Is the term breeder offensive ?

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― anthony, Thursday, 29 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I use it all the time. I like 'pregnoid' too. People who have children deserve all they get!

― dave q, Thursday, 29 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I guess it's meant to be offensive. It doesn't bother me, though. The question is whether this is because I'm an easy-going kind of white heterosexual male or whether I can laugh it off because the power structure's on my side!

― Tom, Thursday, 29 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

in the context of Kim Deal's band, unequivocally not. however, in the context of people being heterophobic, YES. before i 'knew' you anthony (well, as much as i do 'know' you i guess) i was quite offended by your use of it as it implies that all straight people have kids and no fun and that you hate them all and diskard their lifestyle, and what's wrong with having kids etc etc. i now know that this is not true in your case. i realised that i call my gay (and bi actually) friends 'you big poof' and similar, and it's entirely due to context - they know i'm just being affectionate. still, it also made me think well, why *shouldn't* gays get their own back on straight for years of abuse and oppression - the feminists have been getting away with it. but that's a questionable reason all on its own, and i'm at work and can't blather on too much about it.

i guess the answer is, if it's said in a context of hatred, yes it is offensive. it promotes more hate and misunderstanding between people of all sexualities. if it's said with mutual understanding then no. a bit like the 'niggah' thing we had going really.

― katie, Thursday, 29 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

gee, i'm straight and i just use it to refer to people who, you know, breed. spawn. squeeze out puppies. fuckers.

― your null fame, Thursday, 29 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

well, quite.

― katie, Thursday, 29 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Well I assume it's supposed to be offensive. I just think it's funny that people would go 'ner ner you BREED'. It's a bit like vegetarians insisting on calling beef 'cow'.

― Nick, Thursday, 29 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

also, many gay people have maternal/paternal longings. a lot of them are quite vocal about their right to breed should they so wish.

― katie, Thursday, 29 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

nick, all beef IS cow. not all straight people want to breed!

― katie, Thursday, 29 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

That's why I said 'a bit like'.

― Nick, Thursday, 29 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

If Anthony does use it then it surely betrays a fear of physical processes quite unbecoming in one who wants to be voted Filthiest Poster ;)

― Tom, Thursday, 29 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

oh nick, i get it. "a bit like" as in, "not like at all" :)

― katie, Thursday, 29 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

filthycat = fraidicat

― mark s, Thursday, 29 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Katie, hush your mouth. I meant that in both cases, the spirit in which it is said seems to me to be yawnsome reductionism.

NB. I don't eat meat btw

― Nick, Thursday, 29 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I am confused, I eat meat but have not, to my knowledge, bred yet despite living in London's Breeding Zone.

― Emma, Thursday, 29 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Well if you insist on turning down obvious come-ons from Basement Jaxx Emma then I can't say I'm surprised.

― Tom, Thursday, 29 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

OK nick, i shall say nothing more except that beef IS cow. meat IS flesh. calling things by their proper names doesn't seem to me to be reductionist. if it gets people thinking about where EXACTLY their food comes from (because a depressing amount of people are ignorant about food production processes) all well and good, but i don't do it for that reason at ALL (the people i hang out with who eat meat wouldn't give a flying one anyway). it's as much to remind myself as anyone else. OK no more thread hijacking from the "militant" vegan!

though what you said about "Breeder" being reductionist i have no beef with at all, hehehhhh.

― katie, Thursday, 29 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

But Tom they are monkeys, I refuse to take part in any kind of sick experiment involving mating a human female (i.e. me) with another species (guess that means a life of lesbianism for me har har).

― Emma, Thursday, 29 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

really i am not scared by breeding, just slightly confused.

― anthony, Thursday, 29 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

~~Well Anthony, it's like this. When a man and a woman wuv each other very much, he puts his winky in h~~

― Nick, Thursday, 29 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

i think that puts anthony in the same boat as me, and probably quite a lot of others. i am not scared by homosexuality (apart from Peter Tatchell, he is a mentalist) but it just doesn't relate to my own sexual experience/desire.

― katie, Thursday, 29 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

The only thing that irritates me (and it's not just coming from homosexuals, it's coming from my hetero friends as well) is this impllication that it's somehow unnatural and weird and... counter- bohemian (for lack of a better word) to WANT to breed.

Your reproductive status is your own choice (and, I guess your partner's). I don't get on my friends' cases for refusing to contribute their genetic material to the human gene pool, so why do they insist on acting like it's UNNATURAL for me to want to? I suppose if your entire life you've been treated like a weirdo for wanting to make art instead of babies, it's understandable that one would grow defensive. But why treat me like it's wrong to want to make art AND babies?

― kate, Thursday, 29 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Doing art + bringing up squawky = a VERY difficult thing to achieve. We certainly haven't managed it. Child = minimum 2 yrs lost to artistic type process in our experience. This goes for both of us, though of course if yer a male lamer, there's always thee option ov abandoning mum to look after little one. quite common, I expect.

..... Ov course, this has been written in 2 installments 'cux little Adam (aged 2 1/2) wants to "sit on toinet (sic) have a weewee". I'm supposed to be running through our set today, butI don't think I'm going to manage it. Also, he tipped all of Jill's mosaic tiles all over thee floor 10 mins ago. He's 2 1/2. The "terrible twos" (sigh).....

― Norman Phay, Thursday, 29 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I've never been able to form a clear opinion of the term. I'm still shocked because where I grew up in the southwestern U.S., the term is sometimes used to refer (clearly offensively) to Latinos. Thankfully I was learned its other application before the band formed -- who I was, coincidentally, listening to in the car not five minutes ago and thinking very deeply about!

