I don't think I would say that homophobic slurs aren't about "homosexuality at all". But that it is not JUST about homosexuality. Isn't same sex attraction breaking gender norms?

Plus it is important to note that even if that is not the intent, there is still an indexing of gay = bad = feminine. This also means that the idea that gay=bad currently reified through this usage.

As far as confusion that nakedthoughts expressed, I would suggest that Lisa change her wording from 'not really about homosexuality at all' to 'not exclusively or primarily about homosexuality.' It IS about homosexuality, but not ONLY about homosexuality.

I think one issue is that teenagers don't, and usually CAN'T, think at the level of a college-educated adult in their 30s or 40s about issues like homophobia and bullying. Adults are very quick to jump of middle and high schoolers, calling them terrible for doing X bullying behavior, they're Y years old, they should know better. But the fact is, that they DON'T. At least not to a deep extent. Yes, they know better as in 'I have been told that this is wrong, and I will get in trouble if I do it.' Or even as far as 'if I do this, it may hurt who I am doing it to.' But that's it. A high schooler, or especially a middle schooler, is probably not capable of thinking further into the future than 'this may make the person I'm taunting cry.' There's nothing telling them 'if I do this, it will build up on top of all the other things everyone else has said to them over the years and kill their self-esteem/make them kill themselves/make them drop out/etc.' Teenagers don't typically think in the long term for any individual who isn't themselves, and they certainly do not go home and ponder the wider societal impacts of their calling the boy who wears eyeliner a 'fag.' Now don't think I'm excusing bullying as 'they don't know better,' because I'm not.

The issue isn't that high schoolers are inherently evil beings, it is that high schoolers are inherently ignorant beings. That's why they're in school, so they can learn. The issue is that they aren't learning. Teachers and parents are encouraging their behavior, either actively or passively (ex; by telling a more feminine boy that it's his fault for being taunted because he wears skinny jeans and makeup because he sets himself apart, or by not punishing students who taunt others). I have heard 'fag,' 'gay,' etc used as insults since I was in 3rd or 4th grade. I've known since 4th grade that those terms were in reference to someone being homosexual. I did not hear those terms EVER used to insult someone for being homosexual until high school, and it was still incredibly rare until I was in college (and now, it's still more used between frat boys to inform everyone else who lost at Halo or who failed to have sex with some girl than it is to say 'being gay is wrong'). The words were not introduced to my peers as terms for homosexuals, but as synonyms for 'stupid' or 'uncool.' I know teenagers (not necessarily very smart ones, mind you) who will sweat up and down that there is a definition in the dictionary that equates 'gay' with 'stupid.' In school, when someone would say to another 'that's so GAY,' or 'you're a fag,' teachers would not explain why that was as wrong as it is, but just say 'stop calling names' the same that if someone called another 'stupid,' 'nutburger,' 'beluga,' or whatever else kids call each other that have no meaning. It became ingrained in these people's heads not as 'gay is a mean word because homosexuality is wrong,' but 'gay is a synonym for stupid and uncool.'

THAT is the essential bit that Pascoe so wonderfully seems to address that other discussions on the topic don't seem to. While the greater societal issue of 'homosexuality' being negative is still perpetuated, and while saying 'fag' to mean stupid or un-manly may still hurt an LGBT person the same as saying 'you are going to burn in hell for your sexual preference and identity,' the issue isn't solely one of homophobia. I immediately related to the examples she gave: I know so many posturing men who (on the surface, anyway) DON'T have a problem with other people's homosexuality as an identity or act, and DO think that certain gay men are just fantastic....as long as those gay men appear roughly as 'manly' as they are. I even know gay men who will call other gay men 'fags' in total contempt, because they too buy into this idea that 'is not just a man who likes other men, he does X, Y and Z that is not stereotypically manly and THAT is wrong.'

Homophobia (even internalized homophobia) do of course lie at the heart of using these slurs as insults to men who don't reach a certain level of 'masculinity.' But there are other issues surrounding it as well. These words aren't always being taught as slurs, even though they affect others the same as any other slur would, and they're very often used in a totally different way that they're understood. People are assigning very adult concepts to children who aren't behaving quite like adults would, and thus attempts to stop what's happening don't work as well as intended, and the cycle begins again.

