Do you find the term "homo" offensive?

brianlux

This is a sincere request to find out how people younger than myself (which most of you are) respond to the term "homo".  My generation finds it offensive.  Maybe yours doesn't. I'd like to know.  I will make the poll anonymous so you can choose to reveal your feelings about the word as you please.

PJ_Soul

I only find it offensive if it is being used in an offensive/derogatory/negative context.... But really I think it's up to gay people to decide if it's offensive or not, on a case-by-case basis. What I think really doesn't matter either way. In any case, I've never used the term at all - it just isn't in my natural vocabulary, really. I've always just said gay. And I really don't hear others saying it either. Not sure if it's regional or what... Of course I heard it in only negative terms in the 90s and stuff, but that was a super duper homophobic decade, so....

Gern Blansten

I lied in the other thread....it's offensive

brianlux

Gern Blansten said:

I lied in the other thread....it's offensive

I saw what you did there and thought it was a joke.  I laughed! 

F Me In The Brain

I don't find much to be offensive. 
Depends on how it is used....it certainly can be if used in a certain way.  (And it can be used in a way that I find funny as well.)
Words live within the context they are used, I feel.

rgambs

I don't think there are many contexts in which homo is not deliberately meant to be offensive.
Most people who use words like homo and debate PC do so with the intent to be antagonistic.  They want to be offensive because they are bitter and grumpy.
I say that as someone who is prone to bitterness and grumpiness.

dignin

I don't need to be gay to know it's offensive.

F Me In The Brain

People can find anything offensive. 
Do you have any male, gay, friends?  Listen to how harsh they can be.  Homo is on the tame side.  They are joking the same way that I joke with my 250+ pound friend by calling him a fat bastard and hiding food when he comes over.  (Or pointing out that some of my patio furniture chairs have tags on the bottom stating there is a 200 lb limit...so he needs to sit elsewhere.  "The ground doesn't have any limit.")   
Could be that I am friends with assholes, no matter where they are on the sex spectrum. 
Context.

mcgruff10

F Me In The Brain said:

People can find anything offensive. 
Do you have any male, gay, friends?  Listen to how harsh they can be.  Homo is on the tame side.  They are joking the same way that I joke with my 250+ pound friend by calling him a fat bastard and hiding food when he comes over.  (Or pointing out that some of my patio furniture chairs have tags on the bottom stating there is a 200 lb limit...so he needs to sit elsewhere.  "The ground doesn't have any limit.")   
Could be that I am friends with assholes, no matter where they are on the sex spectrum. 
Context.

I think you are describing locker room talk.  
But yes, I find the word "homo" offensive.

oftenreading

People could find anything offensive, but some things are much more likely to be found offensive, generally because they are meant to be offensive and both parties know that. In the case of friends joking with each other, both parties know that offense isn’t intended. 

F Me In The Brain

mcgruff10 said:

F Me In The Brain said:

People can find anything offensive. 
Do you have any male, gay, friends?  Listen to how harsh they can be.  Homo is on the tame side.  They are joking the same way that I joke with my 250+ pound friend by calling him a fat bastard and hiding food when he comes over.  (Or pointing out that some of my patio furniture chairs have tags on the bottom stating there is a 200 lb limit...so he needs to sit elsewhere.  "The ground doesn't have any limit.")   
Could be that I am friends with assholes, no matter where they are on the sex spectrum. 
Context.

I think you are describing locker room talk.  
But yes, I find the word "homo" offensive.

Ha!  In the true sense of the term, I could make an argument for such talk.  In the Trump-ian sense...umm, no.

My friends....we rip one another constantly.  Perhaps that is because we are all jerks. 

mcgruff10

F Me In The Brain said:

mcgruff10 said:

F Me In The Brain said:

People can find anything offensive. 
Do you have any male, gay, friends?  Listen to how harsh they can be.  Homo is on the tame side.  They are joking the same way that I joke with my 250+ pound friend by calling him a fat bastard and hiding food when he comes over.  (Or pointing out that some of my patio furniture chairs have tags on the bottom stating there is a 200 lb limit...so he needs to sit elsewhere.  "The ground doesn't have any limit.")   
Could be that I am friends with assholes, no matter where they are on the sex spectrum. 
Context.

I think you are describing locker room talk.  
But yes, I find the word "homo" offensive.

Ha!  In the true sense of the term, I could make an argument for such talk.  In the Trump-ian sense...umm, no.

My friends....we rip one another constantly.  Perhaps that is because we are all jerks. 

