The term « Boston marriage » was one of those appellations which, as Rebecca James puts it, avoided the « derogatory medical diagnosis » 9. In his essay A Critique of Social Constructionism and Post Modern Queer Theory, Rictor Norton explained that « all of the camp 6 talk of the eighteenth-century mollies 7, for example, was overheard by police constables who had infiltrated the molly houses such talk was virtually unknown outside the confines of a molly house » 8. Passing women (19 th century cross-dressing women who « passed » as men) were often recognized as such only at their deaths or during illness 5. Until the advent of gay rights in the 1950s-60s, homosexuality meant being subjected to a life of secret codes, special rules, and specific passwords to access private clubs. you know, or ‘that way’ », « one of them », or again « (s)he plays for the other team ». In the repressive and security-concerned Cold War environment 4, to talk about themselves, most gays and lesbians relied upon euphemisms such as « friends of Dorothy(‘s) », (after The Wizard of Oz, 1939, a classic musical popular with gay audiences), « whoopsies », « (s)he’s is a little. Until World War Two, research on what was then labeled the « language of homosexuality » focused on gender inversion, with homosexuality being regarded as a pathology characterized as sexual deviance or perversion : whereas heterosexual language equated with the appropriate gender, homosexual language displayed frequent inadequacies between the physical gender and the linguistic gender of the speaker. Most male homosexuals therefore kept their sexual orientations very much in the closet unless amidst their kin when they called each other female names-« Miss Kitten », « China Mary », « Primrose Mary », and « Dip-Candle Mary » 3-, a practice still familiar among contemporary gay men. Born as A Coded TalkģIn the Victorian era, « confess’d sodomytes » were punished with « forfeiture of all rights, including procreation »-in other words, castration, as related by Byrne R. When it comes to elaborate politically correct definitions of the « queer » universe, pink talk displays an extraordinary complexity of sexual orientations and subcultures, a possible means to compensate for linguistic deficiency and to claim a gay space on the social spectrum. Giving voice to new perceptions of gender identity while reclaiming offensive terms and a lifestyle of their own, gayspeakers are deliberately asserting cultural and, to some extent, militant ambitions. From the darker ages when homosexuality was at its best a sin and/or a perversion until the present environment of rainbow flags and gay prides, gayspeak has been used to transgress social norms, articulate particular needs and emotions, as well as reconstruct, or re-interpret, reality. Your hostess » 1.ĢFunny and provocative as it may seem, this message posted on Kinks & Queens, a gay Swedish website, not only reveals a visibility and culture that the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender community was long compelled to hush, but it also confirms the existence of a lexicon not quite like standard English. A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Culture, Capital and Travel, delivered to your inbox every Friday.1« Bi, Gay, Open Minded, Lesbian, Drag, Fetish, Shemale, Glitz and Glamor… Total You. Īnd if you liked this story, sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter, called “If You Only Read 6 Things This Week”. If you would like to comment on this story or anything else you have seen on BBC Culture, head over to our Facebook page or message us on Twitter.
DIFFERENT TERMS FOR TYPES OF GAY MEN TV
To avoid imprisonment, gay men used Polari, a language that the Oxford English Dictionary says is “made up of Italianate phrases, rhyming slang and cant terms.” It had sprung up in the 1700s and 1800s as a secret language vagrants, itinerant performers, sailors and “gypsies” – many of its words, in fact, derive from the Romany people scattered across Europe.īritish comedian Kenneth Williams often spoke Polari in his performances on BBC radio and TV programmes in the 1950s and 60s, some of which had up to 20 million listeners at a time, introducing the language to a much wider audience.
Until 1967, homosexual sex was illegal in England and Wales.
That may seem like a string of nonsense words from Dr Seuss’s The Cat in the Hat or Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange but it’s a real-life greeting gay men in the UK would say to each other in the 1950s and 60s.