My friend and I spent a couple hours on the trip back from Mississippi hashing out language--what's fucked up to say and what's not. I'm not much of a believer in the idea of "good" and "bad" language. We talked a ton about words like "lame," "sick," and "blind" and what fell into the category of ableist language and exactly how one should respond. I'm not sure we agreed on any conclusions other than the idea that being aware of the cultural/oppressive contexts of language matters.
Not long after the conversation, I received this comment from Brittany, an offended reader bothered by my post, How to Spot a Gay Man in Mississippi.
At first I wondered why she was more offended by the word dyke than by the rash generalizations about Mississippians I made. Then I wondered what it was about that word that offended her...particularly from a queer person. I asked and have not heard back. I really wish she elaborated.
Additionally, I wondered what "kind of offensive" meant. Was it that she was not sure if it was tasteless? Did she want a conversation about degrees of offense or was she just being polite.
There are many words that I don't use and perhaps I find them "kind of" offensive when others find them quite normal.
In talking to my friend on the way back from Mississippi, she asked me what words I use that others might find politically offensive. So here it goes. I present:
My Top Five Words That Others Might Find Kind of Offensive:
1) Queer: I like this word, not only because it describes my own sexuality and many others that don't quite fit in, but because once upon a time it was a phrase used to oppress and now, us queers use the phrase to say, "fuck yeah, we're oddball, pervert, badasses, and if you wanna fuck with us, you better watch the fuck out."
2) Faggot: I got called faggot so much as a kid that I began to enjoy the term. Its more risky than queer, more flamboyant, and more in your face. When the gay and lesbian mainstream is all about marriage and property ownership, faggots are all about sexual revolution and wrecking convention. I'm a faggot baby, so give it like you mean it.
3) Cunt: I can't think of a word that describes the vagina, clit, clit legs, labia, cooch better. Well, hmmmm, maybe cooch, but cunt just sounds so hot. (If you don't like the word, of course, I'd refrain from saying it around you. Just let me know.)
4) Dyke: I love dykes. Amen. I love dykes for friends, lovers, and collaborators. Dykes are so much rougher, queerer, and funner than their polite co-queers from the island of Lesbos. Dyke is tough, like a motor-biker, a construction worker, or a muscular woman with a strap-on named Big Red rushing at me from across the room.
5) Slut: This word does a great job describing sex positivity, radical desire, the inherent economic relationship between fucking bodies, and a general loose sensibility I embrace.
drumroll...and for an extra one...
6) Bisexual: So many gay men refer to bisexuals as "fence-sitters," "unable to leave the closet," and "indecisive." Now that trans-politics have taken off, "bisexual" as a term has become unpopular in queer communities, replaced by words like "queer," pansexual," and ambisexual." I like the word because it's all that a lot of kids know to use for themselves, trying to come out in small towns.
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thats kind of offensive..i dont use the word dyke.