“Straight” is Probably the Most Offensive Term Still Used
By Raquel Perez
I have spent many days peering from behind my laptop in Black Hole as gorgeous, tall, slender, blonde haired boys slither from counter to desk to patio. I wonder in my head whether or not he’s bent.
Is he bent? Quick quiz, readers, what am I wondering?
- Is he turnt up on vyvanse?
- Is he down to impress me with his crooked choade?
- Does this dapper coffee boy prefer some dudes butthole over mine?
Ding ding ding, in case you don’t already know, bent is slang for gay.
Recently, on my Facebook page some chums had an argument about using the word “gay” to connote something unfavorable. I mean, the guy was kidding (he says), but it was cool to see that someone actually cared enough to spit all over my Facebook and defend the demeaning use of the word gay.
But, have you ever thought about how fucking demeaning and marginalizing it is to call heterosexuals straight?
Straight adjective \ˈstrāt\ :
(1) lying along or holding to a direct or proper course or method
(2) exhibiting honesty and fairness
(3) not deviating from an indicated pattern
Woah, what the actual fuck?
According to good ole Wikipedia, the first person to adopt the word straight was some fool in 1941, George Henry, author of Sex Variants: A Study of Homosexual Patterns. NINETEEN FORTY ONE. I mean, granted, I guess people at this time did not realize the righteousness of respecting human expression in all of its forms; the word “straight” though, is *so* seventy three years ago.
By using the word straight, you’re sitting here saying that anyone who doesn’t adhere to some peoples’ imaginary conventional mode of sexuality is “improper” or “dishonest” and even a “deviant”.
To be even more real, I actually fucking detest people who talk shit all day and don’t have a capacity for sympathy. I am Cinderella with all the shoes! I can walk in and see someone else’s point of view. My feet are malleable yet strong. If you can’t try and understand someone else’s point, I seriously consider you “duck feet”.
Maybe you’ve never stopped to think about it, but calling heteros “straight” assumes everyone else is deviating from some so-called “correct” path of experiencing physical intimacy. It is slang contrived by the heterosexual community to point a stern finger at those not adhering to Genesis’ Adam and Eve vision of earth.
Now I’ve got to be completely honest – I don’t know the correct word to use when referring to a heterosexual. We can try to be a little more formal about it and refer to people as “heterosexual / asexual / homosexual / bisexual” but that still seems fucking rude because of the horrific connotation we’ve attached to the term “homosexual”.
Maybe this is a call for koining a new generation of genderless terms. When are we going to stop referring to people by their sexual orientation?
When they stop bring defined by it.