A sociolinguistic and etymological challenge
Not to beat a dead horse, but while r_blackcat's post on ableist language was mostly struck through, it's prompted me to make an inquiry about something I've wondered for years. It's arguably the kind of question that belongs on a community more directly centered around issues of privilege, discrimination, etc., but since we have a bunch of etymology-
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Once at that layer, of course, you run into the idea that unwanted anal sex is obviously the worst sort of rape because of the whole emasculating factor (and at least in the internet circles I see "butthurt" used in, that absolutely flavors it - the "butthurt" person is "whining like a little girl" basically, to bring in yet another whole area of bad insults). And so yeah, there it is.
But it makes me wonder, though - people often will say "I am SO fucked, what am I going to do now?" and the like, leaving the act as just regular unspecified sex (if taken literally) but again, definitely unwanted. Somehow that hasn't bothered me, perhaps because I've not spent a lot of time thinking about it. But I'll toss it out there - has "fuck" "I'm so fucked" "Fuck this" been removed enough to become okay? Food for thought.
Certainly when it comes to "lame" I'll admit that I never thought of the original meaning of the word at all, so I had no problem using it. It can't (purposely) imply all these maligning associations of disabled people if you're not making that connection.
Of course, once pointed out (and I do recognize "lame horse" in context, so it didn't take long) the problem becomes clear, and I avoid the word.
Others have posted in the thread something I agree with too - so many of these all-purpose fuzzily-defined generic "bad, uncool, not worth my time, I can laugh at you if you like the thing in question" words are just lazy. I think it's worth trying to find more specific language and to be able to express just what is objectionable about whatever it is. So, I will try to do so.
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