YMCA

[Wilson Gray]

On Aug 26, 2004, at 7:55 PM, Arnold M. Zwicky wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Arnold M. Zwicky" <zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: YMCA
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> On Aug 26, 2004, at 4:32 PM, Jim Landau is puzzled:
>
>> The latest in the McGreevy soap opera concerns the Surf, which is the
>> local
>> minor-league baseball team here in Atlantic City.
>
>> "announcer Greg Maiuro [was fired] after he dedicated a
>> between-innings
>> rendition of the song "YMCA" to McGreevey during a game on Aug. 17.
>> The
>> 1970s hit song by the Village People is widely considered a gay
>> anthem."
>>
>> Is it true that "YMCA" is a "gay anthem"?
>
> absolutely.  it was intended as such by the VP (who were a flagrantly
> coded set of gay male icons), and instantly caught on as such.  a call
> to the "young man!" to go the YMCA (scene of gay male sexual liaisons
> for at least half a century).  then, things took a strange turn, and
> the athletic image of the Y, plus the wild enthusiasm of the song,
> allowed it to become a sports anthem; some naive person or persons must
> have provided the cross-over.
>
> i'm sure that sports fans are as baffled by the idea that this is a gay
> anthem as gay people are by the idea that this is a macho sports
> anthem.  (not that gay and macho are distant from each other in the
> real world -- quite the contrary, in some circles -- but they are
> distant from each other in the gender ideology of our culture.)
>
> there's a lot of randomness to history.
>
> arnold
>

In his 1963 novel of gay life, "City of Night," John Rechy, IMO the
dean of American gay letters, introduced to the broader world - well,
to me, at least - the term "youngman"[sic], with the meaning "young
adult gay male." If you've paid any attention to the song "YMCA," you
will have noticed that its very first word is "Youngman!"

In the interests of chauvinism, I'd like to point out that, like your
humble correspondent, Rechy is both a native of Texas and a
non-practicing Catholic.

For more info, see <http://www.johnrechy.com/>

-Wilson Gray