“Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.” H.L. Mencken
Several years ago the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) changed some of the terminology used to report AIDS statistics. “Men who have sex with men” (MSM) replaced “male homosexuals” and “gay males.” “Injection drug users” replaced “intravenous drug abusers.” “Commercial sex workers” replaced “prostitutes.” CDC officials justified the changes by claiming that the old terms unfairly labeled and demeaned people who were not responsible for their plight. Welcome to the no-fault universe. Recently, the CDC continued in the same vein by throwing out the term “lesbian” and replacing it with “women who have sex with women” (WSW). Although many of the terms used a century ago to describe different racial and ethnic groups now strike us as nasty and brutish, has this gone too far? Is saying that a woman is a lesbian disparaging? Doesn’t the term have an element of gentleness, evoking the poetess Sappho, the island of Lesbos, and Greek antiquity? And were the other discarded terms so awful? Why do we discard terms as mean and insensitive only with passing years? Is our current terminology unfairly stigmatizing? If so, shouldn’t we get rid of it now? Do we ditch hateful language only by acquiring the wisdom to see it as unfair? Doubtful, says the eight-ball. It seems more likely that what is going on here is that many of the bedwetting, busybody do-gooders in the medical profession need to stay busy finding new examples of supposed unfair discrimination. Here’s another obnoxious example of the same thing. At the Barnes and Noble bookstore yesterday, I noticed that the “Lesbian/Gay” section had been relabeled “Lifestyle.” I doubt B&N did this because they wanted to make that section of the store less conspicuous. More likely, “gay/lesbian’ is out, “lifestyle” is in. So don’t you feel as if you’re walking on eggshells, afraid you’ll say something politically incorrect? Aren’t you afraid to even let out a peep at work, for instance? You’re not? So you still say handicapped, not handicapable, and it’s mentally retarded, not cognitively challenged, or some other idiotic euphemism? Good. Now we’re getting somewhere.
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