•Attempts to take words used negatively and “reclaim” them for positive in-group usage

•Big issue: for which speakers, in which contexts, for which purposes are terms reclaimed

•Lesbian versus dyke: also where many see difference in behavior vs. identity (neutral vs.“in your face”, or degree of “butchness”)

•Faggot: mixed response; Dan Savage uses it, has received negative responses

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

i heard this term used today for the first time on the radio :

Geoffrey Nunberg is a linguistics professor at Stanford and a regular language commentator on NPR. His recent book is Going Nucular: Language, Politics, and Culture in Controversial Times.

and then found mention of it (excerpted above) in a paper titled "Queer Linguistics Heteronormativity Sexual Categories." other sites mentioned it in the context of racial and religious minority use. im familar with the practice just not the term. i believe there are artworld applications worth investigating (like abstraction) and no im not talking about the invective "artfags."


- bill 6-18-2004 11:52 pm [add a comment]

Impressionism & Fauvism started out as epithets (other examples are escaping me at the moment).
- tom moody 6-19-2004 12:37 am [add a comment]

I think bear-f**ker used to be derogatory before the film Super Troopers.
- sally mckay 6-19-2004 5:26 am [add a comment]