If you’ve ever had a visceral reaction to the words “moist” or “panties,” you know some groupings of consonants and vowels are more grating than others. But what queer lingo gets on your nerves?
That’s the question Redditor mrjeffjefferson recently asked, revealing that for him, the verbum non grata is the term “boi.”
“Having another man refer to me as ‘boi’ makes me want to take a hot shower and kinda barf,” he explained. “Instant turn-off for me.”
Fellow Redditors seized upon the opportunity to air their grievances with other LGBT jargon.
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Two commenters called out “boy p*ssy,” for example; and four called out “bussy,” a portmanteau of that phrase. (“Bussy is pretty cringe,” wrote one.)
But another Redditor said “sh*toris” — a punny nickname for the prostate — is “so much worse.”
Interestingly, six commenters expressed distaste for the word “queer” itself. “Maybe as it was used as an insult at school, and maybe because I like using it [to] mean odd or unusual,” mused one.
“It doesn’t bother me that others claim it and use it for themselves (that’s not a new thing), but there seems to be a recent move to apply it to everyone in the LGBT+ community, whether we (individually) like it or not,” said another.
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Other responses also touched on identity politics. One respondent said the terms “masc” and “straight-acting” were irritating, and another cited “gay marriage.” (“It should just be called ‘marriage,’” that user contended. “I prefer the term ‘marriage equality’ over ‘gay marriage’ any day.”)
Some of the most impassioned responses, however, pertained to the term “daddy.”
“I’m beginning to hate the usage of ‘daddy’ in queer culture,” wrote one commenter. “It started off being used for older, attractive gentlemen of an age that they could be the ‘daddy’ of the guy using it. Nowadays, I have heard it be used for guys who are fresh out of high school and look like they are also fresh out of diapers. Maybe the definition changed without me realizing, but it drives me nuts!”
Replied another user, “1000x yes to this. A 23-year-old old intern with a beard who spends his weekends playing [amateur] soccer at the community center is nowhere near daddy material, kids. Please do your f*cking homework.”
“Not that such a guy wouldn’t be super f*ckable,” that commenter clarified. “He’s just not a daddy.”
jkb
I like sh*toris
supernaut
Same here.
rand503
I hate the word “junk” to refer to good old fashioned dick or penis. I really hate it! We have enough shaming without referring to parts of our body that we should be proud of.
GayEGO
How about package?
Josh447
Agreed. Junk is a malice negating term in this case. Package is a much better reference. I like it.
Josh447
Oh yeah, cisgender, the dumbest sissy word ever coined. Gotta go.
nm4047
Cis gender is latin, not a newly created word.
wiredpup
nm4047
Cisgender is a newly made up word by a transgender sociologist as a way to demean non grad people as “other than” and is used by the trans community as a slur.
Kieru
For me it’s just how lingo gets so overused as to become meaningless. I still hear people screaming “YAAAAASSS” and “SLAY MAMA!” to the point that they are just a walking out-of-date meme. “Daddy” is another one I see being used online to describe simply anyone that is attractive so it’s lost all of the nuance it once carried.
“Bussy” makes my eye twitch though. I am a man who has sex with other men, I do not feel the need or necessity to couch my sexual acts in terms that refer back to female genitalia.
But that seems to be de rigueur… communicate in memes and ridiculously-specific slang.
wiredpup
Y’all can stop using “queer” & “cis(gender), “boi” and yaaasss” and “kween”.
Kieru
I’m with you on ‘queer’ … that word is still stigmatized in my mind and I don’t like it being used to describe the LGBTQ+ community as a whole. Cisgender doesn’t qualify as ‘lingo’ though… it is a clinical term used to define someone whose gender identity aligns with their biologically-assigned sex.
Asking people to stop using “cisgender” is kind of like saying “stop using homosexual”.
DarkZephyr
Yeah, I am not a fan of “Yaaaas!” either. I don’t even remember when that became a thing, but it sounds like a weirdly bastardized version of the vally girl way of saying “Yes”. I wonder if that is where it originated from?
Dave in Northridge
Marriage, yes. I wrote about that in Daily Kos five years ago, in fact.
Ashke113
Calling each other girl or sister or saying yes momma to each other just no. That should be reeserved for drag queens. We aren’t women so why refer to each other as such. It’s just stupid
GayEGO
We used to do that years ago to rebel against the straights e.g. Mary Doogan is such a dishy queen! I do not hear the younger generation using those type of phrases these days.
Bob Scardino
I once had an older gay man refer to me (at the time a younger gay man) as his ‘sister.’ I replied, “No, you’re my aunt” and never was referred to as sister again.
PinkoOfTheGange
The occasional “O Mary” or “gurlll” is on thing but the constant use is annoying
Str8 acting or masc, don’t care as long as there presumed superiority about being so.
“Boi” use it usually as a slight, and more to differentiate it from some one under age.
