The word faggot

“Always use the proper name for things. Fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself”

Faggot isn't the proper name.

I do see the merit in reclaiming words (queer, for example) but 'faggot' is a coarse-sounding word on it's own, and I don't think we'd stand to gain a lot from reclaiming it.

 

^ Pretty much that. And by that I meant Ridiculous' post.

If we want to reclaim a word then there has to be a reason behind it so people go "oh, okay". For example, people are starting to reclaim queer because its an usual way to refer to the spectrum of sexuality and gender that exists. What would be helpful of reclaiming the word faggot?

I do think its different in Spanish, though. Gay is pretty much an english word and in spanish it sounds pretty pretentious to be honest. Marica, which can mean faggot, is closer to being the "real" translation of gay so I get where you are coming from. But in english it doesn't quite work that way.

I also understand the whole thing of "its just a word, get over it" and I do agree, but its still not a reason to reclaim it and make it ours.

 

I generally take a laissez faire attitude towards things like this. If someone wants to call me a queer, or a faggot, or whatever, then ok. What difference does it make in my life? I still like guys, always will, always have. I'm still going to be involved in the LGBT community, still have friends that love me, family, a job, I'll still be at school doing what I love. So I couldn't possibly care any less. A word is just a word, it's the intent and context that means everything.

Personally, I have friends that use the word faggot and stuff. They usually only say it off-the-cuff, it sort of slips out, and then they apologize right away, and I usually say, "No it's alright, you meant stupid gay, not "gay gay." But even if they meant it in the "gay gay" way, I honestly don't have a problem with them using it, or them calling me a faggot or whatever as long as it's meant in good spirit. But one time I was called a faggot at a sports bar by some random drunken idiot, and that did escalate into something much further very quickly, with my friends basically running him out of the bar. I didn't care that he called me that, I cared more that he thought he would even try to hurt me with something so stupid and get away with it. That sort of blind stupidity can't just walk around unchecked, so I made it an issue. I would have done the same thing had he called me anything else too.

 

I think the only reason we disclaim a word is because some group of people use it a way we do not like... However disclaiming a word everytime a group uses it like that is stupid.... We our who we our as people...

 

It's offensive, in short. Faggot is a negative term used to refer to gay people. I personally don't give a shit about whether people use the word faggot or anything along those lines, however, I know others who do find it offensive.

 

Good point!

 

Would you go around calling African American people nigger? Do you think they want that term to become a normalized way of referring to them?

No, because it's offensive. So is faggot.

 

Actually, (OK i don't want to sound racist or anything in that line, so if I offend anyone, please accept my apologies) African Americans refer to themselves as niggers, as in "Yo nigger, what's up?"

The same is happening in Africa, here the old people (post apartheid) referred to Africans as Kaffers, now it's a bad word (it always was, the same like nigger) but they themselves refer to that word when speaking amongst one another. The south africans on this site will concur here.

What I am trying to say, it isn't the word that's actually bad, but more like the context how it is used, which can make a word sound bad or good.

Between me and my hubby, well we refer to one another "Moffie" Afrikans for gay, queer and a whole lot of other things, but we use it in a love context, which makes the words itself different.

 

faggot1 esp US, fagot [ˈfægət]
n
1. a bundle of sticks or twigs, esp when bound together and used as fuel
2. (Engineering / Metallurgy) a bundle of iron bars, esp a box formed by four pieces of wrought iron and filled with scrap to be forged into wrought iron
3. (Cookery) a ball of chopped meat, usually pork liver, bound with herbs and bread and eaten fried
4. a bundle of anything
vb (tr)
1. to collect into a bundle or bundles
2. (Clothing, Personal Arts & Crafts / Knitting & Sewing) Needlework to do faggoting on (a garment, piece of cloth, etc.)
[from Old French, perhaps from Greek phakelos bundle]

 

I don't use the word myself. In the UK, a faggot is a sort of stewed meat-ball (which I happen to like) and I think its use in relation to homosexuals largely comes from the US.

