Word: fag
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...rest of us. From then on, the issue was absent from conversation at home, except when something about Anita Bryant came on the news. We all regarded Anita as somewhat off the wall, but not out of any deeply felt views on homosexuality. At school, the words "gay" and "fag" were used only as insults to students so awkward or unpopular that the term "wimp" would not do. Homosexuality was spotlighted only once: when the women's studies class invited a lesbian to speak and half the parents called up to complain...
Gays are oppressed. The early life of every gay is filled with taunts of "fag" and "queer." These teach him to hate what he is. They make admission of his homosexuality to himself a crushing blow. The gay with enough courage to step out of his closet is also oppressed. He is ostracized by many of his friends, often completely rejected by his friends, often completely rejected by his family, regarded as misguided or demented by the rest of society, harassed, ridiculed, and sometimes even physically attacked. Even if a gay is accepted by his family and friends, he still...
...Anthony Eden, and a pride of literary lions, including Percy Bysshe Shelley and George Orwell. In their day, these illustrious personages, like all new boys, were on call to serve tea, run errands, and polish boots of top seniors. Eton was founded in 1440 by Henry VI, but fagging did not begin until the 17th century. The young servants are called fags, their service fagging, because in the 1660s "to fag" meant to toil...
During his ten years as headmaster McCrum nudged ten of Eton's 25 independent houses into giving up fagging voluntarily. But the rest refused. Among pupils and old boys, fagging remains popular. Indeed, ex-fags point to benefits from fagging. "You learn how to command by learning how to obey," says one Old Etonian. Beyond that, a good senior, or "fag master," helps new boys find their way around the complex campus and sometimes becomes a lifelong friend. Recalls Sir John Hogg, 62, chairman of the Old Etonian Association: "I had an extraordinarily good fellow...
Reclining in an easy chair and sipping tea prepared by his fag, an Eton senior, 18, recalls: "I didn't exactly enjoy being a fag myself, but thanks to some Library boys who threw their eggs in my direction when I didn't cook them properly, I know all about poached eggs." Still, the practice must go at Eton, as it has already elsewhere in Britain. Says Old Etonian Lord Redcliffe-Maud: "It's a source of misunderstanding by outsiders, who regard fagging as a brutal form of slavery. It's nothing like that of course...