Getting Rid of Flippant Language : Check Yourselves Here

[storyspinner70]

Any kind of label word can be volatile. For example, I don't mind c**t, but most women I know hate it. My butch happily refers to herself as a dyke. My online "brother" refers to our "dad" as "an old boston dyke" and my dad would say the same. I don't identify as such, mostly because I'm bi. It's more important, I think, that you make yourself clear when someone uses a word you don't like and that they have enough respect to stop using it.

I'm from a small town in the south. There are a LOT of things people say that needs to stop - repairs that are hastily slapped together, for example, or the common word here for brazil nuts. The word retarded hasn't completely gone away and it needs to. People need to stop saying "You....like a girl" or "Your.....is so gay", as an insult.

I will call an ex queer because he's such a homophobe. My friend has several mental illnesses but tries to make light of it, so she and I talk about her being crazy or schizo when she's having a particularly difficult moment. My gay online friend doesn't hesitate to call other gay men faggots.

There are so many careless things we all say that need to stop. I try to be more observant but I'm still horribly at fault sometimes. Once you say it you can never undo it. Words are heavy and they are dangerous. All you can do is try to be as careful as you can to rid yourself of your own ignorance. I've still got a long way to go.

[Nat]

Hmm. Dyke isn't part of my daily vocab, but it has a charge for me. I perk up a bit when people embrace the term.

[JDeere]

Bump bump bump

[Angeltoes]

I don't like the whole "bitch" thing. I don't think the word bitch really needed to be reclaimed. It means a female dog and that's all. I'm not young and I know women my age who come to work and say idiotic things like "where's my bitchez at" lol.

And I want to say, "I'm not your bitch, you bitch." I guess they think it's cool or trendy, but it sucks.

But I have weird, inappropriate sense of humor, so sometimes I laugh at things that offend me. It depends on how funny it is and my mood.

[imperfect_cupcake]

"Whore". People use it here and it bugs the living crap out of me. I'm an ex-sex worker. I don't mind when sex workers use it to tease each other with or to say it with a reclaim sense of pride. And I don't think there is *anything* shameful about being a sex worker. I'm not in the sex-worker closet like so many of us have to be.

Imagine if you could *never* talk ab it your day at work and you felt you had to lie to people about your job? How stressful do you think that would be? The shame from the job doesn't actually come from the work itself, but from how people will treat you if they find out. Kind of like BEING GAY. Being gay isn't a choice for many people, or it's the best choice for others. It's "best choice" for me. Just like sex work was best choice for me when I did it. I preferred it to waitressing, house cleaning, clerking or office work. I was good at it, people thanked me, they treated me with respect (unlike many jobs) and I had more control of my job than any other work I had ever done.

Plus I got to tell people to fuck off if I didn't want to deal with them. Total job perk.

Sex (industry) work includes:
Porn
Phone sex
Web cramming
Stripping (though there are strippers that try and put themselves above all other sex industry workers and distance themselves from us)
Escorting - (and with these, there are so many different kind. There are pro-dommes, GFE [girlfriend experience - those who will pretend to be your girlfriend for that time], pro-subs, happy finish massage, tantric/spiritual sex guides, just to name a few - and some may offer a combination of those).

It takes patience, unbelievably good people skills, extremely high communication skills, admin skills. Most are independent workers where it's legal. That means they screen people against a database for safety, screen for type of client, screen for time wasters (80% of people enquiringly are time wasters and just get off on talking to a sex worker for free, costing us time and energy). I have a lot of friends who are sex workers of many kinds, all are lesbians or dykes, not all agree to penetrative sex, it may not be part of their services. None of the ones I am friends with or had my community with did things "bareback" or without protection. They also know what all of the STDs look like and insist on viewing what is presented before anything proceeds, for possible skin pathologies that are virulent (communicable or able to be passed on to others) and if they have any contact with genitals, they get tested regularly - even though they use barriers. They also happen to be some of the most intelligent women I know.

So when someone on here says that someone deserved to be treated in a shit way because she was "some dumb whore" or "some whore" you are actually talking about *ME*

And I don't deserve to be treated with disrespect. I would never have allowed a client to treat me with disrespect. Ever. I was very proud of what I gave people. Many people suffer with lack of company because they are so socially unable to function, that a sex worker is they only way of talking to someone they fancy. Anyone escort worth her salt, trains and educates her clients sexually, socially. I got a *lot* of men with homosexual urges that had no idea what they were or were so ashamed of them they twisted them into something else.
I educated my clients about the desires they were confused and ashamed of.

So, when you, as a non-sex-worker, use the term "whore" to mean a dishonest ex who fucked around on you with no integrity and I might point out *for free* you are calling them *me* and frankly I behave a fuckton better than that. I have never done anything of the sort, nor would I ever. So I take exception to the word whore being used as an insult to people who behave horribly. And to label women who have sex as she pleases *for free* is also rather insulting. Being paid for a job is quite different that doing something for free. And frankly I find it just as baffling as calling a friend who knows a little something about pipes coming over and fixing a leak for you being called "a plumber." It makes no sense.

A whore is a sex worker. And sex work done by people who are not on drugs/high/drunk, which is the majority of us- just like the majority of people in your job are not high/drunk- have standards, rules, and are self regulating. Your shitty ex obviously did not. So it pisses me off very deeply when people use that term as an insult for people who are far below the pride of that word.

Kind of like calling a straight guy who does something stupid "faggit" or "dumb faggit"

Feels exactly the same to me.

[Ascot]

I'm pretty okay with 'dyke', and often use it in reference to myself. I've never had it flung at me as an epithet with the exception of once in traffic and that was 30 years ago, so it holds no barbs for me.


These days I'm also rather fond of 'lesbo'.

[imperfect_cupcake]

I actually quite like "lesbo" and dyke.
Sometimes I say I'm a "lezzo" or what not. There is nothing wrong with being gay, so it's kind of like someone calling me "Canuck" instead of "Canadian." Yeah. And? However using the term "lesbian" "lezzo" "lesbo" to put down a straight women, I don't fucking like. It's not an insult. It's a fact. So I don't like any word that describes my job, career, education, sexuality or gender used as an insult. Lesbo, when applied to me is correct and a fact and since there is nothing wrong with being a lesbo, I'm not offended by it.

Someone calling my straight best friend a lesbo just because she's a tomboy and a feminist is very irritating. She just looks at them and asks them if being a lesbian is supposed to be an insult. Or just goes with it and tells them she gets more pussy than they do/or bet I can fuck your gf better than you do. Which always makes me laugh

Although lesbian dosent quite fit me exactly, the way it's used here, to most people I'm a female and my partners gender doesn't matter because she/they/he have a female body and thus we are lesbians. So I use it awkwardly.

I prefer dyke. It fits better. Queer-dyke fits best in most places I trundle about in now.
But lesbian fit fine in London. Words are funny like that. Local interpretation and all.

But I totally get some people can't use dyke or queer on themselves. We all live very different lives.