Vacation Post: Slang For Gay ... Old-School

I once had a person comment on the blog that they didn’t like me using the word “queer” when talking about The Gays. I responded that, while I know, and believe me, I know, the pain that word can cause, I was taking it back and in doing so, taking away some of the pain caused when I first started hearing that word in relation to me.

See, before 'gay' became the common and accepted word choice in describing homosexuals, there were a whole bunch of other words about men who loved men; some names were self-created and others were thrust, often cruelly, upon gay, bi, and queer men. 

So, as a way of keeping the words, and our history, alive, and, again, as a way of taking them back, let’s look at some ways in which people referred to The Gays …

Mary

A common, mostly innocuous term of the middle of the 20th century used among gay and bi men. An alternative: Mary Louise.

Light in the loafers

Mid-century American. It can refer more to demeanor than sexual practices, but it is mildly derogatory.

Friend of Dorothy

Refers to Dorothy Gale of The Wizard of Oz? Played by Judy Garland in the film? Get it? Huh?

Bent

Polite but derogatory; there was a Broadway play and film of the same name.

Poof

Australian/British slang that is said to be derived from the sounds the bugee makes when expelling air from a freshly stretched anus; poofter is also acceptable.

Flit

1950s American slang popularized by J.D. Salinger’s novel The Catcher in the Rye.

Bugger

Can be as widely used as the word fuck with as many meanings. Based on the word buggery [sodomy], it carries with it a rowdy feel, as it is a word straight British men tend to favor.

Fairy

This one denotes not only homosexuality but effeminacy. 

Pansy

When British eccentric Stephen Tennant was but a lad, he ran out of the family mansion one morning to play, only to come screaming back to his mother in tears. When she queried him about his distress, he replied, “Mother, there are pansies in the garden, and they are staring at me!”

Fruit, also Fruitcake

A British term, possibly from the gay subculture language Polari. Fruitcake can also mean a crazy person because gay meant crazy.

Uranian

The earliest reference available come from Karl Heinrich Ulrichs' book The Race of Uranian Hermaphrodites, i.e., the Man-Loving Half-Men in 1864. The term came to be used mostly by German men. There is still a gay touring agency called Uranian Travel.

Nancy boy

Based on a vaudeville term. The Nance was a gay burlesque character that was a staple of the times, though it is now considered derogatory.

Pillow biter

It was ALLEGED that British MP Jeremy Thorpe, left, a former leader of the U.K. Liberal Party, was having a homosexual affair with Norman Scott, right, a model, and that Thorpe claimed he had to “bite the pillow” to keep quiet so his wife would not hear him being buggered in the next room. This story seems fairly conflated, but amusing enough to repeat here.

Shirt lifter

Well, obviously you don’t want to get your shirt besmirched when you're prpeared to bugger or be buggered, do you? 

Invert

Essentially meaning that despite outward markers of male and female gender, a person’s sexual nature was inverted. This term was popularized in the late 19th and early 20th century by sexologists, but doubtfully used among the actual inverts. 

And this was long before queer and fag and ass bandit and cock jockey and flamer and … oh there are so many ….

The Advocate