I recently came upon this while wandering.
Someone should check with most of my dyke friends . We don't consider dyke to be a put-down or insult. I'm a dyke. My Sweetie is a dyke. Many of my friends are dykes. I can type the word without my fingers hurting or falling to the floor, disengaged from my hands.
I don't know about "faggot". I have a friend of some thirty years or more who has referred to himself as a "faggot". I'd appreciate hearing from some of the guys how they feel about the word.
English can be peculiar. At times, a subtle change in pitch or intonation can transform the meaning of simple words completely. I am reminded of my truly pathetic attempts to learn a few words in Vietnamese from some good friends that had a restaurant I haunted. It seems I just don't
hear the differences between a great many words in that language, and so have no hope at all of ever correctly pronouncing them. Luckily for me the tonal variances in English are not so subtle. A simple grunt can be forced to serve for affirmation, negation, approval, strong approval, dismissal... any number of meanings, and all would be spelled "mmm" (or 'emmm'). My employer causes me no end of consternation by consistently asking "How ARE you?" (clearly an enquiry into my current health status) as opposed to "how are YOU" (a common variant of 'hello' that deserves only a ritual response).
I'm quite certain I can pronounce the word 'dyke' in such a way as to richly deserve the trouncing I would get for doing so at the neighborhood lesbian bar. I am acquainted with the way this word is used in a friendly manner, but I'm not at all certain that I could get away with using it in mixed company 100% of the time. It can be a delicate thing for males to pronounce the word "dyke" without producing offence. There is a great deal of history behind the word and it's usage. If you ask nicely and listen carefully, women might be willing to inform you of it.
Now, about "faggot."
I know this word. I've referred to myself with this word from time to time for over thirty years myself.
As a matter of accuracy, Mr. Washington did NOT recently call TR Knight a faggot. He is reported to have said "I'm not your faggot like TR is." (Or something along those lines). "TR is a faggot" is a different thing than "TR is your faggot." ...Not so different that the story and it's resultant scandal should be revised, but different. Apart from the completely different British vernacular usage of the term 'fag,' it just isn't possible for straight people to use this word without intending offence. "Faggot" is not just a synonym for homosexual. The word has layers of connotation, including an implicit comparative relationship to 'not faggot'.
Yes, gays often use the word 'faggot,' and they often employ it in a very bitter and caustic way. Gay vernacular speech frequently contains a great deal of derision, mockery, and casual slander as a matter of course. We often speak to each other in jocular repartee in manners that would lead to assault and murder if the same phrases were uttered in much the same way by straights in a straight context. Maybe we shouldn't behave this way. Maybe we shouldn't do so quite so frequently. Maybe this is something we should get around to debating among ourselves. But yes... we use the word 'faggot' quite blithely.
FUFBUF contains three 'F's and two of them happen to represent the word 'fags.' When I named the board FUFBUF I did so on purpose. The word 'faggot' implicitly includes a certain juxtaposition with straights. It comes with baggage, history. It does not matter whether it is 50 years of history, 100 years of history, or thousands of years of history. We could bicker for quite some time about how long this 'special relationship' with the straights has been going on. The word 'gay' doesn't automatically call up that history; the word 'fag' does.
If a person knows what a fag is and has been, what his relationship to the greater society is and has been, what his place in the universe is and has been, then by all means... use it. If you do not have a working knowledge of the connotative meaning of the word 'faggot,' it is unlikely as hell that you will be able to use it in mixed company correctly. You see, this 'special relationship' is inherently transitive. The baggage that comes with the word is transitive. The word 'faggot' is all about what has been done to us, continues to be done to us, and likely will continue to be done to us. The history of the relationship between gays and straights is littered with blood and ashes, pain and rape and torture and murder. When you have a working knowledge of this history, it's quite easy to use the word "faggot" in a completely friendly, even affectionate way. But the very transitive character of the baggage that comes with the word 'faggot' makes it impossible to employ this word in a friendly manner from a straight context. It is one thing to be a faggot and been done to. It is quite another to have done to the faggots.
The change in context is not unlike that in another word with an entirely transitive connotation -- rape. It is one thing to be raped, quite another to have raped. The word must be used with care; it has more than one definition depending on who is using it and when and how.
In essence, when I use the word 'gay,' I'm talking about either homosexuals, or (more frequently) homosexuals who have made a sociopolitical identification with their sexuality. When I use the word 'mo, I'm just employing a casual contraction of the word 'homosexual'. When I use the word 'faggot' or any of it's derivations, I'm not actually talking about 'mos at all -- straight people have entered the discussion, and not in a very good light. The use of the word 'fag' by gays in mixed company is very often a clear indicator that the conversation has become accusatory and hostile... a cultural thing that is almost never noticed by straights.
For myself alone, I make no efforts to "reclaim" the word 'faggot.' It can keep it's unsavory baggage; that baggage informs the word considerably and makes it very useful. If the definition of 'faggot' were stripped of it's true meaning the way 'queer' has it would be useless. There is blood and ashes and a whole lot more between them and me. Sometimes it is necessary to face it.