Also its abbreviation - fag - has three meanings in the UK:

1. a slang word for cigarette "He had a fag in his mouth." means he was smoking, not giving a BJ

2. a tiresome thing "I decided that cleaning the windows was too much of a fag, so I didn't bother."

3. a slave at a fee-paying school. Older students in the past had a younger boy as a personal servant - it was supposed to make the boys realize how to behave towards their staff when they were older.

As I said, I don't use the word myself, but I don't object if it's used gay-to-gay rather than as a term of abuse, a bit like the N-word between blacks

Generally I use the word gay to describe myself and in general. Being built like a brick shit-house, people don't tend to call me names to my face.

 

I have always that thought that words have the power that we give them. And since I have never given them any power over me... I have never cared much about how they are used. I have always known the correct definition of the word; and my guy friends use it often (actually one of my friends nickname is Faggy) so I have no qualms about it.

 

I really don't care for words/labels at all. Faggot bothers me a LOT less than queer and homosexual do. Queer means something that's odd, yeah I'm odd, but not because I'm gay. Homosexuality makes me think of the Bible or like the 1950s adverts saying 'watch out for those darn homosexuals!'. Faggot doesn't bother me simply because it means what it means, it's an insult towards gay people, but it's just like calling a fat person fatty or a ginger person ginge or whatever. If someone called me a faggot, I'd just be like, yeah I know, it's true! Fag and Faggot have also just become like...insults for generally everyone now, even people who aren't gay get called it.

For me, queer is the worst word to refer to a gay person and I don't know why some of us even adopt it and call ourselves it. It's vile.

queer/kwi(ə)r/
Adjective:
Strange; odd: "she had a queer feeling that they were being watched".
Noun:
offensive. A homosexual man.
Verb:
Spoil or ruin (an agreement, event, or situation): "Reg didn't want someone meddling and queering the deal at the last minute".

All definitions are just, negative.

 

It's like two syllables stabbing the air. *shivers* it sounds hard and abrasive. It's the only word that truly bothers me.

 

Whoa there! I'm sure you had the best intentions, but you've made a grave mistake in what you wrote.

The word you're thinking of is "nigga". The difference in the second syllable is incredibly important. "Nigga" is a word that sees fairly frequent use in African American culture, although even within the culture itself, there's a lot of debate about whether it should be used and whether it should be reclaimed, like what we're seeing in this thread with the word "faggot". "Nigger" (God, I feel dirty just typing that), on the other hand, has not received the same treatment, and if it is used by someone in the black community, is used far, far less frequently than "nigga", usually with an explicit sense of irony, and never casually. Only "nigga" gets used casually.

It's a small difference phonetically, but it's a huge difference when it comes to actual meaning.

Now, back to your regularly scheduled discussion.

 

In either case, my point was that although it may be okay for people within a community to call each other a derogatory name (or at least what is thought to be derogatory), it's still not okay when people outside the community use the term. I know people within the gay community call themselves things like homo, fag, dyke, and all those things, and that's okay...they have the prerogative to call each other that if they belong to the community and they know their friends are okay with just joking around. Like, I wouldn't care if I called myself those things or if my gay friends did, but if a straight person or stranger said it, I'd be offended. Same with any culture and their derogatory names.

 

I'm going to take a new route and just say that some people just dont like certain words.
In my opinion, many of the slang words for things are rather unattractive words by themselves. Faggot, Nigger, and Dyke, despite any history, really just dont sound very appealing, truthfully. Not just those either, many of the terms for peoples "johnson's" either sound way to angry or contagious. I dont fear them, I just would rather not use them.

Though, I do realize that most people probably convoluted as with their vocabulary as I am .

 

When I was growing up, a "faggot" was basically the catch-all label for someone who wasn't tough, wasn't into sports, couldn't defend themselves, liked chess instead of football, etc... I never really associated it with being gay. Back then "queer" was the word for gay people.

 

Okay, ill be honest, I skipped over like all the comments, but you shuld know that puto isn't actually a word, its something people(probably we puertoricans) came up with to call a male a bitch, because the real word is "puta" and its ment for females. Oh and apparently faggots are meatballs, and fags are cigarets. But yeah I think we can reclaim the words.