Heys, the link you provided about the Yankees at the end of this post doesn't work. :/

As interesting as this is, I could have told you that. Ask any teenager, male or female, and they could tell you that to call a boy 'gay' or a 'fag' is really just calling him 'feminine'. This is no shocker to any high school student. My twin brother is a fashionable sensitive sweet kid, and his friends held and 'intervention' of sorts to find out if he was gay. They had no problem if he was but they wanted to know. My brother just happens to be more sensitive and it may have been because he grew up with a same-age sister.

Sometimes adults can be so dense. You didn't need a whole research shadowing project going on to find any of this out. If parents, teachers or any other adults in our lives just asked we would just tell them. It's no big secret.

"you're so gay" is just the knew "dude, you're such a girl".

With regard to students calling each other "fag", I had an experience as a substitute teacher in an urban, almost totally African American elementary school in which two 4th grade boys exchanged insults. Boy #1 called boy #2 a fag, and boy #2 retaliated and called boy #1 blackie. I should note that the boy who was called a "fag" presented as somewhat effeminate, and that the boy who was called "blackie" was much darker in skin complexion than the boy who was called a "fag". I intervened by saying who cares if a person is or is not a "fag", and everyone in this room (including me) is Black so why would you be upset if someone Black calls you "blackie"? Although I didn't ask boy #1 why he called boy #2 a fag and did he mean "stupid" or "homosexual", I'm fairly certain that he did not mean "stupid".

My reaction to this incident was to try to quickly resolve the name calling, to make sure that it didn't escalate into a physical confrontation, and to make sure that other students didn't join in. I took the tactic that the boys shouldn't get angry at someone calling them a name because the other person was just trying to get him in trouble. I told both of the boys to cool it and redirected them back to the academic subject. Thankfully that worked. But I recognize that what I said was very simplistic, I would have liked to be able to say more. But...

Unfortunately, in my short time substitute teaching I found that nowadays the main tasks of public school teachers are to maintain classroom order and to get through the assigned lesson plan for that period. By-the-script curriculum means that teachers are less likely to discuss "extraneous" topics, especially those which are potentially volatile, like "sex" and "race". If I had had more time, and if I had had more leeway, I would have discussed colorism among African Americans (the historical preference for light skinned among Black people, and the resentment that engenders among very dark skinned Black people). And if I felt that I could have gotten away with it in that classroom without violating any school regulations, and without putting boy #2 on the spot, I would have talked about the subject of homosexuality, and shared with those students that my belief was that homosexuality is genetic and not a choice. But I didn't do that for the reasons I mentioned.

I still see this as an opportunity wasted, and I'm sure that the regular teachers in No Child Left Behind schools have numerous incidences like this that result in meaningful, relevant discussions being left behind while those teachers get through by the book lessons that aren't nearly as meaningful and as relevant to their students.

None of my students think that females overtly police femininity in the same way. However, anecdotal evidence from my high school aged daughter is that males do police that boundary on the other side as well. Young women who are not appropriately deferential to males experience homophobic bullying from them as well.

VICE was telling us this since 2001:

http://www.viceland.com/int/guides/htdocs/guide-shagging-muslims-103.php

"He points out that many young Middle Eastern men lose their cherry to another man, pedagogically or otherwise, and, most significantly, that effeminate men aren’t subject to the same fag bashing on the street as fairies have traditionally suffered in the US. In Islamic societies in which men are often separated from women, affection between males, even sexual expression, is not so unusual, which might explain, but not justify, why American sailors have been writing “Hijack this, fags!” on the bombs being dropped on Afghanistan. Faggotry is largely reviled in the Middle East only when people try to organize it politically or make it overt, or even worse, to import Western paradigms of gayness along with McDonald’s and Starbucks. To put it bluntly, if you’re a guy mincing around Mecca wearing a tight Spandex T-shirt with “Snatch” written on it in gold glitter while singing “Believe,” you probably shouldn’t be surprised if somebody pushes a wall on top of you.

Read the rest at Vice Magazine: THE VICE GUIDE TO SHAGGING MUSLIMS - Vice Magazine "