Shit, I should know that no one's ever gonna make it this far down the thread and read my post, but I can't resist! I have literally a ton of gay friends and we call each other fags all the time and also use the word gay when something is not quite right. I used to be peeved when people did this; but I've changed my mind on the matter a bit. I think that the context in which the words are used is actually not hateful the majority of the time. NOW there are obvious exceptions to this, but I'll leave the midwest out of it for now. Heh. Really, when something gays you or is gay, that just means it's askance or awry somehow. There's really no threat implied in either direction (i.e. the person gayed doesn't suffer anything calamitious nor is he threatening reprisal by to the gayee
).
What sealed the deal for me is that my gay friends call everything they find a but odd as queer or gay or faggy. I'm a potty mouth as is, so I'm always looking for new ways to insult people. So, ok, I agree with Gak, et al., that the words don't really carry the meaning of something hateful these days (as opposed to nigger, which is all hate).
To follow on another of Gak's points.. when I think gay, I think of men having sex.
