cheated) to Gypsies.

Other spellings, such as "ghey" and "ghei", are sometimes found on the Internet and are supposedly used either to insult without reference to homosexuality or to bypass chat room censors. See also: fag.

Use of "homosexual"

According to the Safe Schools Coalition of Washington's Glossary for School Employees:

"Homosexual: Avoid this term; it is clinical, distancing and archaic. Sometimes appropriate in referring to behavior (although same-sex is the preferred adj.). When referring to people, as opposed to behavior, homosexual is considered derogatory and the terms gay and lesbian are preferred, at least in the Northwest [of the United States]."

However, some same-sex oriented persons actually prefer the term homosexual to gay, seeing the former as describing a sexual orientation and the latter as describing a cultural or socio-political group with which they do not identify 1.

"Sexual orientation" vs. "sexual preference"

The term "sexual orientation" is now widely considered superior to "sexual preference", because the word "preference" implies that attraction to members of the same sex is a choice, an assertion many people consider false.

Complexities

When people say they are gay, they are saying that they are open about their attraction to people of the same gender, not necessarily that they are sexually active with someone of the same gender, or with anyone at all for that matter. A person can be homosexual, but not be gay - terms such as closeted, on the down low, discreet, or bi-curious may apply in this situation. Similarly, a person can be gay, but not actively homosexual - such is the case for some celibate individuals, such as monks, or for young people who have come out of the closet as gay for political reasons but are not yet ready to form a sexual relationship.

Word origins

Sometimes, histories of word origins are less than useful for communicating modern meanings of socioculturally potent words. Furthermore, the usage of any word changes dramatically as the culture in which it is embedded changes.

The word gay has had a sexual orientation meaning since at least the nineteenth century, and possibly earlier.

A quote from Gertrude Stein's Miss Furr & Mrs. Skeene (1922) is possibly the first traceable use of the word, though it is not altogether clear whether she uses the word to mean lesbianism or happiness:

They were ...gay, they learned little things that are things in being gay, ... they were quite regularly gay.

Noel Coward's 1929 musical Bitter Sweet has the first uncontested use of the word: in the song "Green Carnation", four overdressed, 1890s dandies sing:

Pretty boys, witty boys, You may sneer
At our disintegration.
Haughty boys, naughty boys,
Dear, dear, dear!
Swooning with affectation...
And as we are the reason
For the "Nineties" being gay,
We all wear a green carnation.

Coward uses the "gay nineties" as a double entendre. The song title alludes to the gay playwright Oscar Wilde, who famously wore a green carnation himself.

Gay was originally used purely as an adjective ("he is a gay man" or "he is gay"). Gay can be also used as a plural collective-like noun: "Gays are opposed to that policy", but this use is rare and deprecated. It is rarely as a singular noun "he is a gay" and sounds unusual in this context, hence its use by the Little Britain comedy character Daffyd Thomas (a gay man who believes himself "the only gay in the village" despite abundant evidence to the contrary).

By 1963, the word was known well enough by the straight community to be used by Albert Ellis in his book The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Man-Hunting.

Folk etymologies

It has been claimed that "gay" was derived as an acronym for "Good As You", but this is a backronym (based on a fake etymology).

Another folk etymology accrues to Gay Street, a small street in New York's West Village—a nexus of homosexual culture. The term also seems, from documentary evidence, to have existed in New York as a code word in the 1940s, where the question, "Are you gay?" would denote more than it might have seemed to outsiders.

The gay community and the world at large

The LGBT community represents the emotional, cultural, social and erotic lives of its members. Although there is wide cultural variation within the community, social cohesion exists, for several reasons. For example, many LGBT people have been through similar experiences. The community has also served as a refuge from homophobia, though this role is decreasing (at least in parts of the developed world) as society becomes more comfortable with LGBTs.

Aside from their romantic and erotic relationships, lesbian and gay people establish same-sex friendships. They may choose to attend LGBT-friendly social gatherings and church services where they feel more welcome. However, many heterosexuals treat members of the LGBT community with respect. Gay friendly is a term for predominantly straight individuals and institutions who support political rights and social dignity for gay people.

The lesbian and gay community represents a social component of the global community that is underrepresented in the area of civil rights. The current struggle of the gay community has been largely brought about by globalization. In the United States, World War II brought together many closeted rural men from around the nation and exposed them to sophisticated attitudes in Europe. Upon returning home after the war, many of these men decided to band together in cities rather than return to their small towns. Fledgling communities would soon become political in the beginning of the gay rights movement. Today, many large cities have gay and lesbian community centers. The Human Rights Campaign advocates for LGBT people on a wide range of issues in the United States. There is an International Lesbian and Gay Association.

In parts of the world today partnership rights or marriage have been extended to lesbians and gay men, a further extension of social globalization. Marriage becomes hugely important when lovers are not from the same country. Without marriage, or an equivalent right to immigrate, a couple or occasionally even family can be broken up based solely on the genders of the people involved.

The modern lesbian and gay community has a growing and complex place in the American & Western European media. The community has been targeted by marketers who view LGBT people as an untapped source of discretionary income; however, lesbians and gay men are still often portrayed negatively in television, films, and other media (such as the widespread banning of references from child-related entertainment; when references occur, they almost invariably generate controversy). In 1997, when US Comedian Ellen DeGeneres came out of the closet on her popular sitcom, many sponsors, such as the Wendy's fast food chain, pulled their advertising. In the USA gay people are frequently used as a symptom (or symbol) of social decadence by celebrity reverends and by organizations such as Focus on the Family. Many LGBT organizations exist to represent and defend the gay community. For example the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation in the USA and Stonewall in the UK work with the media to help portray fair and accurate images of the gay community.

See also

Wikiquote has quotations related to Gay.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gay&oldid=22283467"