Gay

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This article is about gay as an English-language term. For the sexual orientation, see homosexuality. For homosexual men, see gay men. For homosexual women, see lesbian. For other uses, see Gay (disambiguation).

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t
  • e

    • Gay is a term that

    homosexual person or the trait of being homosexual. The term originally meant 'carefree', 'cheerful', or 'bright and showy'.[1]

    While scant usage referring to

    homosexual men to describe their sexual orientation.[3] By the end of the 20th century and beginning of the 21st century, the word gay was recommended by major LGBT groups and style guides to describe people attracted to members of the same sex,[4][5] although it is more commonly used to refer specifically to men.[6]

    At about the same time, a new, pejorative use became prevalent in some parts of the world. Among younger speakers, the word has a meaning ranging from derision (e.g., equivalent to 'rubbish' or 'stupid') to a light-hearted mockery or ridicule (e.g., equivalent to 'weak', 'unmanly', or 'lame'). The extent to which these usages still retain connotations of homosexuality has been debated and harshly criticized.[7][8][needs update]

    History

    Overview

    La Traviata, an opera about a courtesan
    .

    The word gay arrived in English during the 12th century from Old French gai, most likely deriving ultimately from a Germanic source.[2]

    In English, the word's primary meaning was "joyful", "carefree", "bright and showy", and the word was very commonly used with this meaning in speech and literature. For example, the

    Warner Brothers movie, The Gay Parisian,[10] also illustrates this connotation. It was apparently not until the 20th century that the word began to be used to mean specifically "homosexual", although it had earlier acquired sexual connotations.[2]

    The derived abstract noun gaiety remains largely free of sexual connotations and has, in the past, been used in the names of places of entertainment, such as the Gaiety Theatre in Dublin.

    Sexualization

    Usage statistics from English books, according to Google Ngram Viewer.

    The word may have started to acquire associations of sexual

    prostitute, a gay man a womanizer, and a gay house a brothel.[12][2] An example is a letter read to a London court in 1885 during the prosecution of brothel madam and procuress Mary Jeffries
    that had been written by a girl while enslaved inside of a French brothel:

    "I write to tell you it is a gay house...Some captains came in the other night, and the mistress wanted us to sleep with them."[13]

    The use of gay to mean "homosexual" was often an extension of its application to prostitution: a gay boy was a young man or boy serving male clients.[14]

    Similarly, a gay cat was a young male apprenticed to an older

    Charles Dilke's alleged heterosexual impropriety.[16] Giving testimony in court in 1889, the prostitute John Saul stated: "I occasionally do odd-jobs for different gay people."[17]

    Well into the mid 20th century a middle-aged bachelor could be described as "gay", indicating that he was unattached and therefore free, without any implication of homosexuality. This usage could apply to women too. The British comic strip Jane, first published in the 1930s, described the adventures of Jane Gay. Far from implying homosexuality, it referred to her free-wheeling lifestyle with plenty of boyfriends (while also punning on Lady Jane Grey).

    A passage from Gertrude Stein's Miss Furr & Miss Skeene (1922) is possibly the first traceable published use of the word to refer to a homosexual relationship. According to Linda Wagner-Martin (Favored Strangers: Gertrude Stein and her Family, 1995) the portrait "featured the sly repetition of the word gay, used with sexual intent for one of the first times in linguistic history", and Edmund Wilson (1951, quoted by James Mellow in Charmed Circle, 1974) agreed.[18] For example:

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

    — Gertrude Stein, 1922

    The word continued to be used with the dominant meaning of "carefree", as evidenced by the title of The Gay Divorcee (1934), a musical film about a heterosexual couple.

    Bringing Up Baby (1938) was the first film to use the word gay in an apparent reference to homosexuality. In a scene in which Cary Grant's character's clothes have been sent to the cleaners, he is forced to wear a woman's feather-trimmed robe. When another character asks about his robe, he responds, "Because I just went gay all of a sudden!" Since this was a mainstream film at a time, when the use of the word to refer to cross-dressing (and, by extension, homosexuality) would still be unfamiliar to most film-goers, the line can also be interpreted to mean, "I just decided to do something frivolous."[19]

    In 1950, the earliest reference found to date for the word gay as a self-described name for homosexuals came from Alfred A. Gross, executive secretary for the George W. Henry Foundation, who said in the June 1950 issue of SIR magazine: "I have yet to meet a happy homosexual. They have a way of describing themselves as gay but the term is a misnomer. Those who are habitues of the bars frequented by others of the kind, are about the saddest people I've ever seen."[20]

    Shift to specifically homosexual

    By the mid-20th century, gay was well established in reference to hedonistic and uninhibited lifestyles

    Homosexual is perceived as excessively clinical,[23][24][25] since the sexual orientation now commonly referred to as "homosexuality" was at that time a mental illness diagnosis in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
    (DSM).

