Slang words for gay men
LGBTQIA+ Slurs and Slang
bog queen
Synonyms: Bathsheba (composition between bathroom and Sheba to produce a name reminiscent of the Queen of Sheba), Ghost (50s, ghost, because they wander the corridors of the bathroom).
Part of the amusing of researching 1920’s and 1930’s Lgbtq+ subculture in Modern York City was coming across a wide variety of specialized slang and coded terms that flourished among queer men and women of the time. Some of these terms are solely of their occasion, some have survived into the latest era, albeit often with modified meanings.
Not surprisingly, for a social group that for the most part did not conduct themselves openly in society, a lot of these terms constitute a kind of confidential language available only to those “in the club”. They describe sexual preferences and types, as well as particular places and activities important to homosexuals of the time.
Folding these terms into the libretto of “Speakeasy – The Adventures of John and Jane Allison in the Wonderland” was a lot of fun. For the most part the meaning of the words should be clear in context. However a little confusion can be fun too, as in this moment, when John Allison eavesdrops on a trio of Gay Florists and Julian Carnation:
FLORIST 1:
You can keep 42nd Street. Give me the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
FLORIST 2:
You and your seafood, Violet!
F What’s the shelf life of a clearance sale shirt? What’s the expiry date on a Grindr hookup? Do potatoes calculate as carbs? If you touch like a potato, are you a carb? Do you necessitate to kick your junk nourishment habits out on the curb (no pun intended)? Are moccasins better than brogues? More importantly, what is a brogue? When you are gay man, you’ll always be full of questions (when you are not full of self-doubt, that is) — but this is 2018, and some questions, while basic, — will always be more important than the others. Take a few of these as an example. Don’t understand whether you are a top or a bottom? Do you feel it’s rude (and very inappropriate) when someone asks you whether you are a slave? Have you always wondered why your friends laughed at you when you said you lovedvanilla? Are you surprised that people could be that into otters? More importantly, what is an otter? It’s 2018, and it’s period for you to get with the times. Whether you are an out-and-proud gay man or an in-the-closet newbie, your dictionary of gay slang will always be as varied as your little black book of boys. So the next time someone tells Lesbians may have a longer linguistic history than gay men. Contrary to the incomplete information given in the OED, the word lesbian has meant “female homosexual” since at least the early eighteenth century. William King in his satire The Toast (published 1732, revised 1736), referred to “Lesbians” as women who “loved Women in the same Behavior as Men love them”. During that century, references to “Sapphic lovers” and “Sapphist” meant a lady who liked “her have sex in a criminal way”. For centuries before that, comparing a girl to Sappho of Lesbos implied passions that were more than poetic. Unfortunately we don’t know the origins of the most common queerwords that became popular during the 1930s through 1950s – gay, dyke, faggot, queer, fairy. Dyke, meaning butch sapphic, goes back to 1920s black American slang: bull-diker or bull-dagger. It might go back to the 1850s phrase “all diked out” or “all decked out”, meaning faultlessly dressed – in this case, like a man or “bull”. The word faggot goes back to 1914, when “faggots” and “fairies” were said to appear “drag balls”. Nels Anderson in
The Guysexual’s Urban Dictionary for Lgbtq+ Slang