Re: Fruitcakes

En réponse à Tristan <zsau@...>:

>
> Can I call you a fruitcake? Can I call black people n--whatever-it-is?
> I'm neither gay nor black nor female nor abnormally short. Why does
> that
> mean that when I call you 'fruitcake', it's discriminatory?
>
Well, nowhere in his post did this person imply that, as far as I've read.

> What you've implied is that gay people mean 'fruitcake' as a joke or
> something, but us 'breeders' can only mean it derogatorily ('Gay guys
> can call me a fruitcake... The difference is who means it'). That
> sounds
> like discrimination to me.
>
But it was not what Jake meant. He just meant that when used by other gay
people, those normally derogative words (since you can't deny that they are
mostly used derogatorily by straight men) lost their derogative meaning by the
simple fact of being uttered by other gay men. That doesn't mean straight men
can't use them with gay friends in a friendly manner. It just means that from a
straight man, especially an unknown one, the chance is strong that the word
will be used derogatorily (since it's mostly used so), while the chance is
inexistent with another gay man.

It's not us gay men who provoke this situation, but the hordes of straight
people who use those words derogatorily in a daily basis. So when we hear it
from an unfamiliar person, we'll tend to think of it as an insult, especially
if we know that the person is straight, because that's how the majority means
it. But you cannot blame us for discrimination here. The discrimination comes
from the other side. If it was not there, we wouldn't care what word you use to
name us.

> (Sorry, I'm just annoyed at the fact that straight, white,
> regular-height males can be discriminated against and if they complain
> they're called absurd.
It's not absurd, and I agree with you when it's about single persons. However,
the majority of straight people still use those terms derogatorily, while gay
men don't, so it's just fair that we're a bit suspicious when a straight man
uses them, while we won't be when a gay man uses them.

 Now waiting for posts to call me absurd. But
> it's
> no more absurd than what some minority groups get other people into
> trouble for. Maybe I have to become gay or something to get
> equality...)
>
No, but as long as the majority group doesn't treat other groups equally, how
can it expect to be treated back equally? Respect can exist only when it's
reciprocal. We may be discriminating (and even then, what bad can it do, you're
the majority group after all!), but we're doing that only as a matter of
defence, while the majority group is the one who is attacking. It may not be
better, but we are just humans too :)) .

Christophe.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

Take your life as a movie: do not let anybody else play the leading role.