    In mid-20th century Britain, where male homosexuality was illegal until the Sexual Offences Act 1967, to openly identify someone as homosexual was considered very offensive and an accusation of serious criminal activity. Additionally, none of the words describing any aspect of homosexuality were considered suitable for polite society. Consequently, a number of euphemisms were used to hint at suspected homosexuality. Examples include "sporty" girls and "artistic" boys,[26] all with the stress deliberately on the otherwise completely innocent adjective.

    The 1960s marked the transition in the predominant meaning of the word gay from that of "carefree" to the current "homosexual". In the British comedy-drama film Light Up the Sky! (1960), directed by Lewis Gilbert, about the antics of a British Army searchlight squad during World War II, there is a scene in the mess hut where the character played by Benny Hill proposes an after-dinner toast. He begins, "I'd like to propose..." at which point a fellow diner interjects "Who to?", implying a proposal of marriage. The Benny Hill character responds, "Not to you for start, you ain't my type". He then adds in mock doubt, "Oh, I don't know, you're rather gay on the quiet."

    By 1963, a new sense of the word gay was known well enough to be used by

    Albert Ellis in his book The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Man-Hunting. Similarly, Hubert Selby Jr. in his 1964 novel Last Exit to Brooklyn, could write that a character "took pride in being a homosexual by feeling intellectually and esthetically superior to those (especially women) who weren't gay...."[27] Later examples of the original meaning of the word being used in popular culture include the theme song to the 1960–1966 animated TV series The Flintstones, wherein viewers are assured that they will "have a gay old time." Similarly, the 1966 Herman's Hermits song "No Milk Today", which became a Top 10 hit in the UK and a Top 40 hit in the U.S., included the lyric "No milk today, it was not always so; The company was gay, we'd turn night into day."[28]

    In June 1967, the headline of the review of the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album in the British daily newspaper The Times stated, "The Beatles revive hopes of progress in pop music with their gay new LP".[29] The same year, The Kinks recorded "David Watts", which is about a schoolmate of Ray Davies, but is named after a homosexual concert promoter they knew, with the ambiguous line "he is so gay and fancy-free" attesting to the word's double meaning at that time.[30] As late as 1970, the first episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show has the demonstrably straight Mary Richards' neighbor Phyllis breezily declaiming that Mary is still "young and gay", but in an episode about two years later, Phyllis is told that her brother is "gay", which is immediately understood to mean that he is homosexual.

    Homosexuality

    Main article: Homosexuality
    Sexual orientation
    Sexual orientations
    Related terms
    Research
    Animals
    Related topics
    gay pride
    .

    Sexual orientation, identity, behavior

    Main articles:
    Human sexual behavior
    See also: Situational sexual behavior

    The American Psychological Association defines sexual orientation as "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions to men, women, or both sexes," ranging "along a continuum, from exclusive attraction to the other sex to exclusive attraction to the same sex."[31] Sexual orientation can also be "discussed in terms of three categories: heterosexual (having emotional, romantic, or sexual attractions to members of the other sex), gay/lesbian (having emotional, romantic, or sexual attractions to members of one's own sex), and bisexual (having emotional, romantic, or sexual attractions to both men and women)."[31]

    According to Rosario, Schrimshaw, Hunter, Braun (2006), "the development of a lesbian, gay, or bisexual (LGB) sexual identity is a complex and often difficult process. Unlike members of other minority groups (e.g., ethnic and racial minorities), most LGB individuals are not raised in a community of similar others from whom they learn about their identity and who reinforce and support that identity. Rather, LGB individuals are often raised in communities that are either ignorant of or openly hostile toward homosexuality."[32]

    The British

    gay rights activist Peter Tatchell has argued that the term gay is merely a cultural expression which reflects the current status of homosexuality within a given society, and claiming that "Queer, gay, homosexual ... in the long view, they are all just temporary identities. One day, we will not need them at all."[33]

    If a person engages in sexual activity with a partner of the same sex but does not self-identify as gay, terms such as '

    celibate, or while anticipating a first homosexual experience. Further, a bisexual person might also identify as "gay" but others may consider gay and bisexual to be mutually exclusive. There are some who are drawn to the same sex but neither engage in sexual activity nor identify as gay; these could have the term asexual
    applied, even though asexual generally can mean no attraction, or involve heterosexual attraction but no sexual activity.

