GUNSEL: definition

[RonButters at AOL.COM]

I think Mencken's definition is better than the first one given. GUNSELs were
not "gay" or even necessarily "homosexual," though persons so designated may
have been forced into anal intercourse by circumstances such as surviving in
prison or in the world of tramps in the 1920s and 1930s. Or relationship may
not even have been sexual--Robin is sort of Batman's gunsel.


In a message dated 1/24/02 6:40:32 AM, douglas at NB.NET writes:

<< >"Gunsel" was originally ...

>a boy, especially a young punk, or sometimes a young gay man --I'm

>told that in prison lingo it often specifically denotes a passive

>homosexual


Mencken mentioned "guntzel" in 1936, I think, as tramps' slang for what we

might gloss "punk", i.e., a tramp's boy companion, presumably usually or

often a catamite>>