November 17, 2004

FIVE POSSIBLE ORIGINS OF THE WORD “FAGGOT” AS A PEJORATIVE FOR “GAY MAN”

Leigh W. Rutledge, The New Gay Book of Lists (New York: Alyson Publications, 1996)

1. Schoolboy Sex Slaves- In nineteenth century English public schools, “fagging”
was the system under which lower classmen were obliged to perform certain duties––
such as polishing boots, running errands, or merely obeying whimsical orders––
for the upperclassmen. The system was similar to hazing, though often crueler,
and it had definite sexual overtones.... To be one of these drudges or sexual lackeys
was to be, in the slang of the day, a “fag.” The current use of fag and faggot for
“gay man” may be an extension of this earlier meaning.

2. Burning faggots - As far back as the fourteenth century, the word faggot referred
to the bundle of sticks and twigs used as kindling for burning people––such as “sodomites”
and “buggers”––at the stake. Some people now believe that the use of the word faggot as a
pejorative for “gay man” originated with this medieval practice of executing homosexuals
by burning.

3. Smoking faggots - In British slang around the time of World War I, cigarettes were
often referred to as “fags.” Despite their growing popularity at the time, they were
frequently regarded as unmanly, especially compared to a cigar or pipe, and men who smoked
them were sometimes ridiculed as effeminate. As a result, in the popular mind cigarettes
may have come to be identified with effeminacy and homosexuality, and gay men may have
come to be called “fags” themselves.

4. Gay sorcerers - In her book Another Mother Tongue, poet and historian Judy Grahn
suggests that gay men came to be called “faggots” because of the word’s long mystical
association with sacred fire and the sorcerer’s wand. She writes: “The faggot as a wand
for divination and sacred fire-making has apparently belonged to the province of Gay male
wizards, sorcerers, and priests for thousands of years.”

5. Disagreeable faggots - As far back as the 1500s, faggot has been a term of abuse or
contempt applied to a disagreeable or objectionable woman. The term, in this context,
may eventually have been applied to gay men, since homosexuals have often been seen in
much the same contemptuous and abusive light as women and since they have also generally
been regarded as disagreeable or objectionable.

B'Shalom,

Avniel