    Terminology

    Main article: Terminology of homosexuality

    Some reject the term homosexual as an identity-label because they find it too clinical-sounding;[24][25][34] they believe it is too focused on physical acts rather than romance or attraction, or too reminiscent of the era when homosexuality was considered a mental illness. Conversely, some reject the term gay 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.

    Style guides, like the following from the Associated Press, call for gay over homosexual:

    Gay: Used to describe men and women attracted to the same sex, though lesbian is the more common term for women. Preferred over homosexual except in clinical contexts or references to sexual activity.[6]

    There are those who reject the gay label for reasons other than shame or negative connotations. Writer Alan Bennett[35] and fashion icon André Leon Talley[36] are out and open queer men who reject being labeled gay, believing the gay label confines them.

    Gay community vs. LGBT community

    Main article: LGBT community

    Starting in the mid-1980s in the United States, a conscious effort was underway within what was then commonly called the gay community, to add the term lesbian to the name of organizations that involved both male and female homosexuals, and to use the terminology of gay and lesbian, lesbian/gay, or a similar phrase when referring to that community. Accordingly, organizations such as the National Gay Task Force became the

    National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. For many feminist lesbians, it was also important that lesbian be named first, to avoid the implication that women were secondary to men, or an afterthought.[37] In the 1990s, this was followed by a similar effort to include terminology specifically including bisexual, transgender, intersex, and other people, reflecting the intra-community debate about the inclusion of these other sexual minorities as part of the same movement. Consequently, the portmanteau les/bi/gay has sometimes been used, and initialisms such as LGBT
    , LGBTQ, LGBTQI, and others have come into common use by such organizations, and most news organizations have formally adopted some such variation.

    Descriptor

    Gay Bar in Brighton
    , England

    The term gay can also be used as an adjective to describe things related to homosexual men, or things which are part of the said culture. For example, the term "gay bar" describes the bar which either caters primarily to a homosexual male clientele or is otherwise part of homosexual male culture.

    Using it to describe an object, such as an item of clothing, suggests that it is particularly flamboyant, often on the verge of being gaudy and garish. This usage predates the association of the term with homosexuality but has acquired different connotations since the modern usage developed.

    Use as a noun

    The label gay was originally used purely as an

    Little Britain
    character Dafydd Thomas.

    Generalized pejorative use

    When used with a derisive attitude (e.g., "that was so gay"), the word gay is pejorative. Though retaining other meanings, its use among young people as a term of disparagement is common; 97 percent of American LGBTQ middle and high school students reported hearing its negative use as of 2021.[7][39][40]

    This pejorative usage has its origins in the late 1970s, with the word gaining a pejorative sense by association with the previous meaning: homosexuality was seen as inferior or undesirable.[41] Beginning in the 1980s, and especially in the late 1990s, the usage as a generic insult became common among young people.[7] Use of "gay" in some circumstances continues to be considered a pejorative in present day. As recently as 2023, the American Psychological Association described language like "that's so gay" as heterosexist and heteronormative.[42]

    The pejorative usage of the word "gay" has been criticized as

    Board of Governors over the negative use of the word by Chris Moyles advises that "caution on its use"; however, it acknowledges its common use among young people to mean "rubbish" or "lame".[39]

    The BBC's ruling was heavily criticized by the Minister for Children, Kevin Brennan, who stated in response that "the casual use of homophobic language by mainstream radio DJs" is:

    "too often seen as harmless banter instead of the offensive insult that it really represents. ... To ignore this problem is to collude in it. The blind eye to casual name-calling, looking the other way because it is the easy option, is simply intolerable."[43]

