fag (fæɡ) -- n.

It is very interesting to see the mother-son relationship brought up again in Ken Corbett's Faggot=Loser, as we saw the same explorations in last week's Oedipus Complex reading. I think it is a general conception that "momma's boys" are "softer" than boys that are most distant from their mothers. It is as if that sort of relationship (non-romantic) with a woman may result in a transfer of feminine traits, like it is contagious. Boys have society pushing on them with the notion that they must be strong and stable and stoic; in essence, they have to not show emotion. It is as one of the first steps to attaining that image is to distance themselves from their mothers.

In addition, I think it is recognized that "fag" is actually a very universally offensive term. I know that all my male friends have a problem with the word "fag" more than any other insult word. It somehow brings a much darker connotation than other terms. Even the little boy Josh recognized that he did not like the word, even though he might not necessarily even understand what it means. Therefore, I took the liberty of looking up some of the definitions for the word "Fag". I had already known that it is a colloquial term in the UK for cigarettes, which sort of confused me because cigarettes carry quite a masculine connotation. Then, I found out that it can also mean "a junior boy who acts as servant to a senior boy at a British independent school." I don't know the customs of British independent schools so I wasn't even aware there was this junior-servant-to-senior-boy relationship, but it makes a lot of sense why the word "fag" is taken so offensively. Boys are supposed to be dominant in every relationship, so obviously no one wants to be seen as the inferior one. It is interesting therefore, that the word has evolved to be a slur for a homosexual male, that the idea of a homosexual male is always the weaker male in any homosexual-heterosexual male pairing.