Gay is a word that commonly refers to a male or female whose sexual orientation is attraction to persons of the same sex. It was originally used to refer to feelings of being "carefree", "happy", or "bright and showy"; it had also come to acquire some connotations of "immorality" as early as 1637.
The term's use as a reference to homosexuality may date as early as the late 19th century, but its use gradually increased in the 20th century. At about the same time, a new, pejorative use became prevalent in some parts of the world. In the Anglosphere, this connotation, among younger speakers, has a derisive meaning equivalent to rubbish or stupid (as in "That's so gay."). In this use, the word does not mean "homosexual", so it can be used, for example, to refer to an inanimate object or abstract concept of which one disapproves. This usage can also refer to weakness or unmanliness. When used in this way, the extent to which it still retains connotations of homosexuality has been debated.
History
Overview
in 1857 illustrating the use of "gay" as a euphemism for being a prostitute. One woman says to the other (who looks glum), "How long have you been gay?" The poster on the wall is for
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. 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.
Sexualization
The word had started to acquire associations of immorality by 1637 This was by extension from the primary meaning of "carefree": implying "uninhibited by moral constraints." A
gay woman was a
prostitute, a
gay man a womanizer and a
gay house a
brothel. or in the title of the book and film
The Gay Falcon (1941), which concerns a womanizing detective whose first name is "Gay." 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 was first published in the 1930s and 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. For example:
The 1929 musical Bitter Sweet by Noël Coward contains another use of the word in a context that strongly implies homosexuality. In the song "Green Carnation", four overdressed, 1890s dandies sing:
The song title alludes to Oscar Wilde, who famously wore a green carnation, and whose homosexuality was well known. However, the phrase "gay nineties" was already well-established as an epithet for the decade (a film entitled The Gay Nineties; or, The Unfaithful Husband was released in the same year). The song also drew on familiar satires on Wilde and Aestheticism dating back to Gilbert and Sullivan's Patience (1881). Because of its continuation of these public usages and conventions in a mainstream musical the precise connotations of the word in this context remain ambiguous.
Other usages at this date involve some of the same ambiguity as Coward's lyrics. Bringing Up Baby (1938) was the first film to use the word gay in apparent reference to homosexuality. In a scene where Cary Grant's clothes have been sent to the cleaners, he must wear a lady's feathery robe. When another character inquires about his clothes, he responds "Because I just went gay...all of a sudden!" However, since this was a mainstream film at a time when the use of the word to refer to homosexuality would still be unfamiliar to most film-goers, the line can also be interpreted to mean "I just decided to do something frivolous." There is much debate about what Grant meant with the ad-lib (the line was not in the script).
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. It was originally to be called "The Gay Divorce" after the play on which it was based, but the Hays Office determined that while a divorcee may be gay, it would be unseemly to allow a divorce to appear so.
Shift to homosexual
By the mid-20th century,
gay was well-established in reference to hedonistic and uninhibited lifestyles and its antonym
straight, which had long had connotations of seriousness, respectability, and conventionality, had now acquired specific connotations of heterosexuality. In the case of
gay, other connotations of frivolousness and showiness in dress ("gay apparel") led to association with
camp and
effeminacy. This association no doubt helped the gradual narrowing in scope of the term towards its current dominant meaning, which was at first confined to subcultures.
Gay was the preferred term since other terms, such as
queer, were felt to be derogatory.
Homosexual is perceived as excessively clinical, 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, all with the stress deliberately on the otherwise completely innocent adjective.
The sixties marked the transition in the predominant meaning of the word gay from that of "carefree" to the current "homosexual". 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 " [he} took pride in being a homosexual by feeling intellectually and esthetically superior to those (especially women) who werent gay..." 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, whereby 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. and included the lyric "No milk today, it was not always so / The company was gay, we had turn night into day." 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". Yet in the same year, The Kinks recorded "David Watts". Ostensibly about schoolboy envy, the song also operated as an in-joke, as related in Jon Savage's "The Kinks: The Official Biography", because the song took its name from a homosexual promoter they'd encountered who'd had romantic designs on songwriter Ray Davies' teenage brother; and the lines "he is so gay and fancy free" attest to the ambiguity of the word's meaning at that time, with the second meaning evident only for those in the know. As late as 1970, the first episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show has the demonstrably straight Mary Richards' downstairs neighbor, Phyllis, breezily declaiming that Mary is, at age 30, still "young and gay."
There is little doubt that the homosexual sense is a development of the word's traditional meaning, as described above. It has nevertheless been claimed that gay stands for "Good As You", but there is no evidence for this: it is a folk etymology backronym.
Homosexuality
Sexual orientation, identity, behavior
The
American Psychological Association states that
sexual orientation "describes the pattern of sexual attraction, behavior and identity e.g. homosexual (aka gay,
lesbian),
bisexual and
heterosexual (aka straight)". It says, "There is no consensus among scientists about the exact reasons that an individual develops a heterosexual, bisexual, gay, or lesbian orientation. Although much research has examined the possible genetic, hormonal, developmental, social, and cultural influences on sexual orientation, no findings have emerged that permit scientists to conclude that sexual orientation is determined by any particular factor or factors. Many think that nature and nurture both play complex roles."
