Ann Coulter is a fucking cunt. And I love her for it.

She has a knack for making the kind of comments people say privately but repudiate publicly. The showy self-righteous political posturing that follows her more 'offensive' comments exposes a confusion between the sort of speech Americans officially sanction and the sort of speech they actually use when the microphones and cameras are off.

Recently, at a Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, DC, Coulter said:

“I was going to have a few comments on the other Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, but it turns out you have to go into rehab if you use the word ‘faggot,’ so I'm kind of at an impasse – I can’t really talk about Edwards.”

This was a calculated double slam, aimed at both Edwards and at the politically correct left—who shamed actor Isaiah Washington into checking into some sort of gay-friendly re-education program as penance for dropping what gay advocates would love to make the new 'f-bomb.' However, even as lefty gay mouthpieces school-marmishly wag their fingers at 'homophobia'—which, as far as I can tell, is their complete job description—Coulter revealed the word faggot's popular unofficial meaning.(1)

Faggot also means pussy, sissy or bitch.

Actually, those meanings may explain how the word originally became associated with effeminate homosexuals in the first place. Before it had anything to do with homosexuals—before the word homosexual was even invented—the word fagot was a slang used to refer to women and subordinate schoolboys.

Many know that the word faggot used to mean a 'bundle of sticks,' and there's an erroneous folk etymology that connects this meaning to homos being burned at the stake (apparently, the English actually hung their fags). Many also know that the Brits still refer to cigarettes as fags. These, along with faggoting, a style of embroidery, are among the alternate meanings for faggot commonly found in abridged modern dictionaries.

However, fag(g)ot, originally meaning a bundle of sticks, was also, as early as the 16^th century, a vulgar slang for women loosely meaning: 'baggage.' I'll go out on a limb and say it was probably used most by disgruntled husbands with nagging wives. That's one sort of bitch. Fag was also a common form of derison for another kind of bitch—an English schoolboy who was forced to do menial chores for older boys. It's been suggested that this meaning led to a 19^th century usage of the word fag to describe anything that was “a wearisome thing; a bore.” (I find most fags, especially politically correct fags, rather wearisome and boring myself.) Finally, A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English (2) notes that in the 1960s the word fag was used to refer to “a male homosexual, esp. if a pathic, a 'female' partner in male homosexuality.” So, even as late as the1960s, fag implied more than just homosexuality. It was also tied up with associations of femaleness and passive behavior.

In the 21^st century, I still see shades of these old meanings in the way the word fag is commonly used. Calling any male a fag is intended first as an insult to his masculinity. This is the way schoolchildren who don't even really understand the concept of homosexuality frequently use the word. A fag is a sissy, a weakling, a whiner, a shirker, a girlyboy. I've heard plenty of grown men (and women, like Coulter) use it to berate a man who they know full well is heterosexual, but who they see as a mamma's boy or a pancing, pretentious, superficial puss. I've heard more than a few fags use the word in the exact same way. I've also watched as straight men, who were not bigoted or even slightly uncomfortable around homosexuals, teased each other with the word or goofed around doing fag impressions. Actually, I know a lot of straight men who do a fantastic fag act, and think it's about the funniest thing ever. Yet they have no problem with my sexuality at all. Australian Jack Marx (what is it with these Jack characters?) expressed a similar discontent about the homophobic connotations associated with the word poof a few years ago. He wrote:

“Recently, I’ve begun to use “poof” again, but rarely, if ever, in reference to a homosexual. I’ll use it to describe a man or woman whom I believe to be weak, insipid, or not quite pulling his or her weight – everything, in fact, that I used to think a homosexual man was and do no longer.”(3)

When Ann Coulter called John Edwards a faggot, I don't think anyone questioned his sexuality. I don't think Ann expected them to. The guy has fathered four children and seems to have a warmer relationship with his wife than most political candidates. Chances are, he's not an ass pirate, a pole smoker or a fudge packer.

