Em Kwissa
The Silhouette
I distinctly remember the last time I ever used the word “faggot.”
I was sitting in my friend’s car outside my mother’s house. As he pulled up into the driveway to drop me off he saw out his window, on the ledge beside my mother’s driveway, the big globs of wax that lay baking in the sun. He asked me who had put all that wax there, and I told him that it had been someone I knew in grade school, and he had done it many years ago but the wax had baked and frozen and baked and frozen and never gone away. Matter-of-factly, I called that boy a faggot.
My friend turned to me with one eyebrow raised in a gesture of disbelief.
“Um, hello?” he said. He didn’t have to say anything more. A few months previously, I had found out that my friend was gay.
I hadn’t intended to use the word as a slur. I didn’t mean to say that the boy who’d waxed the ledge outside my mother’s house was gay or that gay people were bad. In the school where I grew up, the word “faggot” was tossed around as a gratuitous insult. I liked it for the guttural sound of it, like “maggot.” There was a strength in the way it rolled off my tongue.
But the hurt on my friend’s face, the way he looked at me like he couldn’t believe what I had just said, changed everything about my perception of that word. I explained to him what I had meant, and he told online pharmacy viagra me it didn’t matter. The intentions behind our words rarely matter more than their consequences.
I was in grade nine. I have never used the word since.
In subsequent years, there are a number of words that I have chosen to remove from my vocabulary, and while I wouldn’t impose my rules for my language on other people, I have yet to hear an argument convincing enough to bring such words back into my life.
For many years, my mother used the word “retard,” no matter how I insisted that it was hurtful. She told me that it was a word from her childhood, and that she didn’t mean it the way people heard it.
It wasn’t until her friend’s disabled son started being called by that name in school, until her own son was identified with a learning disability, that the word started to trickle out of her mouth less and less.
Many times I have heard the argument that culture has taken words like “faggot” and “retard” and changed them to mean something different, much in the way that “literally” no longer means literally. This is an interesting argument, but the intuition that rises in response is that the change in the meaning of the word “literally” is not used to hurt people.
Today, a friend of mine stated that while he still throws the word “faggot” around occasionally, he only does it with people he knows, and who he knows won’t be offended. He censors himself much in the same way that I censor myself when I’m around his mother. I don’t say “fuck” around my friends’ parents, though you can bet I’ll sprinkle it liberally throughout my sentences when in more relaxed company.
Another interesting argument.
My counter-argument is this: People who are offended by the word “fuck” are not a minority that has been systematically oppressed. These people have not had their rights taken away and they are not at a higher risk of violence than other people.
The word “fuck” offends them because it is crude, not because it is being used to marginalize and belittle them.
The word “faggot,” on the other hand, comes from a place that has made it so that there are still parts of the world in which two people who love each other aren’t allowed to get married, among the least harmful results.
It comes from a system that has designated a certain minority as lesser than. It was created by that system to keep those people in their place. One cannot be certain that no one in present company will be offended by that word.
You don’t know which of your friends are closeted or have friends who are. You don’t know which of your friends has a learning disability or knows someone who does. Which is more important – to be hip to the lingo or to do no harm? If anyone has an argument adequately formed to convince me that one can use such words without supporting the systems of oppression from which they are born, please, let me know.
It took a lot of training for me to remove certain words from my vocabulary (I still find myself having the urge to call someone a “pussy” when they can’t kick a soccer ball), and it would be a lot less work to be able to throw words around without really needing to mean them. Until then, I continue pruning my language, difficult though it is, because there are a fuck-ton of people out there who have to deal with way worse shit than I do, and the least I can do as their ally is the work it takes not to use the same language as the people who treat them like dirt.
Making the conscious effort to improve your language in order to reflect how you actually feel about the world isn’t something that’s actually very difficult. In fact, if it’s something you see as hard, you should probably consider yourself lucky that you haven’t had harder things to deal with.
Em Kwissa / The Silhouette
Sam Godfrey / Senior InsideOut Editor
How did we meet?