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."
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."
If a person engages in same-sex sexual encounters but does not self-identify as gay, terms such as 'closeted', 'discreet', or 'bi-curious' may be applied. Conversely, a person may identify as gay without engaging in homosexual sex. Possible choices include identifying as gay socially while choosing to be celibate or while anticipating a first homosexual experience. Further, a bisexual person can also identify as "gay" but others might consider gay and bisexual to be mutually exclusive. There are some who are drawn to the same-sex, and may not have sex, and also not identify as gay; these could have the term 'asexual' applied, even though an 'asexual' generally can mean no attraction, and includes heterosexual attraction that is not sufficient to engage in sex, or where the sex act is not desirable, even though titillation may occur.
Terminology
Some reject the term homosexual as an identity-label because they find it too clinical-sounding;}}
Sociological theory
While the gay movement has been based on encouraging people to identify themselves as gay and "come out," there have been many who have argued that the approach is self-defeating. Among those are the advocates of
labeling theory who argue that gay identity is a stigmatic role created by society to control and limit the behavior.
Strong defense of labeling theory also arose within the gay community. Many advocate dropping the label entirely. While adopted as a strategy for dealing with the oppression, gay identity comes with its own set of problems.
Gay community vs. LGBT community
Just as the word gay is sometimes used as a shorthand for the term LGBT, so is gay community sometimes a synonym for the LGBT community. In other cases, the speaker may be referring only to homosexual men. Starting in the mid-1980s in the United States, a conscious effort was underway within what was then called the gay community, to add the term lesbian to the name of all gay organizations that catered to both male and female homosexuals, and to use the terminology of gay and lesbian, or lesbian/gay when referring to that community. So, organizations like the National Gay Task Force became the National Lesbian/Gay Task Force. For many ardent feminist lesbians, it was also important that the L come first, lest an L following a G become another symbol of male dominance over women. In the 1990s, this was followed by another equally concerted push to include the terminology specifically pointing out the inclusion of bisexuals and transgender people, reflecting an end to the intra-community debate as to whether these other sexual minorities were part of the same sexual liberation movement. Most news organizations have formally adopted this use, following the example and preference of the LGBT organizations, as reflected in their press releases and public communications. Today, many people interpret the phrase "gay community" to mean "the population of LGBT people."
Cultural relativity of the term
The concept of a "gay identity" and the use of the term
gay itself may not be used or understood the same way in non-Westernised cultures since modes of sexuality may differ from those prevalent in the West.
Descriptor
in Seattle, United States.]]
The term gay can also be used as an adjective to describe things related to homosexuals or things which are part of the said culture. For example, while a gay bar is not itself homosexual, using the term gay as an adjective to describe the bar indicates that the bar is either homosexually oriented, caters primarily to a homosexual clientele, or is otherwise part of homosexual 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.
Using the term gay as an adjective where the meaning is akin to "related to homosexual people, culture, or homosexuality in general" is a widely accepted use of the word. By contrast, using gay in the pejorative sense, to describe something solely as negative, can cause offense.
Use as a noun
The label "
gay" was originally used purely as an adjective ("he is a gay man" or "he is gay"). The term has been in use as a noun with the meaning "homosexual man" since the 1970s, as in "gays are opposed to that policy." Although some dislike this usage, it is common, such as in the case of "
LGBT" (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender"), and particularly in the names of various organizations such as
Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) and
Children Of Lesbians And Gays Everywhere (COLAGE). It is sometimes used as a singular noun, as in "he is a gay", such as in its use to comic effect by the
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. While retaining its other meanings, it has also acquired "a widespread current usage" amongst young people, as a general term of disparagement. This pejorative usage has its origins in the late 1970s. Beginning in the 1980s and especially in the late 1990s, the usage as a generic insult became common among young people.}}
The BBC's ruling was heavily criticised by the Minister for Children, Kevin Brennan, who stated in response that "the casual use of homophobic language by mainstream radio DJs" is:
}}
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.
Usage in other language
The
German equivalent for
gay,
schwul, which is etymologically derived from
schwuel (hot, humid), also acquired the pejorative meaning within youth culture.
Given name
The first name
Gay is still occasionally encountered, as is the spelling
Gaye. (795th and 1295th most common in the United States, according to the 1990 U.S. census). It was also used as a male first name. The first name of the popular male Irish television presenter
Gabriel Byrne was always abbreviated as "Gay", as in the title of his radio show
The Gay Byrne Show. It can also be used as a short form of the female names
Gaynell and
Gaynor and as a short form of the male names
Gaylen and
Gaylord. The writer
Gay Talese's name is derived from
Gaetano, his grandfather's name.
See also
Anti-LGBT slogans
Gender identity disorder
Gay bashing
Hate speech
Stigma
Deviance (sociology)
Labeling theory
Heterosexism
Human Rights Campaign
LGBT rights opposition
List of gay, lesbian or bisexual people
LGBT themes in mythology
National Gay and Lesbian Task Force
Human male sexuality
Religion and sexuality
Sexuality and gender identity-based cultures
Notes
Further reading
External links
2
Category:LGBT terms
Category:Sexual orientation