I'm sure we are all the same when hanging out with our friends.

KC138045

Any of you homo's touch any of my stuff, and I'll kill ya!!!

rgambs

oftenreading said:

People could find anything offensive, but some things are much more likely to be found offensive, generally because they are meant to be offensive and both parties know that. In the case of friends joking with each other, both parties know that offense isn’t intended. 

Bingo.

stuckinline

I find it offensive.

KC138045

I personally don't find it offensive but I certainly wouldn't say it in certain company.

unsung

Is homosexual offensive?

rgambs

unsung said:

Is homosexual offensive?

Objection, leading the witness.

rgambs

Everyone knows where you intend to go with that, so no need to bother.  It's still offensive when it's clearly intended to be.

dignin

F Me In The Brain said:

People can find anything offensive. 
Do you have any male, gay, friends?  Listen to how harsh they can be.  Homo is on the tame side.  They are joking the same way that I joke with my 250+ pound friend by calling him a fat bastard and hiding food when he comes over.  (Or pointing out that some of my patio furniture chairs have tags on the bottom stating there is a 200 lb limit...so he needs to sit elsewhere.  "The ground doesn't have any limit.")   
Could be that I am friends with assholes, no matter where they are on the sex spectrum. 
Context.

Well yeah, I say offensive things to my friends all the time...and they throw it right back. But that's my friends and in a private setting, it wouldn't be appropriate to say those things to strangers and in public....because they are offensive.

HughFreakingDillon

for me, context matters. I would have said "alwasy offensive" in the 80's. Now, I view it more as just a descriptive term, like I said in the other thread, no different than shortening heterosexual to just hetero. 

totally depends on how it's used. But yeah, MOST of the time it is used in a derogatory manner. 

F Me In The Brain

dignin said:

F Me In The Brain said:

People can find anything offensive. 
Do you have any male, gay, friends?  Listen to how harsh they can be.  Homo is on the tame side.  They are joking the same way that I joke with my 250+ pound friend by calling him a fat bastard and hiding food when he comes over.  (Or pointing out that some of my patio furniture chairs have tags on the bottom stating there is a 200 lb limit...so he needs to sit elsewhere.  "The ground doesn't have any limit.")   
Could be that I am friends with assholes, no matter where they are on the sex spectrum. 
Context.

Well yeah, I say offensive things to my friends all the time...and they throw it right back. But that's my friends and in a private setting, it wouldn't be appropriate to say those things to strangers and in public....because they are offensive.

Agree.  And...I wouldn't say many of the things I say to my friends...to my friends, in public.  Just to be considerate of those around us.

PJ_Soul

rgambs said:

I don't think there are many contexts in which homo is not deliberately meant to be offensive.
Most people who use words like homo and debate PC do so with the intent to be antagonistic.  They want to be offensive because they are bitter and grumpy.
I say that as someone who is prone to bitterness and grumpiness.

There are plenty... particularly when gay people use it, and I've heard that tons of times. I don't have a horse in this race - I do not struggle with this issue of "on no, have I accidentally offended a gay person??" at all. I don't use terms related to homosexuality as slang... not anymore that is. There was a time when saying "that is so gay" or whatever to say that something is stupid or lame was completely commonplace - I think it was almost like muscle memory at the time for people. But even then, not once did I ever mentally connect that use of the word with actual gay people. It never even occurred to me - it's like they were two completely different words to me. That said, I'd never say it now. It has become unacceptable to use that word in a negative context, and quite right.

josevolution

It is !

brianlux

F Me In The Brain said:

People can find anything offensive. 
Do you have any male, gay, friends?  Listen to how harsh they can be.  Homo is on the tame side.  They are joking the same way that I joke with my 250+ pound friend by calling him a fat bastard and hiding food when he comes over.  (Or pointing out that some of my patio furniture chairs have tags on the bottom stating there is a 200 lb limit...so he needs to sit elsewhere.  "The ground doesn't have any limit.")   
Could be that I am friends with assholes, no matter where they are on the sex spectrum. 
Context.

How you talk to a friend is a different matter.  In the early 80's I had a gay friend, M.K., (one of the first to die in the AIDS epidemic- great guy, very difficult loss).  I could have called him "queer" when that was even more highly offense  than it is today, although I never did) and he would have just laughed.  He joked with me a lot.  One time, a group of friends were walking down the street after we had all had a drink in one of M.K.'s favorite bars in the S.F. Castro District, The Stud, and I bent over to tie my shoe.  M.K. was walking behind me and when I bent over he sang out, "Cheerio-o-o-o-o-s!"  That was a riot.  Would he do that do a stranger.  No.  Would I refer to any gay person I didn't have a friendship with as "queer" or "fag" or "homo"?  Absolutely not. 