We met in Moral Issues. I don’t remember meeting you formally. You just came up to me and said, “Hey my housemate and I think you’re super cool, want to come over for dinner sometime?”
I didn’t know your name. But I knew your housemate’s and I found you in a picture on his Facebook wall. You were under a blanket and the caption said, “My demand for blankie is greater than the supply.” And I knew, “That’s her.”
And then I sent you a message promising to get you pregnant. I mean, there was more to it than that. But I remember thinking “That’s not a promise I can keep.”
OH also I initially thought you and your housemate were together, and after I agreed to come over I worried it was maybe an untoward situation. More promises I couldn’t keep.
What is your favourite bro activity that we participate in together?
The first bro based activity we did (and it’s sentimental for that reason) is we made a lot of layered food. By a lot I mean two. Like nacho lasagna.
I feel like we laid the foundation of our bromance as we laid every layer of that nacho lasagna.
I feel like a lot of our bromance is food-based. A lot of my bromances are food-based. I can’t think of a bromance that’s not food-based. (Unless… Can it be beer-based?)
Wait, we also pass each other notes in class. Do bros do that? That’s probably the romance part of the bromance.
Obviously we have got tons in common – like, hello – but what are some differences that are equally important to our friendship?
Other than puns. Let’s not speak of puns. Well, I feel like you’re a lot more in touch with your emotions.
Even though you cry more.
Even though I cry all the time. Happy cries.
You can also internet much better than I can.
WHAT? NO. I DISAGREE.
Okay, no, we internet similarly. I’m drunk more often than you are. You can draw pretty things. (I just tried to spell that p-r-I-t-t-y, but Word was like “no.”) You don’t look like you got dressed in the dark. Which is an indirect way of saying you look nice. I feel like I embarrass myself in public more than you do. No, wait, that’s similar. You watch a lot more animal-slash-body fluid videos. Maybe we should word that differently. “Medical videos,” yeah. You know a lot of cool idioms. Sometimes I try to keep up. And you’re good at keeping me in line in public. But also accepting me. But also telling me when to reel it in. “That’s okay, but only in private. Not in the grocery.”
You always wear your hair up. You hate dresses. I love dresses. You know way more fabulous gay people than I do. You’re a better student than I am. You’re more activities-oriented.
You’re better at having good thinks. Like, your blog is great. It’s like, you use your life to illustrate things about other people’s lives. Even though your life is not like other people’s lives. I’m saying “life” a lot. And I’m not even playing Life. Your anecdotes are less family-friendly than mine – even though hashtag SHEC. You used to flail a lot less than I did, sorry. Sorry.
Pop quiz: Compare and contrast “bros” and “romance,” with “bromance.”
When I think “bros” I think about specific activities: sports bros, coffee house bros, work bros.
And “romance,” I was thinking about the difference between romance and friendship the other day, actually. The only thing I could come up with was the kissing. But even then, there are romances that don’t have kissing.
Well because you have Head Feels, Heart Feels and Pants Feels – and you’re looking for the trifecta.
Friendship is just Brain feels, like “I’m so into your brain.” With some Heart Feels. But no Pants Feels. Maybe that’s what friendship is.
That makes it sound like you’re less in the trifecta, when you’re just as much a part of it: you don’t even need them.
What’s it like being the coolest one in the relationship?
That’s a loaded question.
I think it’s very fortunate that we both think the other one is cooler.
Usually it’s not like that. Usually one person thinks they’re cooler than the other, all “Yeah, you’re lucky to have me.” And the other person feels like they don’t deserve them.
But here we both feel lucky, it’s just like “GUYS. GUYS. LOOK HOW COOL MY FRIEND IS,” for both of us.
I bet other people get sick of it. I know my mom does. “When do I get to meet Sam?” “How is Sam?” “Seen Sam lately?”
Pfft. What a ludicrous question.
What’s the best part of being in a bromance? And/or what is different between a bromance and a regular friendship?
