chicken hawk

[Michael Newman]

Actually, a google search shows my point. 

Of the first 10 results for chicken gay, only the first, a wikipedia entry involves the youth meaning. Four by contrast reference Evo Morales (in)famous suggestion that eating chicken makes you gay and another four are about a game called "gay chicken" which seems to have a number of variations all of which seem to share the feature of being mainly appealing to young straight (or perhaps "straight") male, preferably fraternity members.

By contrast, results for twink gay are all about well the obvious. All but one seem to be links that I doubt would appear if "safe search" was on. That safe one is a wikipedia article. 

Now, before I check out those links (just to examine the photographic evidence regarding my hypothesis), it is interesting note that not only is there far less stigma against an older guy into twinks than a chicken hawk and a twink can be older than a chicken was, but the term pedophile has really expanded to cover the younger range. I think when I was 16, an adult who may have made a play for someone my age would have been considered a chicken hawk whereas one who went for a pre-pubescent boy or girl would be a pedophile. Now, I'm pretty sure that someone who goes after a 16 year old would get called a pedophile, even perhaps in states where it is legal.  Chicken hawk was bad because it implies taking advantage of innocence, but pedophile is far worse because it implies being twisted if not perverted. 





Michael Newman
Associate Professor of Linguistics
Queens College/CUNY
michael.newman at qc.cuny.edu



On Dec 20, 2010, at 7:57 PM, Laurence Horn wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: chicken hawk
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> At 4:08 PM -0500 12/20/10, Michael Newman wrote:
>> That might be a little out of date now since "chicken" seems to have
>> died away. It has been mostly displaced by "twink" as a term for
>> really young gay guys.
> 
> Aren't there affective differences too?  i.e. "chicken" more likely
> to be helpless, objects to be taken advantage of, than "twink"?
> Somehow "twink hawk" doesn't really evoke the negative implications
> of pedophilia that adhered to "chicken hawk", although I concede that
> I'm judging off the top of my hat.  Anyway, "twink hawk" is
> pre-empted by the eponymous hairstyle, i.e. a mohawk for twinks.  I
> wouldn't think "chicken hawk" has a parallel reading...
> 
>> However,  the connotations between the terms are a bit different.
>> Chicken implied underage; whereas twinks can be older maybe up  to
>> early 20s,
> 
> Right, that's additional support for the distinction I was getting at.
> 
> LH
> 
>> but they are boyish looking and thin and relatively hairless.
>> 
>> However, back in the day, I do remember, oh never mind.
>> 
>> 
>> Michael Newman
>> Associate Professor of Linguistics
>> Queens College/CUNY
>> michael.newman at qc.cuny.edu
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On Dec 20, 2010, at 3:39 PM, Laurence Horn wrote:
>> 
>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>> -----------------------
>>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
>>> Subject:      Re: chicken hawk
>>> 
>>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>> 
>>> At 9:05 PM +0100 12/20/10, Paul Frank wrote:
>>>> A surprising omission in the OED is "chicken hawk." The only
>>>> definition I can find is this: "chicken-hawk n. chiefly U.S. any of
>>>> various hawks that kill chickens."
>>>> 
>>>> The Wikipedia defines chickenhawk as "Chickenhawk (also chicken hawk
>>>> and chicken-hawk) is a political epithet used in the United States to
>>>> criticize a politician, bureaucrat, or commentator who strongly
>>>> supports a war or other military action, yet who actively avoided
>>>> military service when of age." The term has been around at least since
>>>> the 1980s.
>>>> 
>>> And there's also the rather different term of sexual art, for an
>>> adult male who "preys on" boys.  Rather more pejorative than "cougar".
>>> 
>>> LH
>>> 
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