Gay Communication and Identification in the Gay Subculture Essay

Gay Communication and Identification in the Gay Subculture

                “The world without gays would be like a fish with no bones; there would be no fun, thrill and challenge”, my gay cousin once told me. I didn’t get the analogy at first. I thought it was stupid. But then I realized that somehow it is true.  

                Gays, being considered as part of the minority, struggle just like any group to convey the message they want to tell. We all know that to fully understand a message, we must consider both its sender and receiver. There is a possibility that some messages we receive are not really the message sent to us. Meaning, therefore, is doubly subjective, relying on both the sender and receiver for parts of its content (Goodwin, )

We assume that we know a lot about the gay community, especially with what is shown in the media today. Movies such as Zombadings, Ang Pagdadalaga ni Maximo Oliveros, and Girl, Boy, Bakla, Tomboy depict the image of a stereotypical gay: the loud, creative, and witty cross dressers. There are also shows such as the controversial, My Husband’s Lover, which present the lesser known homosexuals, those of the effeminate type. However, being outside their subculture, we may never fully understand them and the messages they express. In their subculture alone, they have their own sets of strategies employed in various kinds of communication situations, which require a great skill to fully comprehend them.

The reading on Gay Communication and Identification in the Gay Subculture discussed important points and cited intriguing examples on gay communication. As mentioned, there are three common strategies employed in gay communication. The first strategy is humor, which is pervasive and reflected in the language, its words and usage. Humor, in the gay context, is no longer new to us since it has been mainstreamed in the media. There are gay TV hosts who constantly throw punch lines in entertaining people. A few TV shows have also been formatted like shows in comedy bars, wherein gays are always the front act. According to Joseph Goodwin, “A sharp wit and a sharp tongue are prized possessions. Such word play requires special linguistic competence, a skill that gays develop probably because of the oral nature of the subculture and because of the pervasiveness of humor in the community”.

Another strategy is ambiguity. Double entendres which are also related to puns are common sources of ambiguous messages. Goodwin cited a good example of double entendre, one he had heard in a bar in Bloomington.

One man said, “Well, I guess I’ll go home and do something constructive, like knit” Another man responded, “But you only have one needle.” The first man replied, “So, I’ll crochet”

The exchange was quick and spontaneous. He stated that the humor goes a bit deeper than it first appears, for it plays upon the stereotype of effeminate gay male. Both knitting and crocheting are considered boring and are associated with women. A man with only one needle (penis) cannot engage in a cooperative endeavor like knitting, which requires two needles working together. So, he resolves this by resorting to crocheting (masturbating). This exchange happened occurring within a gay context, since both men apparently knew they were gays.

The only problem with using ambiguity as a strategy is that it is prone to misinterpretations.

Lastly, the third strategy common in gay communication is inversion. Holt (as cited by Goodwin) mentioned that, “the phenomenon of inversion is a practical necessity for people in subordinate positions”. This strategy means using the language of the ‘straight’ people to invert meanings or covertly assess themselves without being punished. It involves a coding that provides secrecy and offers a means of insulting the people who does nothing but stigmatize gays, which is a way of expressing disapproval that frequently passes unrecognized by those who have been insulted.

A highly visible form of nonverbal inversion is the ‘drag’. Drag is essentially aggressive: gay men present themselves in women’s attire, in direct contravention of cultural norms. Sarcasm is also another form if inversion.

                In direct terms, inversion is like saying to straights that, “We do not accept your morality. We have our own culture with its own ethics, and these are the rules by which we live.”

                Going back to what my cousin once told me, we could never deny that the fact that gays add colors to our lives, our world. Perhaps, that’s the reason they are called gays. Now that we have a grasp on the communication within their subculture, may we all have the gusto to extend and understand them even more.