― Nitsuh, Thursday, 29 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

And I was listening to the first Kelley Deal 6000 album the other day. And a very good album it is too.

I don't mind the term at all, at least in its wide generic sense -- the rather sick vision Nitsuh mentions encountering, that's something else. As it is, I like Tom's answer best.

― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 29 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Words aren't offensive.

The use of terms such as "breeder" is usually motivated by the speaker's own feelings of fear. That's not offensive; just sad.

― dan, Thursday, 29 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Peter Tatchell nearly KILLED me! When I was in Manchester, I was walking along, minding my own business when BLAM! Peter Tatchell ran straight into me, knocking me into the road - right in front of a TRUCK! Fortunately, I managed to leap out of the way just in time but it's probably the closest I've ever come to dying. In fairness to Tatchell, I think he was running for a train or something because he was heading for the station - so it was probably clumsiness rather than malice which inspired his ASSINATION ATTEMPT (though this is still unforgivable because he NEVER APOLOGISED!)

― jamesmichaelward, Thursday, 29 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Is this anything to do with the film 'Breeders', featuring aliens who stole virgins and put them inside a giant clam? Like an actual undersea clam, filled with a white milky fluid? It's not even porn. It's a real film. Though they do get naked in the milky clam.

― Al, Thursday, 29 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Anyway, beef is dead cow. Just like eggs are chook periods.

― toraneko, Friday, 30 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

*yawn*

― Nick, Friday, 30 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

get to bed, nick :)

― katie, Friday, 30 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Pregoid. I want to use that one. Hur. "Breeder" is not offensive if you can retort back "gayist" or "uphill gardening freak". Then again, I use insult as a term of endearment, you spanners. Also I probably wouldn't say it to anyone I knew quite well. "Smellface" will usually suffice. Pregoid. Hahahahahahhaa. Stop laughing you freak. AHhahahahahaa oh dear god I'm hysterical.

― Sarah, Friday, 30 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

i know this lesbian who finds it offensive because she wants to breed and she wouldn't do it "that way".

― hamish, Tuesday, 4 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

yay, hamish returns!

― di, Tuesday, 4 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

If I am the "lesbian" hamish means, which I think I am 'cause he won't confirm or deny it & he does have some reasons to think that about me, it's not exactly true.
But I WAS offended when this person who's a big queer community organiser in Dunedin told us (me + h, new boyfriend after years of lesbian identity) to "go home and make babies". Just 'cause y're having sex involving one female and one male doesn't mean it's going to be a certain way. Well at least it shouldn't, especially if y're not hetero.
Also I think it's a stupid term to aim at hets, 'cause having kids isn't something only heteros can be or are involved in. I do have plenty of scorn for heterosexuality, it's just I don't think breeder is a good term for that 'cause to me it's not associated with sexuality.

― elizabeth anne marjorie, Thursday, 6 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Hi Folks, A breeder to me is a vet who artificially inseminates cows that can't be bred naturally.. I DON'T associate the term with people. Gale

― Gale Deslongchamps, Thursday, 6 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

why does gale always write her name straight after her posts?
Sorry Elizabeth for forgetting to insert the word "mock" and for taking what you said literally.

― hamish, Thursday, 6 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

oh can i mention Alex Nicholls of UniQ Dunedin, winner of Queer Nation's Queer of the Year award, for when he googles his name (with reference to Elizabeth's post).

― hamish, Thursday, 6 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

and welcome back to liz, also!

― di, Thursday, 6 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

did alex really say that, what a fascist.

― di, Thursday, 6 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I think This term was first used by the southern USA planter elite in reference to black female slaves during the pre-civil war period. Female slaves were more valuable because their 'increase' would eventually labor in the fields. Of course the term is used in different contxt these days but I find it hard to belive it could ever not be derogative.

― turner, Friday, 7 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I do have plenty of scorn for heterosexuality.

What, as a concept? This is sarcasm, right?

― Nitsuh, Friday, 7 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

As a concept it is poor nitsuh. Also so dated *yawns* so very dated. We were promised food in the shape of capsules!! And monorails!! And our cranial domes wd swell and outr fingers would get longer!! (etc)

Gale knows vets who aren't human!! She understands the future, unlike the rest of you furless throwbacks.

(hamish you put your name immediately after your post also: just in a difft place)

This is for Thierry Mugley the so-called "designer" when he googles.

― mark s, Friday, 7 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Hi Mark, The breeder of cows ARTIFICALLY inseminates them! They use semen from a bull, of your choice. Do you not know anything about farming? Someday it might just come in handy for you!

― Gale Deslongchamps, Friday, 7 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Hi Gale! :) I shudder to think *how* it would come in handy, as I live in the inner city, ih London's famous East End — but wo knows, you may indeed be right. I grew up in farm country, funnily enough. (I was teasing you for saying breeder = vet, so you don't associate the word with people => vets aren't people :)

Speaking of London's famous East End, I got my *first ever* refusal from a taxi yesterday. "Lower Clapton Road? Oo, I don't go there mate. Ther's been too many murders!!" I live there you big softy. 300 yards from a police station!! "Ooh no mate." He looked like Harry Potter with a silly cap on.

― mark s, Friday, 7 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I guess the term is offensive if the word is used in a bad way.( such as between couples, man & wife. Teenagers I think that would be an offense.Don't you?

― Gale Deslongchamps, Friday, 7 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

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