Jessica Sutich

Are you offended when people use the word “gay” in a negative sense?

It is pretty gay but then it is usually only gaywads that do it so sometimes I can let it slide. I actually like using the phrase, “that’s so gay,” when something seems particularly stereotypically homosexual. For example, if I saw two men having sex with each other (which is so stereotypically gay) I would definitely call them on it. I probably have also been guilty of using the phrase to put something or someone down, but look what happened. Now I’m gay. So let’s see what is out there on the interwebs.

Thanks to the urban dictionary we have this definition of the word gay:

1. jovial or happy; good-spirited
2. a homosexual male or female
3. often used to describe something stupid or unfortunate. originating from homophobia. quite preferable among many teenage males in order to buff up their “masculinity”

Sadly the first definition is only used by old people which is a shame because there are days when I feel pretty gay but when I try to express that to people we all just end up confused. So let’s focus on the third definition. I suppose the short answer is just, yes, it’s offensive. Even if it is only on a subconscious level, it perpetuates the idea that being gay is a negative or bad thing which is harmful to the community. That being said, I have always found that it showed such a lack of creativity that it ended up making the person using the phrase look like a bit of an idiot and therefore lost some of it’s fire.

Something equally troubling is that I did a search for the phrase “that’s so gay” and I found a video of someone saying that it doesn’t even make sense because “gay isn’t and adjective”. Another person, arguing in favor of using the phrase, likened it to other situations in which words have double meanings, “such as which and witch”. Perhaps the reason why people use insults as dull-witted as “that’s so gay” is due to lacking a basic grasp of the English language. They recognize a situation in which they dislike something and so they dive into the sentence wanting to find a scathing put-down but then they get as far as , “that’s so…” and realize the limits of their vocabulary. Then they just fizzle out with a “…gay”.

I actually found an entire PSA campaign trying to discourage use of the phrase. The tag line is “When you say that’s so gay, do you realize what you say? Knock it off.” I think that the knock it off punctuation is really what will stop people. That and the fact that Hillary Duff is one of the spokespeople for the campaign. Though she softens the blow by complimenting the girl’s jeans. I believe that perhaps a PSA with more punch would have been a bunch of old people using the phrase, “that’s mighty white of you” and then a tag line of, “When you say that’s so gay it makes you look like a racist senior citizen.” That’s just one suggestion though.