The prostate nick made me lol, never heard it won’t use it
“Daddy” for anyone not old enough to be the father of someone he could legally fruk, is just wrong.
dean089
I’d be willing to tolerate them all if only twinks would stop referring to each other as “daddy.” That’s just absurd.
Vince
Queerty is guilty of that as well. They’ll run daddy posts and the guys are in their 30s. I’m like wtf.
Vince
I’m sick of the use of Queen and bitter and old. It’s the # 1 go to choice of insults for too many gay men.
KevInSD
About 2 years ago, a bunch of us decided that we had had enough of lingo that feminized other men, like calling them girl or girlfriend, even in a “joking” way. We all agreed that it was banned in our group and that anyone who broke the ban was out. There was one guy who thought it was amusing and he kept doing it so we cut him out for good. We told him that we don’t go out with friends to tear each other down or degrade our manhood so he could go find other people to hang with. He eventually apologized but we were done with that guy.
Paco
Just like a mean girls clique in highschool. Good job, Heather.
rockster
Gee! He must have been devastated to have been cast out from such a judgy bunch of bitches
KevInSD
@Paco =- Actually, it is the opposite of mean girls, since mean girls use words to tear each other down and who also tear down boys by denigrating their masculinity. We chose to be adult men who don’t do that.
coloradocutie3
KevinSD, it sounds like your group is made up of a bunch of bitter old queens. Your friend is better off without you viscous women in his life, I must say. Hey, just keeping it real!
startenout
Wow, girl, your coven sounds like a hoot and a half! I’m sure she misses hanging with you ladies. Was it October 3rd and did she wear sweatpants? lol
DarkZephyr
Its amazing to me that your behavior as a group was the very manifestation of the thing you claimed to be against, KevInSD. Is this meant to be a funny and ironic story?
Vince
@KevInSDWow. I actually agree with you for once. Anyone desperate enough to be in your posse of judgemental and smug shitheads deserves to be treated like cow dung.
theafricanwiththemouth
“Adult” & Bitter mean girls are the worst kind. Your clique probably have a dress code and a large book where you write the names of all the folks you’re “done with”.
Lemme guess the name of your other friends, Kelvin 2, Kelvin 3 and Kelvin 4, Right Kelvin Prime?
Paco
“Boy p*ssy” and “mangina” make me cringe.
“Masc” and “straight-acting” just makes my eyes roll because 9 times out of 10, those terms do not apply to the men using them.
“Queer” is extremely offensive to me.
“Daddy” is silly. You are a grown man. Not an infant.
Vince
Those that use “Straight acting” makes me think they’ve got some issues for a professional. Masc is the lessor or the better of the two.
Robothedestroyer
Queer is a love/hate with me. I got used to it in college, and understand why it’s been taken back but refuse to use it in any situation in which no other appropriate term exists.
Sh!toris made me laugh really loud… Roomie things im crazy now lol… But, no one really says that in polite, anal centric conversation… do they? Ugh Mangina is another one that mkes my eyes roll.
I’m in my late 30s, and younger guys are starting to use “daddy” toward me… Is a little blush enducing but it’s a term of endearment so its not that bad. I use daddy when I see an older (or bigger) guy who is just… damn. But never for somone my age or younger. That’s just silly.
“Girl” is a funny one. I came of age in the 90s in and around Drag culture. I never performed, but I got used to being called girl but only ever appropriated the term when, ya know… I mean business… I like to feel a little distinctive from straight people and feel like that’s a little bit of our history. I feel like it makes for a pleasent bit of shock value when somone such as myself (quiet, what most would call “masculine”) hits ya with a “girl” for doing something dumb. I’m pretty secure in my masculinity anyway so feminin speech never really threatened me.
This is kinda of a fun thing to talk about. I think sh!toris has wiggled its way into my lexicon and now I need to find a reason to use it.
Notyourdaddy
I grew up in the 60’s, and “queer” was always used as an insult. Consequently, I hate it. I’m also annoyed by being called “Daddy,” even though I’m definitely old enough; hell, many of my straight friends my age are becoming great-grandparents, but I’m not one of them. I feel like my age has become a fetish for someone, and it makes me feel cheap.
salumbre
To each their own. I also grew up in the 60s, and I vastly prefer “queer” than “gay.”
Don’t particularly like “daddy,” but wouldn’t mind being someone’s cheap fetish, as long as they noticed me. The curse of gay male life is basically turning 50 and becoming invisible to other men. Becoming suddenly VERY visible to salivating women is too small a consolation. (Apparently women love nothing more than gray hair and some extra weight in a man. Who knew?)
Josh447
Queer was born a nasty demeaning term for gays, it still is and needs to stay where it belongs and go away as a descriptive lgbt term.
Daddy is cool with proper age though some guys have daddy written all over them at any age.