PJ_Soul

brianlux said:

F Me In The Brain said:

People can find anything offensive. 
Do you have any male, gay, friends?  Listen to how harsh they can be.  Homo is on the tame side.  They are joking the same way that I joke with my 250+ pound friend by calling him a fat bastard and hiding food when he comes over.  (Or pointing out that some of my patio furniture chairs have tags on the bottom stating there is a 200 lb limit...so he needs to sit elsewhere.  "The ground doesn't have any limit.")   
Could be that I am friends with assholes, no matter where they are on the sex spectrum. 
Context.

How you talk to a friend is a different matter.  In the early 80's I had a gay friend, M.K., (one of the first to die in the AIDS epidemic- great guy, very difficult loss).  I could have called him "queer" when that was even more highly offense  than it is today, although I never did) and he would have just laughed.  He joked with me a lot.  One time, a group of friends were walking down the street after we had all had a drink in one of M.K.'s favorite bars in the S.F. Castro District, The Stud, and I bent over to tie my shoe.  M.K. was walking behind me and when I bent over he sang out, "Cheerio-o-o-o-o-s!"  That was a riot.  Would he do that do a stranger.  No.  Would I refer to any gay person I didn't have a friendship with as "queer" or "fag" or "homo"?  Absolutely not. 

Well god no. Anyone who does that is probably a homophobe or really, really fucking stupid, or both.

F Me In The Brain

brianlux said:

F Me In The Brain said:

People can find anything offensive. 
Do you have any male, gay, friends?  Listen to how harsh they can be.  Homo is on the tame side.  They are joking the same way that I joke with my 250+ pound friend by calling him a fat bastard and hiding food when he comes over.  (Or pointing out that some of my patio furniture chairs have tags on the bottom stating there is a 200 lb limit...so he needs to sit elsewhere.  "The ground doesn't have any limit.")   
Could be that I am friends with assholes, no matter where they are on the sex spectrum. 
Context.

How you talk to a friend is a different matter.  In the early 80's I had a gay friend, M.K., (one of the first to die in the AIDS epidemic- great guy, very difficult loss).  I could have called him "queer" when that was even more highly offense  than it is today, although I never did) and he would have just laughed.  He joked with me a lot.  One time, a group of friends were walking down the street after we had all had a drink in one of M.K.'s favorite bars in the S.F. Castro District, The Stud, and I bent over to tie my shoe.  M.K. was walking behind me and when I bent over he sang out, "Cheerio-o-o-o-o-s!"  That was a riot.  Would he do that do a stranger.  No.  Would I refer to any gay person I didn't have a friendship with as "queer" or "fag" or "homo"?  Absolutely not. 

Yep, I get it.  Sorry about MK btw, that sucks.
My boss and I were out drinking in CA my last trip out there and these two dudes were next to us and wayyyy more drunk than we were.  They started asking us how long we had been together, if our wives knew...all sorts of stuff like that, to try and throw us off. 
We played it up, it was funny.   Talked all sorts of urban dictionary type terms with them. 
(A few of my wife's gay buddies from LA used to mess with me every single time we went out in a group.  Constantly try to embarrass me -- until they learned it is about impossible to accomplish.  A few drunken gay dudes messing with me as a grown adult did nothing but make me laugh.  I know I like vaginas.)
They went off to find some other people to pick on.
Not sure what sort of harassment that would qualify as.  We thought it was funny, though.
Not so sure some others might....and that is what they seemed to be looking for.

dankind

I find Homo Larry to be offensive.

brianlux

dankind said:

I find Homo Larry to be offensive.

I had to look up who this Dan is and in the process came across the term "no homo".  Wikipedia defines that as "a phrase used as slang at the end of a sentence to assert the statement spoken by the speaker had no intentional homosexual implications" and that it is "used in a lyrical context comes as a pre-emptive maneuver to deflect any attacks on the artist's masculinity or heterosexual status."  This sounds like more homophobia to me but apparently it is used in contemporary culture.  In any case, I'm not for using the term.

Man, it's hard to keep up with all the lingo changes these days.

PJ_Soul

I think the whole no-homo thing is definitely homophobic, however unintentional. It's also fucking stupid.

rgambs

I think no homo started with the military, I know that's the context I first heard it.  My Army buddy still says it anytime he states his feelings.  It's borderline pathetic.