Ms. Coulter was calling Edwards a pretentious pussy. Why? Probably because he's perceived by many politicians to be a Kennedy-esque pretty boy, trading on his good looks and unusually shiny hair. Though he's already run for vice-president once, he's relatively inexperienced, and seems out-of-his-depth when questioned about crucial issues concerning foreign policy. He's been a critic of the Iraq war and seems likely to advocate troop withdrawal, and to a right-leaning rabble-rouser like Coulter, this makes him a coward. From her political perspective, Edwards is a faggot. He's all facade and pretention; he's a weak, superficial poser without the balls or the substance to be President of the United States.

Coulter's comment wasn't hate speech. It wasn't even about homosexuality. She used faggot to emasculate Edwards in front of a crowd that was likely to agree with her.

However, professionally offended gay leaders, ever fighting TheWar on Hurt Feelings, stepped in to connect the dots between emasculation and homosexuality and distort the issue for anyone who might have understood the joke as it was intended. Pretending someone asked him, Human Rights Campaign (HRC) President Joe Solmonese issued a press release saying, “To interject this word into American political discourse is a vile and disgusting way to sink the debate to a new, all-time low.” (4) Neil G. Giuliano, president of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), not to be one-upped by a wearisome bore like Solomonese, went over the top and attacked the audience's mixed response: “and the applause from her audience is an important reminder that Coulter’s ugly brand of bigotry is at the root of the discriminatory policies being promoted at this gathering.”(5) I don't know that using the word faggot is an especially ugly brand of bigotry. It's garden-variety bigotry at best, even when it's actually directed at homos. Coulter was slamming a heterosexual sissy.

Giuliano did have something to be especially bitchy about. As the president of a celebrity and media-focused though-policing organization that played a major role in the Isaiah Washington fiasco, he was an indirect target of Coulter's remarks. But not specifically because he's a homo. Because he's a leader of the loony left's political correctness enforcement squad.

Since the Washington issue will soon be forgotten and Giuliano will be issuing melodramatic press releases about some new casualty of name-calling, I'll provide a little background here for clarity and posterity.

Sometime in October, 2006, actor Isaiah Washington referred to fellow actor T.R.Knight as a “faggot” on the set of the popular television show “Grey's Anatomy.” T.R. Knight was not publicly 'out' at the time, but Knight admitted that his sexual preference was known on the set. Word got out about the incident. Washington, so virulently homophobic that he played a gay man in the 1996 filmGet on the Bus, immediately issued a public relations apology to People magazine.Of course, the gay media doesn't forget that sort of thing, and the issue simmered. Apparently someone baited Washington on January 15, 2007, backstage at the Golden Globes, and he (gasp!) used the word while trying to deny or downplay the issue. T.R. Knight then magically appeared on Ellen two days later to exploit the situation, fawn over Ellen, and talk about how horrible it was that someone would call him a faggot. GLAAD and the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), an organization famous for its promotion of “no name-calling week,” jumped all over the this, issued angry press releases, and eventually held “meetings” with Washington and reps from “Grey's Anatomy.” Washington apologized yet again for the October incident, and finally, after being burned in effigy by the gay press as the equivalent of a gay-basher, eventually checked into some sort of GLAAD/GLSEN-approved 'counseling' on January 25^th. On January 30^th, MSNBC reported that a yet unsatisfied Knight was planning to leave the television show because the atmosphere was still so “toxic and unhealthy.” His publicist later claimed the report about him leaving the show was false.

I feel dumber for having recounted that story.

Now, I have no way of knowing how things really came down behind the scenes or what kind of guy T.R. Knight really is, but based on the less-sexualized meanings of faggot discussed above, don't Knight's actions make him seem like...kind of a faggot? If some guy insults you, and you're basically on equal footing, you either ignore it or confront him about it man-to-man. The whole situation probably could have been settled semi-privately over a beer. Instead, he ended up recounting 'the name-calling incident' on Ellen, who played the wise, comforting gay earth mother as if reality was imitating a really bad gay independent film. It just doesn't get any faggier than running to Ellen to talk about that time when someone hurt your feelings. That practically re-defines fagginess.

Now I just went and called T.R.Knight a faggot, too. When should I expect the men in white coats?

