It is a difficult question to answer. Even the word “queer” itself sparks controversy. For some men and women in the gay community, the word carries very negative memories of growing up when the word “queer” was a condemnation that dangerously stamped you as Other. For younger members of gay culture, it is associated with queer theory and a radical politic that strives to ally gays, lesbians, bis, trans people, and other disenfranchised minorities under one umbrella. In his essay “Identity and Politics in a ‘Postmodern’ Gay Culture,” Steven Seidman says, “gay liberation is more than a movement to liberate eros; it is a gender revolution.”5 It is not just a struggle for the freedom to bed who we want to bed. It is also a struggle to name what we do in bed, who we are in bed, who we take with us to bed. So while the word “queer” comes with a lot of baggage and connotations, it is also an excellent example of what the words in this book tend to do.
The terms you’ll find in Outbursts! are often challenging. They insist there is a sophistication to our desire, a sense of humour, a complexity, an ability to take even the most perjorative, nastily implied word and do exactly whatever we want with it. Many of the words in this book have taken on new meanings, and some still ring hateful like a taunt in the schoolyard or street, but they have been included here perhaps as a dare. Whatever the case, take these words and do what you want with them—they’ve been very naughty.
—A.D. Peterkin
1. Peterkin, A.D. The Bald-Headed Hermit and the Artichoke: An Erotic Thesaurus. Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2000.
2. Marcus, Eric, Making Gay History. New York: HarperCollins, 1992.
3. Les Wright, www.sanfranciscobear.com
4. Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge, 1990.
5. Seidman, Steven. “Identity and Politics in a ‘Postmodern’ Gay Culture.” In Fear of a Queer Planet. Ed. Michael Warner. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993. p. 113.
Outbursts!
Swami talked about Ramakrishna (19th-century Indian avatar of Godhead, sometime transvestite and coquette) and Girish Ghosh (poet and drinker). They once had a competition to find out which of them knew the bigger number of risqué words. (It was amusing to hear this corny French adjective pop up out of Swami’s vocabulary.) Afer they had both said all the risqué words they knew. Girish bowed down and told Ramakrishna. “You are my guru in this also.”
—Christopher Isherwood, My Guru and His Disciple
Abdomen
see also Muscular
A ripped muscular abdomen has become a sexual status symbol and a source of obsession for millions of body-conscious men and women today.
Abdominal Snowman, abs, alvus, Aunt Nelly, bay window, bazoo, belly, bingy/binjy, corporation, front porch, fuck handles, gizzard, goodyear, gut(s), landing pad, love handles, Maconochie, mid-section, middle, midriff Mary, Ned Kelly, Newingbus, paunch, pot belly, shit locker, six-pack, spare tire, stomach, tum-tum, tummy, washboard
Abdominal Snowman: a guy with great abs.
Abs: what everyone wants but few of us have.
Maconochie: from the name of a well-known tinned stew in England.
Anal Sex: see Sodomy
Androgyne
see also Effeminate, Bisexual, Transexual, Transgendered
An archaic term for an individual with blurred gender identification.
ambisexual, bisexual, epicene, gynandrous, hermaphrodite, Jenny Willocks, John and Joan, moff, morphadite, morphodite, pantrope, Pat, scrat, shim, will-gill
Pat: the Saturday Night Live gender-blurry geek.
Morphadite/morphodite: evolved from hermaphrodite, who in Greek mythology was the child of Hermes and Aphrodite, depicted as bisexual.
Anus
see also Buttocks, Sodomy, Sodomize, Sodomite
Like a mauve carnation puckered up
and dim it breathes, meekly nestled amid the foam
damp, too from caresses tracing the smooth dome
of creamy buttocks up to the innermost rim.
— “Sonnet to the Asshole,” by Paul Verlaine and Arthur Rimbaud
A-hole, A double S, abyss, arris, ars, ars musica, arse, ass, asshole, asscrack, azz, back porch, backdoor, backeye, backeye slice, backeye slit, backhole, backs, backway, bahookie, ballinocack, balley goods, barking spider, bazoo, beauts, beautocks, beauty, big hole, blind eye, birdcage, biting dog, blot, blurter, bon bons, bogy, boody, booty, bottle and glass, boy cunt, boy pussy, broad, bronze eye, brown, brown cherry, brown daisy, brown eye, brown house, brown lips, brown Windsor, brownie, Brunswick, brown towel holder, bucket, buckeye, bullhead, bum, bum bucket, bumhole, bunghole, bun-bun, bunky, bunt, butthole, Cadbury cul-de-sac, canetta, change machine, chips, chocolate buttonhole, chocolate starfish, chocolate speedway, chudini, chuff, chutney locker, codeye, cooze, copper penny, coops, corn-dot, cornhole, council gritter, crack, culo, cozy drop, daisy dot, date, date locker, deadeye, dinger, dirt box, dirt chute, dirt factory, dirt hole, ditch, dish, dopey, dot, dung-trumper, duster, elephant and castle, exhaust pipe, eye, farthole, feak, freckle, fruit/froot loops, fuck passage, fudge pipes, fugo, fun, garage, gates, gazoo, gazool, gee-gee/gigi, gig, glass asshole, glory hole, gonga, gooseberry grinder, gooseberry maker, gripples/grippley, grand canyon, Hawaiian eye, ham, Helmet Cole, Hershey Highway, hind-boot, hinder entrance, hole, Hollywood uterus, honey roles, hoop, jacks, jacksie/jacksy, jampot, jock hole, kazoo, keister, khaki pussy, Khyber Pass, kwazakoo, leather, lovebubb, lunar sanctum, man pussy, mangina, marmite motorway, medlar, monocular eyeglass, muck spreader, muddy starfish, mudeye, mustard pot, nachas, nancy, natural breech, nockandro, north pole, o-ring, ort, Paliass, pan, pockeroo, podex, poo hatch, poo percolator, poon, poop chute, poophole, porthole, prison pucker hole, pussy, quoit, raisin, rear end, rear entrance, recky, rectum, rinctum, ring, ring piece, rip, rosebud, round eye, round mouth, saddle, satchel, scratch, second eye, servant's entrance, sewer, shit chute, shithole, shitter, shut butt, siege, slack Alva, slop chute, sphincter, spice island, stank, stench trench, tan track, tassel, tip, tokus, tradesman's entrance, trill, turkish delight, twatarooney, up your gary glitter (up your shitter), V/A (virgin ass), web center, where the sun don’t shine, windmill, windward passage, winker-stinker, zero
Biting dog: a tightening of the anal sphincter muscle.
Boy pussy: 20th-century American gay slang.
Bullhead:
