"Fag" Is Turning into a High School Insult for Any Guy Who Doesn't Play Football

[marmar]

from American Sexuality Mag., via AlterNet:



"Fag" Is Turning into a High School Insult for Any Guy Who Doesn't Play Football

By C. J. Pascoe, American Sexuality Magazine. Posted October 20, 2007.


The author of the new book, "Dude, You're a Fag," explores how homophobia operates in high school.


"I'm talking like sixth grade, I started being called a fag. Fifth grade I was called a fag. Third grade I was called a fag," seventeen-year-old *Ricky recounted as we sat at a plastic picnic table outside of a fast food restaurant in California's Sacramento delta region. Though he experienced this type of harassment throughout elementary and junior high school, Ricky said that the threats intensified as he entered *River High School.

At "all the schools the verbal part . . . the slang, 'the fag,' the 'fuckin' freak,' 'fucking fag,' all that stuff is all the same. But this is the only school that throws water bottles, throws rocks, and throws food." Harassment like this hounded him out of his school's homecoming football game. "Two guys started walking up to get tickets said, 'There's that fucking fag.'" During the game boys threw balloons and bottles at Ricky along with comments like, "What the fuck is that fag doing here? That fag has no right to be here."

While this singular event stands out as particularly hate filled, Ricky's story also illustrates the larger problems of homophobia and gender-based teasing in high school. Homophobic taunting is especially intense during adolescence, a time when sexuality and romance are at the fore of social life. For boys, and not just those who are branded as gay, walking through a hallway is like running a gauntlet of homophobic insults as their male classmates imitate effeminate men and hurl homophobic slurs. My book, Dude, You're a Fag: Masculinity and Sexuality in High School, examines this ubiquitous homophobia. During my year and a half of research at River High, I found that these comments, when coming from and directed at boys, often have as much to do with shoring up definitions of masculinity as they do with reinforcing notions of "normal" heterosexuality.

This is particularly true of the slur "fag." While the term "gay" is frequently used as a synonym for stupid, it lacks the gender loaded skew of the term "fag." Oftentimes when boys call someone a "fag" they simultaneously imitate effeminate men (in other words, behavior they consider to be "fag-like"). Their homophobic comments, jokes, and interactions, in a sense, serve to punish others into behaving in stereotypically masculine ways. Though homophobia is usually thought of as fear of same sex attraction, in high school, boys' homophobia is also about policing gendered norms.

At River High I saw and heard boys imitate effeminate behavior and hurl the word "fag" so frequently at one another that I came to call it a "fag discourse." Invoking this epithet and joking about "fags" were not just random incidents, but systemic and well accepted ways for teenage boys to communicate. Boys talked about others they considered to be "fags," made jokes about unmasculine mannerisms, imitated those mannerisms, and used the term to insult one another both jokingly and seriously. They lisped, pretended to lust after men, and drew laughs from primarily male onlookers. They frantically lobbed the epithet at one another, in a sort of compulsive name calling ritual. Because the "fag" slur is and isn't about sexual desire, both self-identified gay boys and heterosexual boys were subject to the label for failing at stereotypically masculine tasks or revealing, in any way, weakness or femininity. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/sex/65697/

[rfranklin]

1. Embrace the term...most people don't play football...

If everbody wore a "FAG" t-shirt, the term would lose its power to humiliate and discriminate.

[Prophet 451]

2. Never had it here

I'm a Brit. Here, the term "fag" means a cigarette (from "faggot", a bunch of burning twigs) and "faggot" is a ball of sausage meat, boiled in gravy (traditionally, the entire pot was filled with gravy and shoved into the base of a fire).

That said, I can still remember how anyone not hyper-macho was picked on at school. Hell, I was an amateur boxer and wrestler and got it purely because I had long hair and liked to read.

[Kikosexy2]

23. Tell them...

you play fag football and not flag football....after all football is quite an homoerotic sport...men in tight pants, bent over, booty up and the quarterback has his hands up the center's ass (practically)..there's something mighty faggy about that now...such a shame homophobia still exist...probably always will.

[Buzz Clik]

3. Most high schoolers' speech has very scant literal meaning.

"Gay" is a high-impact insult because it has implications beyond the topic at hand. And, with 99.999% of the high school population being completely homophobic, it's an insult that works.

Fortunately, it's been so overused that the sting is gone. Kids react to it at the same level as "dumb."

[FedUp_Queer]

19. Perhaps you're joking...

But I am sick of that sentiment. As an adult gay person, even when I hear that term now, it's biting. It's insulting. Gay people, and the epithets that go with being gay, are the only acceptable scapegoats and butts of jokes today. "Fag" is still acceptable. Insert Buzz Clik's comment about the word "nigger" or "christ-killer" or "spic" and see how much the sting is gone, even though those words are used all the time.

[Locrian]

4. pot meet kettle....

Highschool football? Now THERES a group of homo-erotic repressesed sexuality....

[AZ Criminal JD]

12. Didn't make the team?

What a stupid remark about high school athletics.

[Locrian]

17. strike a nerve?

Me thinks you doth protest too much....

[Baby Snooks]

5. But bullying is good for boys...

Everyone who opposes "bullying laws" should read this and ask themselves if they really think bullying is good for boys. Or girls.

Not only do bullies sometimes turn violent but sometimes so do the bullied. Few realize that contributed to what happened at Columbine.

[jhrobbins]

6. What a paradox - I grew up in the late 60's early 70's and that

phrase wasn't used much and, in fact, I was rarely (never actually) harassed. But now, in the time when polls say that young people are much more accepting of gays and lesbians there seems to be more violence perpetrated on young gay kids. What's the deal? I'm asking.

[emmadoggy]

9. Me too.

I'm a little younger than you - grew up in the 70's & 80's (graduated in '85). These terms were very seldom used. In fact, I grew up in a very small rural Iowa town. My graduating class was 42 students. One of my best friends (a guy) was widely suspected to be gay. But he was one of the more popular kids in my class with both the girls and the guys. No one ever asked him if he was gay (like I said, people suspected and it did get discussed - however, I found that the people who were always most wanting to know, were people who didn't know him as well and would ask me or his other friends.) Amongst most of my classmates it was rarely discussed. Anyway, I don't know of ANY harrassment that ever occurred. There may have been people who called him things behind his back, but I don't recall any direct harrassment.

By the way, my sister is very close friends with his sister and I believe he did eventually come out - at least to his family. Not sure if he is out beyond that. I've only seen him a few times since high school and he lives farther away so I'm not sure.

I would agree with you that there seems to be more violence and harrassment now. I don't get it. Honestly, I just think that social behavior in general has really gone down the crapper. :shrug: Politeness, decorum, and good manners seem much rarer these days.

[rAVES]

7. Football with armor on... oh teh irony..

[TwilightGardener]

8. My younger son (11) gets called "gay" or "fag" almost every day.

He's not athletic, plays the clarinet and is a bit socially inept (ADHD). It used to upset him more, but now he just expects it and ignores it--except for the occasional fistfight and in-school suspension (sigh).

[Baby Snooks]

10. But it's "good for him"

That's what a Republican would say. It toughens boys up. Makes men out of boys.

In the distorted world the Republicans live in, girls are supposed to bake cookies. Boys are supposed to beat the shit out of each other.

In the real world the rest of us live in, some boys would like to bake cookies. Some girls would like to beat the shit out of Ann Coulter.

In a perfect world, boys would be allowed to bake cookies. And girls would be allowed to beat the shit out of Ann Coulter.

[SunDrop23]

25. Same here. In my case...

The husband of a dear friend of mine kept referring to musicians as "flamers." After the third instance, I explained to him I didn't appreciate at it since my oldest son, who is currently testing two grade levels above where he should be, was an avid musician. I then gathered my belongs and left his house and have not spoken to him since.

[struggle4progress]

11. It's nothing new: this was common in central Texas forty years ago --

and even back then it was all about maintaining a certain traditional and stereotypical "masculinity"

[dsc]

13. It makes me so angry to read about this kind of thing still going on

I took so much shit in school and know how it makes you feel. It kills your soul. You actually begin to feel you deserve what you are getting. I hope Aaron and Ricky are OK, but somehow suspect they won't be for quite some time.

[comtec]

14. um.. no offence to the OP.. but this is news?!

That slur has been around at least since I was in school in the 80's/90's.
Nothing to be done about it. You are looking at the Norms trying to separate themselves from US. nothing can be done. Education that it's crude is like telling the blacks to stop calling each other niggah!

This might stop in another 20 years, but it's unlikely. Boys will attack each other's masculinity because that's what males do. It's not kind, or nice, but honestly, does anyone remember how much testosterone was rushing through your body between 13 and 25?

[iaviate1]

20. Things can be done about it.

I've seen it in college and at the corporation I work for. As soon as the offenders are stopped, people are more comfortable coming out and are much more likely to be supported by classmates and colleagues. People can be suspended, reprimanded, or fired for this behavior... suggesting that there is nothing to be done is incorrect from my experience.

[ejbr]

15. Ironically, this faggot

was MVP on my high school football team. (God's honest truth)

[dsc]

18. That must have been so hard

I learned, through really hard work, to fool people for small amounts of time I literally can't imagine do it so long. Great for you on the talent on the field it must have taken as well.

[ejbr]

22. Thanks and yes, it was difficult

But I saw how the effeminate guys were treated and, at the time, found being in the closet the lesser of two evils. However, I was able to use my athletic ability as a buffer. So in senior year my two best friends were the two most effeminate guys in my class. As MVP, most guys either talked behind our backs or looked for other prey.
;-)

[Bitwit1234]

16. This word is not "turning" into an insult

it has been around as an insult since I went to high school in the 50's why is it new now....whenever one of the so called macho's wanted to dis another they called him a "fag".

[orleans]

21. exactly. there is certainly nothing new about this--except the

"you're so gay" crack which sprung into my awareness when my daughter was in grade school and her friends used it.

[SunDrop23]

24. And yet those macho football players are so tough they have to wear pads.

Rugby on the other hand...