The Arbitrary ChuckJerry

When I was 15 and I thought something was uncool I would often call it gay. Didn't like my test score, the test was gay. Didn't like a rule, the rule was gay. My friend did something that I didn't like, my friend was gay. I had many discussions with people who didn't appreciate my calling things gay about the rightness or wrongness of it.

My argument was that I wasn't referring to the actual homosexuality of the event, but rather the uncoolness of it and gay didn't have anything to do with homosexuality in the context I was using it. I see now that this was clearly a stupid argument and I was very shortsighted in calling so many things and people gay. In using the word in this context, clearly gayness is associated with badness and that's an undesirable connection. I was probably about 18 or so when I realized my stupidity (aren't we all?).

My students today do the same thing and I try to explain to them why it's wrong, but they don't get it, the same way I didn't get it. It's hardly bragging to say that I was a more enlightened 15 year old than my current students, so if I didn't get it, then I suppose I shouldn't expect them too.

It just seems so juvenile to me now that everything that my students refer to is gay. When they get the wrong answer because they entered the problem into the calculator incorrectly then the calculator is gay. I stopped class the other day and asked them: "How can the calculator be gay? Is it literally a homosexual? Does the calculator like other calculators? How would that even work?"

An alternative to saying that something is gay in the parlance of today's youth is to say that something is "mad homo." "Why can't I wear my hat in school? That rule is mad homo."

Today in one of my classes I told them to stop calling each other gay. I said something to the effect of: "Ok, you already told him he's gay. He knows. You don't have to continue to tell him every 5 minutes." When they didn't stop after the joke that really wasn't a joke (they don't get the subtleties in life too often), I finally just told them to stop and told them I didn't want to hear it any more.

My real concern is that when they get older they won't realize how stupid they are now and will continue to propagate this subtle (maybe not so subtle) homophobia. I doubt that any of them are truly homophobic at their deepest level of being, but stupidity and ignorance often don't let those levels come out. At some point they may start to believe themselves.