I think the difference is that when you’re in a friendship you have all of the things that are going to satisfy your friendship needs. Things that don’t require the African Violet.
Bromance you are excited about the friendship itself.
I don’t just get excited about you, because let’s be honest you’re pretty great, I’m also crazy about the bromance itself.
So you’re great, and the friendship is great: Two levels of fan-fricken-tastic.
Our friendship is like this third awesome person that’s the best parts of us.
Don’t.
Cry.
How do you feel about people assuming we are lesbian for each other? (Yeah, like we are lesbian specifically for each other, give me a break.)
I’m always very flattered, and I also like to play that up because it’s hilarious. I feel like that’s a small way of being an ally. Is that offensive?
If you ask us if we’re lesbian for each other we’ll probably say yes.
Like that time Kate asked how we knew each other and I said we were sleeping together. And she was like, “I meant before that.” There is no before that. I don’t know when you count from, but there’s no before.
How do you feel when people think we’re sleeping together?
I think it’s hilarious.
It’s not insulting, because first of all, you’re hot, and second, being gay isn’t a bad thing.
It’s like when people think I’m a natural blond. Silly, but hey.
(At this point Em took a Yo-Yo off the coffee table and began using it. Obviously she is very affected by the homoerotic undertones of our relationship.)
Would you still love me if I were fat?
I would love you if… Okay:
I would call Guinness and report you as the fattest person on Earth and stand by you as they took your picture and I’d want to be reported as the person who was friends with this person. I don’t think that was even a sentence. What I’m trying to say is: yes.
Why, do you want some more nachos?
By: Em Kwissa
My first forays into the awkward and heated territory that is disrobing in front of another human being occurred in my junior year of high school. I was seventeen and I had already dated a few people, but with all my previous partners things had been kept strictly over-the-clothes. This particular relationship was markedly different in two ways. One, I was in love. Two, I no longer had any interest in pretending I wasn’t incredibly horny.
Arguably the most important part of sexual encounters of any kind is that everyone involved wants to be involved. There was no question that I was enthusiastic about the direction in which my boyfriend and I were headed and the speed at which we were getting there; the problem was, I wanted to be involved as someone else. I wanted to be someone with a flatter stomach, smaller thighs, and bigger breasts. I wanted to be someone hairless and devoid of unsexy bodily functions, someone who could contort into wild poses and who smelled and tasted like vanilla ice cream.
Thus, my first sexual relationship was a very sad thing. In preparing to go and see my boyfriend, I spent hours meticulously correcting every imperfect detail of my appearance. In spite of wanting very badly to get to the fun naked things I knew we could be doing, it took me forever to get out of my clothes, and once I was in the buff I became preoccupied with sucking in my stomach and tensing my thighs and pointing my toes and lying only on my side to make my cleavage look bigger, and you know what? None of those things are conducive to fun sex. Here I was with this boy I loved and who loved me (and who, for the record, thought I was beautiful every inch), and for some reason I thought that things like a tan or a six-pack would make the experience better.
Fast forward through three years of experiences in sex and identity and arrive at present-day me, twenty years old and still soft-bellied, small-breasted, and covered in razor-burn if I shave my legs too often. This isn’t a story about how I started working out and tanning and applying various creams and perfumes and memorizing the Kama Sutra. I realized very soon after my boyfriend and I broke up that those things wouldn’t make a difference. My problem wasn’t with my body; my problem was with me, and no matter how much I changed my appearance, if I continued to believe that pleasure was only attainable if I became some future, new-and-improved version of myself, I would always be able to find something new to pick at.
I fully support physical self-improvement as a means of bettering one’s health and happiness, but I was kidding myself that I couldn’t be happy until I looked a certain way. I have the same body I did three years ago. The difference is that now I want to do naked fun things lights on and comfortable, because it’s way easier to have a good time when you’re thinking about how awesome sex is instead of how much more awesome sex would be if you looked like someone else. Don’t let a hypothetical version of you upstage you in bed. You’re here. You’re horny. You’re hot as hell. Go get some, kid.