    Shortly after the Moyles incident, a campaign against homophobia was launched in Britain under the slogan "homophobia is gay", playing on the double meaning of the word "gay" in youth culture, as well as the popular perception that vocal homophobia is common among closeted homosexuals.[44]

    The United States had its own popular campaign against the pejorative use of "gay" called Think B4 You Speak. It was created in 2008 in partnership with the Advertising Council, GLSEN, and Arnold NYC. This initiative created television, radio, print and web PSAs with goals "to motivate teens to become allies in the efforts to raise awareness, stop using anti-LGBT language and safely intervene when they are present and anti-LGBT harassment and behavior occurs."[45]

    Research has looked into the use and effect of the pejorative. In a 2013 article published in the

    microaggression.[46] They found that college-age men were more likely to repeat the word pejoratively if their friends said it, while they were less likely to say it if they had lesbian, gay or bisexual peers.[46] A 2019 study used data collected in a 2013 survey of cisgender LGBQ college students to evaluate the effects of microaggressions like "that's so gay" and "no homo."[47] It found that increased exposure to the phrase "that's so gay" was significantly associated with greater developmental challenge (a measure of academic stressors).[47] Research published in the Journal of Youth and Adolescence in 2021 finds that use of anti-gay banter among Midwestern middle and high school students such as "that's so gay" is perceived less negatively and more humorously if the person saying it is a friend.[48]

