"gay vague"

[Laurence Horn]

At 5:49 AM -0700 6/21/05, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>Slow news day.
>
>JL

Well, I'm not sure.  In the Sunday Styles section, it's *always* a
slow news day, but they do always seem to come up with *some*thing...

Actually, I'm more used to seeing the phrase used to describe not
people but ads, as reflected in a 5-year-old article that I
distribute in my language, sex & gender class, excerpted below.

larry
==========================

The New York Times
July 20, 2000, Thursday, Late Edition - Final

  SECTION: Section F; Page 1; Column 2; House & Home/Style Desk
  HEADLINE: When Intentions Fall Between the Lines
  BYLINE:  By WILLIAM L. HAMILTON

  ARE the billboards in New York advertising the Grand Can, a
swivel-top, orange-pop-colored trash can, a boast about the
sophistication of its design or of its buyers?

  "Swings Both Ways," the ad states. It should know. It does, too.

  Same-sex innuendo is showing up more and more in national
advertising, and in more consumer categories, from automobiles, beer
and soft drinks to home furnishings, once as lifeless in its
advertised image as a period room.

  Inspired by the license taken by fashion advertisers, "gay vague"
advertising, as marketers call it (designed to reach both gay and
mainstream audiences) has become the leading edge, many in the
industry say. And conveniently, where mainstream audiences see
ambiguity, gay audiences see a direct sales pitch.

  In Mitchell Gold furniture ads running in national magazines now,
two smiling young men sit on a white sofa, with a blond little girl
between them on a child's chair. A) They are college friends with a
sister. B) They are an attractive couple. The girl is their daughter
Dorothy. And you aren't in Kansas anymore.

  The muscleman in the tight, short-sleeved business shirt pressing
his knuckles into a desk, in newspaper and telephone kiosk
advertisements for Dallak office furniture, is Dallak's targeted
customer: young, active, sexy, fit. And an identifiable icon for
urban gay men.

  "We intended to be inclusive," said Neil Schwartzberg, the president
of Dallek. "A new unsedentary image of offices. Hard-bodied furniture
for hard-bodied people."

  Gay vague advertising aims at what many companies believe is an
affluent gay dollar, while also displaying a casual, inclusive
attitude toward same-sex issues that advertisers hope will capture
  younger, hip mainstream consumers.
...

>
>"Steve Kl." <stevekl at PANIX.COM> wrote:
>---------------------- Information from the mail header
>-----------------------
>Sender: American Dialect Society
>Poster: "Steve Kl."
>Subject: "gay vague"
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>I'm nominating "gay vague" for something next January, not sure what.
>Probably most unnecessary.
>
>http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/19/fashion/sundaystyles/19GAYDAR.html
>
>The weird thing about reading this article is that almost all of the
>quotations sound stilted, like the reporter asked the people to use "gay
>vague" in a sentence. I find it odd that that many people would
>spontaneously produce this phrase to describe this "phenomenon".
>
>(It's not new to 2005, per
>http://www.commercialcloset.org/cgi-bin/iowa/portrayals.html?mode=4 it
>appears to have been coined in 1997. But unless it dies a quick death, it
>will be newly prominent this year thanks to the NYT exposure.)
>
>I find it odd for something coined in 1997 that has only about 800 google
>hits being featured in an article where people are dropping the term into
>their quotations left and right, as though it were a phrase on everyone's
>tongues. (I have never heard it uttered out loud, myself. Maybe Boston's
>just too parochial.)
>
>It's also not that productive: "gay vagueness" gets 19 hits.
>
>New Yorkers: is this phrase bandied about on the streets the way this
>article would have us believe?
>
>-- Steve K
>
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