Gurrl is fun in light doses. Any reference to female genetilia is a complete turn off tho. I don’t relate to female body parts as sexy at all. I once had a cute guy I was having sex with for the first time say “twist my titties, twist my titties!”. I was up with my pants on in 60 seconds never to see him again.
Group of friends all used to, on rare occasion, start in with the grrrl talk. It was a hoot, but very rare. Using it to demean is definitely out, it makes the originating party look very bad in my book.
Sh!torus, bad images smelly term it’ll never catch on.
Basically just not into gender bending. Not my focus. I find it cringe worthy and/or too childish and silly to take seriously. Drag queens come to mind.
theafricanwiththemouth
Oh my God, i almost woke up everyone at home. It’s super late over here and i couldn’t help laughing at the “twist my titties, twist my titties!!” part. Imagining the scenario and the possible look of horror in your face is making my ribs ache from laughter!
Damn, this might be the most fun queerty article i’ve read in a long time.
Josh447
PS But on the other hand, after friends beat on me for years to go out in drag with them for Halloween, I finally submitted.
I had THEEE time of my life. Will never forget it. But that sitch is about my limit.
Geeker
Pretty much any gay term used by Tyler Oakley or Joey Graceffa.
Brexit
I must admit when a cute young guy calls me Daddy I don’t find it offensive. Like others brought up in the 60s or 70s, having had the word queer slung at me as an insult, I find it difficult to accept it as a positive term.
Prax07
One that bugs me is when hot, young, gym-fit buff guys with something resembling a beard and some chest hair call themselves Bears on profiles. They are def Not Bears. And that whole thing with twenty- somethings calling themselves or being called Daddy us beyond ridiculous to me. I’m only a few years older than some of the guys that have hit on me on grindr looking for daddy types. They get blocked immediately for stupidity alone lol.
dannysax
What I hate the most is a bunch of peers and friends calling each other “girl.” I am so over that sh*t. I am a masculine man and not an effeminate type at all and I don’t do drag. This part of gay culture needs to disappear.
startenout
Your homo hating “straight acting” fake acting is what needs to disappear. Remember when there were communities and it was fun? Now all you “masc until you speak and the purse falls out” who decide there’s something wrong with femme… THAT is the disease. Drag queens and the “girls” rioted and fought; “masc” bitches pretended and passed and ride the coattails of the progress gained.
Griff_Greymuzzle
While I do find the new use of Daddy really tedious, I also have to laugh when older guys freak over it. I’m 50 yrs old and in the kink community. I earned that title and I am damned proud to wear it. My younger BF calls me Daddy as a sign of respect. It’s part of our Power Exchange. I’m cool if you don’t want to be called Daddy, you don’t like it, you didn’t earn it, I have no problems with you not using it. I’m also fine if it goes out of style for describing 14yr old Boy Band members. There are MUCH worse things in our community than Daddy.
DarkZephyr
I remember when I was 30 and a 50 year old guy I knew wanted to call me “Daddy” and I never understood that. I am totally fine with younger guys calling me that these days as I am now 41, but I definitely don’t like when older guys do it.
tjack47
Mostly, I don’t care how people express themselves, but “totes” and “whatevs” are strange to hear a grown man say.
batesmotel
All labels are an annoying turn off now. They went to obsessively far as to try and separate everyone into little groups of labels. The irony is the ones doing that are the ones that feel everyone should be considered equal. You can’t do that if you separate people by labels and turn them into a trendy word that is ultimately tired.
djmcgamester
I really hate “boy pu**y” and equally its counterpart “alpha male”. It’s like people want to put themselves right back into that m/f dynamic that we’re not supposed to need. Son/Daddy is weird because there has to be a significant age gap (20+ years) and that’s often not the case. “Bears” have somehow been reinvented to be hairy guys with muscle and maybe a beard. Pretty far from the original.
For the first term I mentioned, there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with it but I find it demeaning, along with a related term (c*mdump). God forbid we be human beings first and foremost instead of some tiny boxed off category.
Per Paco, yes, all that straight-acting garbage needs to go. The most average guys probably don’t bother with that description. Me, for example. Not “uber masculine” by any definition. Just an average guy.
Per batesmotel, yes to your entire post. It’s not just the LGBT++++++ people doing it. It’s also the so-called “straight allies”. (My family has always loved me but they’re not activists. They don’t care about anyone’s sexuality. Does that make them “straight allies” or just people who see others as people rather than as categories?) Some of those alleged allies with bitch to US that we’re not being sensitive. Bleh.
theafricanwiththemouth
Sh*toris sounds disgusting. First time learning of such a term. Bussy, Boy Pu$$y, Mangina and the lot are all horrible terms too imo. Undecided about “Queer”, but i dislike the history attached to the word. Gurl, Yasss and the likes are fun every now and then. Can also get annoying really fast!