this post was submitted on 14 Jun 2024
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Queer person checking in. I too dislike the F-slur because like you say, it takes me back to the worst periods of my life when that was the worst thing you could call a person.
When I was a kid, the common way to express that you didn't like something was to call it gay. And usually it had nothing to do with gayness either, it'd be like "You signed up for soccer instead of hockey? That's pretty gay." "Math class is gay." "Homework is gay."
Even before I knew I was queer that bothered me. And the funny thing was if you called someone out for it, they'd weasel out of it by saying they didn't have anything against gay people, you just call things gay if you don't like them. They just didn't see how that was wrong which made it even more frustrating to me. Like, they admit that gay = bad but then say they have nothing against gays? Well, what more can you expect from children?
Nowadays it doesn't seem like things being gay is so bad. I've definitely proudly called things gay, and it feels like the word 'gay' is being taken back. So with time maybe that can happen with the F-slur, but for me now it's still a super triggering thing.
At least gay has some positive etymological history as well as negative. F-- only has two meanings, and the vastly more common one is incredibly violent. The only thing I've seen remotely close to trying to "take that word back" is maybe Martin in the Simpsons in a throw-away gag about his pure nerdy naivete. And that's not particularly close.
I think I remember that bit, Martin was trying to convince us that "apes together strong" but the boys weren't having it. He used the two-syllable pronunciation too, which I'd relate to using the N-word with a hard R.
I don't really relate that bit to "taking the word back" though because I guess I don't think of Martin as being gay. I mean, he's 10 years old so he probably isn't really anything yet. Then again, he is often shown to be effete and I'm sure some of the kids have called him gay before.
To me that joke was all about shock factor. It was like saying "Hey, look at this dirty word we just got away with saying on television! It's not dirty because we used it correctly, instead of the way you expect to hear it!"