Thursday, January 20, 2011

THE LIFE: Terms of endearment or entrapment

I've always understood as a journalist that you can ask anyone about anything -- without causing a "Real Housewives" table-flipping, neck-rolling, wig-tugging scene. It's all about how you ask the question.

The key is to get across to the person you're interviewing your intention behind the deeply personal, potentially embarrassing probe -- through your tone of voice, facial expression, body language and lead-in questions.

* Senator Craig, when did you first realize you had a talent for tap-dancing in small spaces?

All of the best interviewers have a pose or mannerism they use to ask tough questions, but above all, having a genuine interest in the answer is paramount to getting at the truth.

It's a theory I often apply in my non-work life. I like asking questions but not in a way that makes the person I'm asking uncomfortable to answer honestly.

It's something gay men have done throughout our history.

Only during the past 40 years -- give or take a couple of decades, depending on where you live -- have we been comfortable saying what once was considered better unsaid. Before then, you risked a violent reaction, incarceration and nonacceptance to say you were gay or ask someone else if he was.

But that didn't stop the resourceful among us from finding out what they wanted to know. Code words and signals were quickly adopted to identify closeted gay men. Straight people also had code phrases and terms for gays, which generally were peculiar and insulting: "light in the loafers" and "fruit" come to mind.

Though many code words had traditional meanings and were commonly used in society, gay men gave them a double meaning that helped define our culture.

A couple of recent occurrences brought this secret language back to mind:

1. I received a call from a friend in South Carolina who said she was looking for a roommate -- preferably a gay man. She planned to buy a classified ad in a local newspaper, but didn't want to just come out and use "gay" in the ad. Perhaps South Carolina is one of the geographic areas where that kind of openness is still not fully embraced.

After chatting a bit, I suggested she use code words in the ad that only a gay dude would understand. "Hilton Head Island woman seeks Just Jack for roomie" was one of the suggestions we bandied about. She immediately caught on and began coming up with her own code words.
I don't know what her ad eventually included but she got her roommate.

2. I read on the advocate.com an interesting article about a language that gays in the United Kingdom used until the 1970s. It's called Polari and dates back to the 16th century. Linguists and historians say Polari faces extinction, in part because LGBT people have become more accepted and the need for code words has decreased significantly.

These two incidents got me to thinking about words, their origin, how we really use them and whether gayspeak has gone out of fashion. Do "twinks" use the words that "trolls" co-opted and loaded with attitude? Is "fierce" still every seventh word designer Christian Cerriano says?

Here's a look at some of the more popular terms and their coded meanings:

MARY, FAMILY, MEMBER OF THE COMMITTEE, PART OF THE TRIBE = Gay

FRIEND OF DOROTHY ["The Wizard of Oz"] = Gay or ally of the gays

QUEEN = Gay, often with a connotation of being demanding or difficult and delusional.

FABULOUS = Well, fabulous!

TIRED, OVAH = Not ... fabulous

Your turn: What are some common PG words you've used or heard spoken in reference to gay men and gay culture?

1 comment:

  1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friend_of_Dorothy

    My friend Joey, a native New Yorker, insists that the Dorothy Parker reference is accurate, that she held a frequent Salon in her apartment and that afterward everyone left for dinner or coupling--and he's old enough to know!

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