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The term 'gay' has it changed meaning? - 11/7/2012 5:05:00 PM

MstrPBK

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in the mid 1970's

Gay meant a male who was homosexual
Lesbian meant a female who was homosexual
Bisexual meant a male or female who was comfortable in the intimate company of either a male or female.

The new generation ... seems to be telling me that 'gay' can refer to either Male or female with out gender preference attached (to me a confused version of bisexual)
In the 2010'a what is the correct way to say your male looking for Male partners???

MstrPBK
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RE: The term 'gay' has it changed meaning? - 11/7/2012 5:13:27 PM

JanahX

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People make up their own definitions for words all the time. And this does not make it so. Words have certain meanings - if there is confusion please refer to a dictionary.

If it is slang - then refer to the urban dictionary.

The end.

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RE: The term 'gay' has it changed meaning? - 11/7/2012 5:15:39 PM

stef

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quote:

ORIGINAL: MstrPBK

In the 2010'a what is the correct way to say your male looking for Male partners???

Why don't you just say that? Seems simple enough, why complicate things?

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RE: The term 'gay' has it changed meaning? - 11/7/2012 5:29:48 PM

LookieNoNookie

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quote:

ORIGINAL: MstrPBK

in the mid 1970's

Gay meant a male who was homosexual
Lesbian meant a female who was homosexual
Bisexual meant a male or female who was comfortable in the intimate company of either a male or female.

The new generation ... seems to be telling me that 'gay' can refer to either Male or female with out gender preference attached (to me a confused version of bisexual)
In the 2010'a what is the correct way to say your male looking for Male partners???

MstrPBK
St. Paul MN USA

I thought "gay" meant extraordinarily happy.

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RE: The term 'gay' has it changed meaning? - 11/7/2012 5:34:04 PM

ScarletKissesx

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Gay did in fact mean happy, otherwise the christmas song have yourself a merry little christmas has changed meaning. (let your heart be gay).

However the term has changed its simply a way of blanketting a sexual prefrence, labels at the end of the day and sure labels are for clothes :)

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RE: The term 'gay' has it changed meaning? - 11/7/2012 6:13:49 PM

MstrPBK

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Directed at stef:

There in lies the rub of the issue. This discussion originates from a chat location online which does not have a forum like CollarMe has. The population of this other site is ... decidedly younger. My profile on that site I have re-written three (3) times; and most recently I rewrote the first line of that profile to become "male looking for male partners" .. and I still have females making inappropriate advances of the sexual kind.

I brought the question to the other sites gay discussion room and all I got from the limited representation was that they felt the term was changing but they could not articulate to what it was becoming in meaning ... which left me with the ORIGINAL Post above in the hopes of reaching a broader audience of discussion. I want to be understood; but to be understood I need to know how to write it for broadest understanding.

Do not get me wrong I do like females - as social friends and professional contacts. For me the bedroom is not where I am comfortable having them. (no disrespect to any female here).

MstrPBK
St. Paul, MN USA

And yes gay did at one time as a term to say to be happy or joyous. So those who know that have an inkling of what this discussion is about.

< Message edited by MstrPBK -- 11/7/2012 6:18:08 PM >

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RE: The term 'gay' has it changed meaning? - 11/7/2012 6:57:10 PM

ScarletKissesx

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Be straightforward and state you are not seeking female partners full stop although friendship is welcome.

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RE: The term 'gay' has it changed meaning? - 11/7/2012 8:35:38 PM

stef

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quote:

ORIGINAL: MstrPBK

There in lies the rub of the issue. This discussion originates from a chat location online which does not have a forum like CollarMe has. The population of this other site is ... decidedly younger. My profile on that site I have re-written three (3) times; and most recently I rewrote the first line of that profile to become "male looking for male partners" .. and I still have females making inappropriate advances of the sexual kind.

You're seriously overthinking this. If a woman is dense enough to hit on you after saying you're looking for other men, then the issue is hers and not yours. You have clearly stated what you're looking for and they chose to ignore it or they didn't read it in the first place. Changing your wording would fix neither problem.

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RE: The term 'gay' has it changed meaning? - 11/7/2012 9:32:38 PM

lovethyself

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They most likely never read your profile in the first place. I've had that problem here. I put at the bottom in my journal that if you can't prove that you are both a real person, and don't mention something from my profile, then I will not respond.

Then, use the 'delete message' button accordingly.

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RE: The term 'gay' has it changed meaning? - 11/7/2012 9:46:02 PM

littlewonder

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I'm hetero so I call myself straight.

But yes, the newer generation respond to gay as being anyone, male or female, who fucks the same gender or even bi, although that one is not as common. I think they just got tired of having use all those words all the time so they just lumped it all into one word.

ETA: Dude, you've been here long enough to know that those people who respond to profiles never read them. Why would it be different on any other site with profiles?

< Message edited by littlewonder -- 11/7/2012 9:48:55 PM >

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RE: The term 'gay' has it changed meaning? - 11/8/2012 9:26:09 AM

Aswad

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quote:

ORIGINAL: JanahX

The end.

A convenient ending to a bit of a fairytale.

People do indeed make up new definitions for words; it's how we came to have other words than ugh, argh and aieee, something I'm quite happy about. Language is organic, words lack well defined meanings, and dictionaries are descriptions that try not to lag too far behind; all else is dogmatic folly.

The new usage pattern is more orthogonal and more fit. It would become the dominant usage in an analytic language like English for this reason alone. Analytical languages build phrases (like "gay blond man"), rather than building words (say, "gambi" to denote gay blonde guys). Straight conveys nothing about gender. Bi conveys nothing about gender. Gay completes the regular series, and fits perfectly in there. The notion that gay is a term for male gays is going away. If you want to be clear, say "gay man", and it'll be perceived correctly by all speakers. That's how English works in the long term, anyway.

Homosexual isn't short and catchy, whereas gay is, and so that's how it will be (and, to some extent, already is).

straight woman - gay woman - bi woman
straight man - gay man - bi man

The only reason the word lesbian isn't going away, is because the aggregate meaning ("woman that'll have sex with a woman") is used in porn and is rather popular there, and also used in certain communities as an identity that is isolated from the greater LGBT communities (a matter of sexism, really).

OP: just say "gay man" and make everyone happy.

IWYW,
— Aswad.

P.S.: The reason? We're no longer naming anomalies. We're referring to the sexualities of regular people. Ain't progress grand? Makes me smile, it does.

< Message edited by Aswad -- 11/8/2012 9:27:40 AM >

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RE: The term 'gay' has it changed meaning? - 11/8/2012 9:28:21 AM

mnottertail

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Exactly new words are being created and destroyed all the time.

Gay was gay before, then it meant gay (and I dont remember it being confined to just males)

and now you got ghey which isn't ghey at all.

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RE: The term 'gay' has it changed meaning? - 11/8/2012 10:17:26 AM

UnholyBear

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quote:

ORIGINAL: mnottertail

Exactly new words are being created and destroyed all the time.

Gay was gay before, then it meant gay (and I dont remember it being confined to just males)

and now you got ghey which isn't ghey at all.

Exactly.

The unfortunate aspect is as the newer terms become more popular, the standard terms are thus seen as wrong. One trend I noticed is men will specify they are a "gay male" and women will state they are "lesbian." At one time, gay was commonly accepted as a umbrella tern which encompassed both men, women and all flavors in between. Now it's a terrible faux pas to be too general in interpreting the labels but almost sacrilege to be too specific as too often the person wrongly assumes you are labeling them too much.

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