Dar Williams' "When I Was a Boy" is one of the best songs about gender socialization I've ever heard.

@LaFemme: Midget actually has a pretty nasty etymology, fyi: it comes from the word "midge," which is basically a tiny, irritating insect.

@Elizabooth: That's fair. On the flip side, I think that our culture encourages us, especially women, to cultivate magical thinking about marriage: that it will absolve you from having the kinds of conversations you're talking about. But I hope that that's a fading model!

@jollydolly: I feel like if you do that, you'll never learn about different types of love, or enduring responsibility and commitment to another person.

@Elizabooth: Well, some people may have the conversation and decide to stay together as long as it makes them both happy/fulfilled/whatever their criteria are that might not be death. Just because the outcome is different doesn't mean it's impossible to "know what the score is" outside of formal marriage.

@kerry: I totally agree with this. My parents were married for 15 years and had three kids, and while not all those years were happy, it certainly wasn't a "failure."

@joanna.lampe: *slow clap*

@emilylzbth: We haven't talked about MeMe in a while at SP but every time I think of her, I think of that quote.

MeMe Roth has also compared eating a cookie to being raped: [kateharding.net]

@Sweet Machine: In other words, this may be all academic and interestingly theoretical to you, but it's visceral and real to the people who are harmed by this language.

@get the buttah: One good way of finding out where "to draw the line" is listening to what people who are affected by these words say, rather than jumping right into philosophical abstraction about self-censorship.

@get the buttah: Thank you.

@get the buttah: But you did imply that it's okay to insult people with disabilities, right here:

@get the buttah: If you're interested, I have written elsewhere about what kind of experiences I've had with "retard" here: [kateharding.net]

@get the buttah: Right, I agree with you that more is at play. Words mean things because they are connected to social structures, some of which hurt people. When you say "If one is assuming that's the case, then the assumption is the insult.. not the word," you are blaming people for their own oppression. That's…

@get the buttah: Right, because my experience is being a witness to discriminatory behavior, and yours is not being a witness to such behavior. So when you say that people don't use "retard" as an insult to PWD or to be cruel, and I say I have witnessed such behavior, what, we're just even? What do you have invested…

@mrs_weasley: As the sister and cousin of people with cognitive disabilities, I am on Team Kiss My Ass as well.

@get the buttah: When really.. how many people use the word 'retard' as a cruel word?

@get the buttah: Oh, clearly it was just a *coincidence* that people called my disabled brother "retard" all the time. I must have just ASSUMED that they were trying to insult him for his disabilities, when really they were trying to call him an idiot! Thanks for clarifying!

@gluechirp: Oh, well, it's really nice that no one you know uses "retarded" to insult people with disabilities. That totally balances out my entire childhood being filled with people calling my disabled brother "retard." I'm so hyper-sensitive! Thank god you're here to clear things up!