What I'm trying to get at here, and the reason why I began this essay with Coulter's comment, is that the word faggot is not merely a derogatory slang for a male homosexual. It's not simply about sexuality in the way the word nigger predominantly identifies race or in the way that the word kike was once used to identify ethnic Jews. Faggot is also frequently used to refer directly to a certain personality type, an effeminate stereotype most often associated with homosexual males. I am not saying that the word faggot is not frequently used in the context of hate speech to denigrate male homosexuals. I''m saying that it has a broader, grayer meaning and is often used outside the context of hate speech to emasculate a male regardless of his sexuality, as it was used by Ann Coulter.

Some would argue that people shouldn't make fun of or identify males who are whiners or posers or pussies, but that is a gender feminist project. That argument extends far beyond hating someone strictly because of their sexuality, unless you believe that all (and only)homosexual males really are effeminate mamma's boys.

If people are using the word faggot to refer to straight men who are weak or effeminate, when gays publicly take offense they recconnect themselves to that stereotype—as if to say, “Hey, I resemble that remark, and I resent it, even if you weren't talking about me.”

Memo to gays: the word faggot is not always about you, and that could be a good thing...if you'd just let it go.

Words evolve, and people have the power to direct that process. The word gay is itself a reclaimed jibe—though in my manifesto, Androphilia, I argue that mainstream gay culture actively perpetuates many of the word's original connotations. Queer, which, like faggot, is still used by gay bashers, has been embraced by the gay establishment, and queer theory has been legitimized as a branch of cultural studies at progressive universities.What makes faggot beyond the pale? Why now, when so many homos are accepted and respected by their peers, must faggot be fetishized as the new 'n-word', as the ultimate homos-only off-limits slur, when increasingly that's not the only way it is used?

I've heard people refer to vegans, hippies, peaceniks, tree-huggers, self-righteous bicyclists, mall goths, male feminists, boy bands, mimes, coffeehouse poets, liberals and emo kids as fags. (Don't forget about art-fags!) Hell, I do it myself all the time—and no one gives me a confused look, as if I'm implying I know something about those fags' sex lives.

The word faggot tidily sums up the old stereotype of the homosexual male, it identifies a myriad of negative behaviors and character flaws unfairly attributed to perfectly decent cocksuckers everywhere. (Though plenty of them still go out of their way to earn it.)

A faggot is a prissy, bitchy, weak, superficial, cowardly, pretentious, gossipy, affected, effeminate, prancing, thin-skinned twit.

I say reclaim it.

No, not like some 'radical' hipster who identifies himself using an epithet because he thinks it's 'edgy.' That's fucking faggy right there. Reclaim it as an insult and apply it to everyone who deserves it, homo or hetero. Make fag the insult of choice for every prissy, bitchy, weak, superficial, cowardly, pretentious, gossipy, affected, effeminate, prancing, thin-skinned twit out there. Use it like Ann Coulter did—as a synonym for 'pussy' or 'wuss.'

Because faggot means more than just 'homosexual,' every time you take offense to the word, you let it identify you—you associate yourself with everything else it means; you connect yourself to that stereotype and take ownership of it.

And frankly, what could be faggier than making a big deal out of a petty insult?

As Chopper Read might say: “Harden the fuck up.”

Originally published online @ Jack Malebranche.com in 2007

(1) Coulter later confirmed this point on the “Hannity & Colmes”television show, saying that, “The word I used has nothing to do with sexual preference. It is a schoolyard taunt. And unless you're going to announce here on TV that John Edwards, married father of many children is gay, it clearly had nothing to do with that.”

(2) Eric Partridge. A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English (8^th Edition).1985, Macmillan Publishing Company.

(3) Jack Marx, Poof. March 2005, RADAR (blog). Sydney Morning Herald.

http://radar.smh.com.au/archives/2005/03/poof.html

(4) From HRC.org

http://hrc.org/Template.cfm?Section=Home&CONTENTID=35676&TEMPLATE=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm

(5) From GLAAD.org

http://www.glaad.org/media/release_detail.php?id=3982

(6) Yes, I know that the Nazis put homos in concentration camps, too. They murdered a lot of people they didn't like for a lot of reasons. Most people do not associate concentration camps and Nazi propaganda with homos, which is my point.