Gay in slang
LGBTQIA+ Slurs and Slang
bog queen
Synonyms: Bathsheba (composition between bathroom and Sheba to design a name reminiscent of the Queen of Sheba), Ghost (50s, ghost, because they wander the corridors of the bathroom).
AIDS Terrorist - Someone who is HIV+ and who knowingly engages in unsafe sex.
B & D - Bondage and discipline. A milder form of S & M which involves one partner being at least constrained.
Baby Dyke - A young or inexperienced lesbian, particularly of elevated school or college age.
Bareback - The practice of having anal sex without using a barrier method of a condom. As in skin-to-skin sex or uncooked sex.
Basket - A man's crotch.
Bear - An extremely hairy man.
Beef - Buffed men.
Blue - Gay, referring mostly to males.
Blue Balls - Term used to describe an extremely horney male.
Bog Queen - A gay male who frequents public toilets for sex.
Bottom - The passive or submissive partner in anal intercourse.
Breeders - A derogatory term for heterosexuals, especially for those who glorify childbearing.
Brown Eye - A derogatory term for the anus.
Bungie Boy - Straight-acting, but homosexual or bi-boy.
Bunker Shy - A young man who fears entity forced into homosexual sex. Derivation from a 19th century prison term.
Butch - Masculine.
Chicken - Anyone who is under the legal age of consent. Young ga
The History of the Word 'Gay' and other Queerwords
Lesbians may have a longer linguistic history than gay men. Contrary to the incomplete information given in the OED, the word lesbian has meant “female homosexual” since at least the preliminary eighteenth century. William King in his satire The Toast (published 1732, revised 1736), referred to “Lesbians” as women who “loved Women in the similar Manner as Men love them”. During that century, references to “Sapphic lovers” and “Sapphist” meant a woman who liked “her hold sex in a criminal way”. For centuries before that, comparing a female to Sappho of Lesbos implied passions that were more than poetic.
Unfortunately we don’t comprehend the origins of the most ordinary queerwords that became popular during the 1930s through 1950s – gay, dyke, faggot, queer, fairy. Dyke, meaning butch lesbian, goes assist to 1920s inky American slang: bull-diker or bull-dagger. It might go assist to the 1850s phrase “all diked out” or “all decked out”, interpretation faultlessly dressed – in this case, like a guy or “bull”. The word faggot goes back to 1914, when “faggots” and “fairies” were said to attend “drag balls”. Nels Anderson in
Part of the fun of researching 1920’s and 1930’s Queer subculture in Brand-new York City was coming across a wide variety of specialized slang and coded terms that flourished among homosexual men and women of the time. Some of these terms are solely of their time, some have survived into the modern era, albeit often with modified meanings.
Not surprisingly, for a social group that for the most part did not conduct themselves openly in society, a lot of these terms constitute a kind of confidential language available only to those “in the club”. They describe sexual preferences and types, as adv as particular places and activities important to homosexuals of the time.
Folding these terms into the libretto of “Speakeasy – The Adventures of John and Jane Allison in the Wonderland” was a lot of fun. For the most part the essence of the words should be clear in context. However a little confusion can be fun too, as in this moment, when John Allison eavesdrops on a trio of Gay Florists and Julian Carnation:
FLORIST 1:
You can hold 42nd Street. Give me the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
FLORIST 2:
You and your seafood, Violet!
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