When the fuck did this word become a negative adjective?

Why has it become an acceptable part of modern vernacular?

WHY ARE PEOPLE IN MY OFFICE SAYING IT?

Has anyone else experienced my grimace on hearing this?

I resisted facebook (it still feels like a slightly more interactive gaydar to me) but then embraced it, along with wordpress and then twitter (I was terribly afraid I had missed that one). I stepped into the torrent the way Dorothy stepped in the tornado. I made (and paid for!) a flickr account and immediately connected with the same friends I had on facebook/twitter/gaydar.

Photo courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/antijoe

Tres tragic. I have come dangerously close to creating a wikipedia account only once, but I checked the article a week later and it was suddenly a well researched article. A seven day evolution from “stub” to “summit of knowledge”. God would be proud. I collaborated on an extension for an open source project in December last year. 250 odd people now use my plugin.

I find myself craving the next big thing. I’m twitching for it. It will certainly be interactive and collaborative. Shit, I build pinksheep.com just so I could focus the faggotry and snark of the internet in one place. You know what? It’s not enough. I crave the connection, I crave the conversation. Old media, like feminism, is a walking corpse and I want to meet the heir. Will there be video? Text? Certainly. Will people make money from it? Maybe. As a child I wanted to be a spy, as a teenager I wanted to be a brothel madame (not a pimp, I’m classier than that) and as an adult, I want to be at the center of it all, politics, media, art. When will the internet deliver that to me?

What is this shit?

“The first representation of Saint Valentine appeared in the Nuremberg Chronicle, (1493); alongside the woodcut portrait of Valentine the text states that he was a Roman priest martyred during the reign of Claudius II, known as Claudius Gothicus. He was arrested and imprisoned upon being caught marrying Christian couples and otherwise aiding Christians who were at the time being persecuted by Claudius in Rome. Helping Christians at this time was considered a crime. Claudius took a liking to this prisoner — until Valentinus tried to convert the Emperor — whereupon this priest was condemned to death. He was beaten with clubs and stoned; when that didn’t finish him, he was beheaded outside the Flaminian Gate. Various dates are given for the martyrdom or martyrdoms: 269, 270, or 273.”

So Valentine was a marriage activist? Now that’s a saint I can get behind (and on). So what happened? Somewhere along the line, this marriage radical became co-opted as a symbol of trashy heterosexual sentimentality and the rose and chocolate industry. Fuck that. I’m over tired sentimentality. I want to celebrate love that is radical, anti-authoritarian and unbeliavabley hot.

Photo via http://www.bastardlife.com

Love is… not being a sad sack of shit for the rest of your life, it’s a riot and a celebration and it’s like standing in the face of storm not caring if you get wet. If it’s not, you’ve settled. So this Valentine’s Day, take a leaf out of the old saint’s book and do something different and radical. Do something to proclaim your love that will upset people; because some people need to be reminded that it’s not their relationship, it’s yours.

After that, treat yourself (and your special friend!) to some uber hot Tom of Finland style sexcapades. God knows you’ve earnt it.

MAN TEST

1. If you are over forty, and you have a washboard stomach, you are a queer.. It means you haven’t sucked back enough beer with the boys and have spent the rest of your free time doing sit-ups, aerobics, and doing the Oprah diet…Faggot.

On the upside, it means I can still find my wang.

2. If you have a cat, you are a homo. A cat is like a dog, but queer– it grooms itself constantly but never scratches itself, has a delicate touch except when it uses its claws, and whines to be fed. And just think about how you call a dog… ‘Killer, come here! I said get your arse over here, Killer!’  Now think about how you call a cat…’Bun-bun, come to daddy, snookums!’ Jeeezus, you’re pitched, you’re so queer.

Unlike a straight man I don’t need a dog to respect me because my wife does not.

Photo courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/hairy_jacques

3. If you suck on lollipops, Ring-Pops, baby pacifiers, or any such nonsense, rest assured, you are a Gaylord. A straight man only sucks on BBQ ribs, crab claws, raw oysters, lobster backs, pickled pigs feet, or tits. Anything else and you are a Homo in training and undeniably a fag.

One would assume the criteria is actually cock sucking. A real man has no gag reflex and can stomach anything. Including a litre or two of semen.

4. If you refuse to take a dump in a public bathroom or piss in a parking lot, you crave a deep homosexual relationship. A man’s world is his toilet; he defecates and urinates where he pleases.

The rest of the world isn’t interested in your dick or your arse. Gay men know this, women everywhere wish you’d figure it out. Short version: your bodily functions, and by extension, your body, isn’t as interesting as you’d like to think it is.

5. If you drink anything other than regular coffee, you’re as camp as a row of tents. A straight man will never be heard ordering a ‘Decaf Soy Latte’. If you’ve put a Decaf Soy Latte to your lips, you’ve had a man there too.

You don’t need caffeine if you have access to quality amphetamines. The decaf soy latte isn’t to advertise one’s homosexuality, it’s to announce to the world that you have a better dealer than they do.

6. If you know more than six names of non-standard colours or four different types of dessert other than ice cream and custard, you might as well be handing out free arse passes. A real man doesn’t have memory space in his brain to remember all of that crap. If you can pick out chartreuse or you know what a ‘fressier’ is & you’re gay. And if you can name ANY type of textile other than cotton or denim, you are poofter.

I had no idea flannel, corduroy and polyester were now considered “exotic”. I’ll light a candle for you at the memorial of fallen designers, shall I?

7. If you drive with both hands on the wheel, forget it, you’re dying to tune a meat whistle. A man only puts both hands on the wheel to beep at a slow-arsed driver or to cut the prick off. The rest of the time he needs that hand to change the radio station, eat a hamburger, or hold his beer.

You can afford to drive with both hands if your passenger is operating “the gear stick” for you. Meanwhile your wife refuses to thrust her hand beneath the lard, and frankly, who can blame her?

8. If you do not send this off to all the males on your email list because you are afraid of hurting their feelings then you are definitely on the verge on being an arse puncher.

Proper arse punching requires patience, practice and a lot of water based lubricant. If you think you can plough an arse from a standing stop it means that underneath your 3^rd trimester belly is a cocktail wiener. If emailing makes you feel like a man your issues are far beyond the scope of even your local fairy god-mother.

With love,

The Queen of the fairies.

Lookout for our ear porn section in cult(ure), our special lesbian section The other monologues, health will fall under warts and all. We can be highbrow too with vacuous rants and finger licking – our food section. Politics will meet home décor in Harold’s swim centre and homo beautiful.

You want more? Fuck you. Seriously. We might be throwing in a new set of forums if our dealer comes through.  It will have all the style and grace you’ve come to expect from the internet, but have long since given up hope for; which is to say, it’ll look nothing like the pinksheep of old.

Photo courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/zachklein/

So sign up for a new account on pinksheep (no, we didn’t migrate you across, fuck that) upload a saucy picture and join in the frivolities of the new pinksheep, the queerest place on the internet.