Email to a Friend
Share on Facebook
Digg It
Delicious
Newsvine
Stumble
Reddit-
New Daily Dish Posts
- Celebrity News Grab Bag
- K-Fed To Get Full Custody
- Mass. Appeal Of Gay Marriage
- Couple Survives Inspiration Point Fall
- Celebrity Ins, Outs, Facts, And Fictions
- A-Rod’s All-Star Bash Firmly On The Chain
- The Witherspoon House Rules!
- Election Or Kissing Contest?
- Young Hollywood Wants To Wed?
- Will Smith: Open For Biz-Nass?
-
What's Got You Talking
-
Articles You Love Most
|
In The Vernacular: Gayelle: In. Lesbian: Out.
A group of, um, gay women have become fed up with the sobriquet ‘lesbian’ and are looking for a change. They feel that the word ‘lesbian’ has become distasteful and virtually an insult, whereas ‘gay’ has a more playful origin. Which does bring up a funny issue. Pretty much all of the old stand-ins for a homosexual male were borrowed from other parts of language; one means bundle of sticks, one means happy, and another means odd.
At any rate, this group of Sapphic gals decided that ‘lesbian’ doesn’t work for them any more. So, instead of complaining about it, they decided to come up with a new term. And the term they came up with is ‘gayelle.’ Essentially, it’s gay plus the French word for ‘she.’ We think that there’s more to this. We think that they’re inadvertently calling out Oprah’s good friend Gayle. This will not stand. Oprah could destroy them. Quick history note: the word ‘Lesbian’ is derived from the Greek isle Lesbos. A lady called Sappho (hence the word ‘Sapphic’) was a poet on this island known for it’s relative freedom and education for women.
We suppose it’s good if a group finds a way to ditch labels that they feel have a negative connotation. But we’re not sure if ‘gayelle’ is much of an improvement. And don’t homosexual dudes really have more of a need for a positive, unambiguous term?
 (No Ratings Yet) Loading ... |
1 KiltBear // Feb 21, 2008 at 10:20 am
Okay, you want something other than lesbian which comes from Lesbos, the Island of women, by women, for women. Fine, throw away a rich history that speaks of self empowerment…
However, there has historically been a sensitivity to the word woman because of it being a version of man and often joked at as the woe of man. That is why in feminist literature you’ll see such fun things as womyn and wimmin.
Now think of gayelle and the issues of lesbian invisibility. Great, the term for being a woman who loves women is now associated with the term that mostly makes folks think of homosexual men. Effiing brilliant. Gayelle sounds like a diminutive of gay, like gaylette or gaylito. Gay-El sounds like it could be Superman’s gay little brother!