    Parallels in other languages and cultures

    See also

    References

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    2. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas (2001–2013). "Gay". Online Etymology dictionary. Archived from the original on 19 February 2006. Retrieved 13 February 2006.
    3. ^ "Gay". Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford University Press. Archived from the original on 21 May 2018. Retrieved 13 February 2018.
    4. ^ "GLAAD Media Reference Guide - LGBTQ Terms". GLAAD. 24 February 2022. Retrieved 27 March 2023.
    5. ^ "Avoiding Heterosexual Bias in Language". American Psychological Association. Archived from the original on 21 March 2015. Retrieved 14 March 2015. (Reprinted from American Psychologist, Vol 46(9), Sep 1991, 973-974 Archived 3 June 2018 at the Wayback Machine)
    6. ^ a b "GLAAD Media Reference Guide" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 12 November 2011. Retrieved 25 September 2011.
    7. ^ a b c Winterman, Denise (18 March 2008). "How 'gay' became children's insult of choice". BBC News. Archived from the original on 2 February 2014. Retrieved 29 May 2013.
    8. ^ "Anti-gay abuse seen to pervade U.S. schools". Archived from the original on 1 March 2007.
    9. ^ "The Great Social Evil". Archived from the original on 2 April 2016. Retrieved 5 September 2012. Punch magazine, Volume 33, 1857, page 390. A stand-alone editorial cartoon, no accompanying article.
    10. ^ xoregos (2 December 1941). "The Gay Parisian (1941)". IMDb. Archived from the original on 9 February 2017. Retrieved 1 July 2018.
    11. ^ a b "gay, adj., adv., and n. (OED Third Edition)". Oxford English Dictionary. June 2008.
    12. ^ "Definition of gay | Dictionary.com". www.dictionary.com. Retrieved 7 May 2022.
    13. ^ English Girls Decoyed To France, The Sentinel, Issue 73, May 1885, London, p415
    14. ISBN 978-0738517537
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    15. ^ Brewer, E. Cobham (1898). "Dictionary of Phrase and Fable". Archived from the original on 15 March 2006. Retrieved 8 January 2006.
    16. ^ John Major (2012) My Old Man, page 87 and note
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    18. ^ Martha E. Stone, Sept–Oct 2002. "Who were Miss Furr and Miss Skeene?" Archived 25 October 2012 at the Wayback Machine, The Gay & Lesbian Review Worldwide.
    19. ^ "Bringing Up Baby". Archived from the original on 30 June 2006. Retrieved 24 November 2005.
    20. ^ "The Truth About Homosexuals", Sir, June 1950, Sara H. Carleton, New York, p. 57.
    21. ^ Harper, Douglas (2001–2013). "Straight". Online Etymology dictionary. Archived from the original on 28 December 2010. Retrieved 20 December 2010.
    22. ^ Howard, Philip (7 June 1976). "A queer use of an inoffensive little word". The Times]. London. p. 12. Archived from the original on 1 May 2011. Retrieved 19 October 2009.(subscription required)
    23. ^ "Media Reference Guide - Offensive Terms To Avoid". GLAAD. 9 September 2011. Archived from the original on 20 April 2012. Retrieved 24 May 2012.
    24. ^ a b "Gay Adjectives vs. Lesbian Nouns". The New Gay. 16 September 2008. Archived from the original on 24 October 2008. Retrieved 4 August 2009.
    25. ^ a b James Martin (4 November 2000). "The Church and the Homosexual Priest". America The National Catholic Weekly Magazine. Archived from the original on 11 November 2010. Retrieved 4 August 2009.
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    27. ^ Selby Jr., Hubert "Last Exit To Brooklyn" NY: Grove Press, 1988 p. 23 copyright 1964
    28. ^ "The Lyrics Library – Herman's Hermits – No Milk Today". Archived from the original on 5 December 2008. Retrieved 24 November 2008.
    29. ^ "The Beatles revive hopes of progress in pop music with their gay new LP". The Times. London. 2 June 2007. Archived from the original on 30 May 2010. Retrieved 3 May 2010.(subscription required)
    30. ^ Savage, Jon "The Kinks: The Official Biography" London: Faber and Faber, 1984 pp. 94–96
    31. ^ a b "Understanding sexual orientation and homosexuality". APA. 2008. Archived from the original on 5 May 2012. Retrieved 24 May 2012.
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    33. ^ Tatchell, Peter (27 November 2006). "Just a phase". The Guardian. London. Archived from the original on 30 August 2013. Retrieved 3 May 2010.
    34. ^ "AIDS and Gay Catholic Priests: Implications of the Kansas City Star Report" (PDF). Archived from the original on 28 May 2011.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
    35. ^ "Alan Bennett rejected 'gay label'". BBC News. 6 May 2014. Archived from the original on 9 September 2018. Retrieved 22 June 2018.
    36. ^ Sieczkowski, Cavan (12 August 2013). "Vogue's André Leon Talley Rejects 'Gay' Label, Admits To 'Very Gay Experiences'". HuffPost. Archived from the original on 15 May 2017. Retrieved 18 September 2018.
    37. ^ Lesbian Ethics, pp. 13–21.
    38. ISBN 978-0547563213. Archived
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    39. ^ a b Sherwin, Adam (6 June 2006). "Gay means rubbish, says BBC". The Times. London. Archived from the original on 30 April 2011. Retrieved 3 May 2010.(subscription required)
    40. ^ Kosciw, J. G., Clark, C. M., & Menard, L. (2022). The 2021 National School Climate Survey: The experiences of LGBTQ+ youth in our nation's schools. New York: GLSEN.
    41. ^ "Many heterosexual college males say 'That's so gay,' but why? | University of Michigan News". ns.umich.edu. 29 January 2013. Archived from the original on 1 March 2016. Retrieved 23 May 2017.
    42. ISBN 978-1-4338-4015-9
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    43. ^ Grew, Tony. "BBC's attitude to homophobic language 'damages children'". Pink News. London. Archived from the original on 28 March 2009. Retrieved 4 March 2009.
    44. ^ "Young Liberal Democrats launch 'homophobia is gay' campaign". Pink News. 2006. Archived from the original on 12 October 2008. Retrieved 5 October 2008.
    45. ^ "Think B4 You Speak Educator's Guide". GLSEN. 14 October 2008: 5. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
    46. ^
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    51. ^ Pruden, Harlan; Edmo, Se-ah-dom (2016). "Two-Spirit People: Sex, Gender & Sexuality in Historic and Contemporary Native America" (PDF). National Congress of American Indians Policy Research Center. Archived from the original (PDF) on 8 July 2023. Retrieved 26 August 2023.
    52. ^ "A Spirit of Belonging, Inside and Out". The New York Times. 8 October 2006. Retrieved 28 July 2016. 'The elders will tell you the difference between a gay Indian and a Two-Spirit,' [Criddle] said, underscoring the idea that simply being gay and Indian does not make someone a Two-Spirit.
    53. ISBN 3-901761-49-7

    Further reading

    External links

    • The dictionary definition of Gay at Wiktionary
    • Media related to Gay at Wikimedia Commons
    • Quotations related to Gay at Wikiquote
    • Gay at
      Curlie