Of course they're less effective once they've become mainstream. As you mentioned, many slurs gradually lose any hateful meaning, and I'm sure the term "faggotry" might be becoming a bit less offensive over time, but seeing as how it's still used by many people in a hurtful way, it's not unreasonable to expect some people to be upset in situations where it's less clear. If someone disliked a comment using the term on 4chan, I wouldn't assume they disliked it for the term, but this isn't 4chan.
A friend of mine got permabanned from Reddit a couple of days ago for calling himself a faggot. Apparently reclaiming a slur is hate speech over there.
I hear 'faggot' being used more often as a slur than as the food, with the term 'fag' used pretty much synonymously.
Then again, I'm a man who sleeps with other men, went to a crumbling concrete block of a state school and often can be found working in factory environments and hanging around with bikers.
I guess it varies greatly according to one's milieu.
When folks are calling others slurs and insults based on sexuality, there is still a lot of taboo around it. If it isn't bad to be part of the LGBT community, it is harder to use any of the words describing folks like me as insults. It is in the same strand as using nationality or skin color references as insults: If it isn't a bad thing, you won't use the insult. Of course, you could be ignorant - especially at a young age, but that also means no one has bothered to explain what it means nor encouraged to be inclusive. They definitely weren't talking about the word "fuck" in any of its forms.
I don't have anything to say about people that uses a slurs against themselves because that isn't what I saw in 4Chan. It was someone calling other people "Archfags" as an insult, and each of the other examples I cited were used as insults. I've checked /g/ a few times since I posted my original comment to see if it was a fluke, but nope: Still lots of racial & homophobic insults.
So let's break it down:
1) A person is being insulted
2) The language of the insult is a comparison to another group of people.
3) Being a member of that group is supposed to be a bad thing, which is what makes it an insult.
4) Therefore the person believes that group of people is in some way inferior, bad, or otherwise undesirable in some way.
"But they use those words themselves" leads to treading on pretty dangerous ground. There are many words which have a history of being used as slurs to a particular minority - those words might be 'reclaimed' by the minority and more or less acceptable to use if you're within that community, but would almost certainly be read as a slur if used by someone outside it.
Over-sensitive? Perhaps, but (as a gay guy) if you've grown up with those words being shouted at you, you quickly learn to associate them with hostility.
> For example, calling one of my own non-homosexual friends a "faggot" or "gay" is offensive. Even though I'm not homophobic and personally find it to be a funny, playful insult.
Um... if you don't have anything against homosexuality then why would you use it as an insult? How is this logical?
It shouldn't have anything to do with "not offending people". The real question is "What are you actually communicating?"
Casual use of slurs shows at least a certain amount of unthinking disdain for others if not actual malice.
Censoring referential or quoted uses of slurs may be an over-correction but the intent is not to appear disdainful or malicious.
You can say whatever you want, forget about "political correctness" or "offending someone", but expect people to respond to what you're actually communicating (ignorance and disdain at best).
Oh, so when someone calls me a totally racist and offensive slur against white people it causes no harm, but when white people call blacks what they call each other all the time it hurts them... definitely makes sense.
gay and queer are not offensive even outside the community. It is acceptable for other people to use them. I haven't heard fag used non-offensively even inside the community, but maybe that's what needs to happen. Personally, I think it's great and that's what should happen to all slurs. They mean after all just "X but bad". When you turn them into just "X", you disarm the offenders and so the trend loses its memetic ability to replicate throughout tribes, and so people are less likely to denigrate only to assert their position as part of a tribe.
Sure, but that reaction isn't directed at any particular group; rather, it's a "hurt them with whatever hurts" reaction to attempting to claim an identity, in a place where identity is itself discouraged. Amusingly-enough, there are slurs that are aimed at white male 20-somethings as well, when someone mentions they are one. Even though the people doing the slur-ing probably are also one. It's the principle of the thing. (The core of it being the slur "tripfag", which is used when you don't know anything about the person to hurt them with, but you still want to insult them for trying to persist their identity between posts.)
Picture 4chan as a masquerade ball in a politically-unstable climate. For example, imagine WWII-era Germany, with both members of the Nazi party, and persecuted minorities, participating. Nobody knows who anyone else is, though, and so everyone is generally genial toward one-another.
Now imagine that you start to take off your mask. I would think the immediate reaction would be for whoever was nearby to shove it forcibly back onto your face.
> I’m gay so perhaps I understand how these words can be hurtful better than you do.
Gay community successfully reclaimed all the slur words (gay, queer, fag etc).
While I wish everyone could do that (change themselves to not to be offended, instead of demanding me to endlessly change my words), that's not the case, slur words still exist.
Slurs are generally less effective once they've become mainstream.
Go spend some time on 4chan, and this will become clear--'-fag' is used as a suffix/term-of-art, and basically doesn't even register on the radar anymore as being said with any seriousness.
"Goddamn" and "Christ" were once quite serious business as well.
I’m gay so perhaps I understand how these words can be hurtful better than you do.
But context matters. And I’m not going to get worked up by someone using slurs against white nationalists in a debate, even if I think it was misguided.
Everyone is subject to slurs. That’s not what I’m referencing.
I’m talking about the use of language where you use the less-dominant group as a negative reference point. For example “retarded”. Or “fag”. You apply those terms to people who are neither as a way of disparaging them.
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