Fruit,fruity, andfruitcake, as well as its many variations, areslang or evensexual slang terms which have various origins. These terms have often been used derogatorily to refer toLGBT people.[1][2] Usually used aspejoratives, the terms have also been re-appropriated as insider terms of endearment withinLGBT communities.[3] Many modern pop culture references within the gay nightlife like "Fruit Machine" and "Fruit Packers" have been appropriated forreclaiming usage, similar toqueer.[4][5][6][7]
InA Dictionary of Epithets and Terms of Address authorLeslie Dunklingtraces the friendly use of the phraseold fruit (and rarelyoldtin of fruit) to the 1920s inBritain, possibly deriving from the phrasefruit of the womb. In theUnited States, however, bothfruit andfruitcake are seen as negative, withfruitcake likely originating from the idiomnutty as a fruitcake'crazy'.[8]
Acostermonger was a street seller of fruit and vegetables. The term, which derived from the wordscostard (a type ofapple)[9] andmonger, i.e. "seller", came to be particularly associated with the "barrow boys" ofLondon who would sell their produce from awheelbarrow or wheeled market stall. Costermongers have existed in London since at least the 16th century, when they were mentioned byShakespeare andMarlowe, and were probably most numerous during theVictorian era, when there were said to be over 30,000 in 1860. They gained a fairly unsavoury reputation for their "low habits, general improvidence, love of gambling, total want of education, disregard for lawful marriage ceremonies, and their use of a peculiar slang language".[10] Two examples of their slang are referring topotatoes as "bog-oranges" likely developed from the phrase "Irish fruit" also referring to potatoes[11] and "cool the delo nammow" which means 'watch out for that old woman' with the words essentially backwards; cool (look), delo (old) and nammow (woman).[12]
Out of theEast End of London traditionalCockney rhyming slang developed, which works by taking two words that are related through a short phrase and using the first word to stand for a word that rhymes with the second. For instance, the most popular of these rhyming slang phrases used throughoutBritain is probably "telling porkies" meaning "lies" as "pork pies" rhymes with lies. "Alright, me old fruit?" is an example of this as "fruit gum" is translated as meaning "chum" (a friend or acquaintance).[13]
Cassell's Dictionary of Slang traces uses offruit meaning an easy victim in the late 19th century and also as an eccentric person (along withfruitball,fruit basket andfruit merchant).[14]
Fruit as gay slang orslur is amongst thelexicon of thecantslangPolari used in the gay subculture in Britain, which has become more mainstream with transcontinental travel andonline communication.[15] There is still debate about how Polari originated but its origins can be traced back to at least the 19th century[16] and has multiple origins and routes of dissemination with researchers finding a relatively small base of less than two dozen common (universal words) supplemented by regional phrases. It is believed to be passed on near exclusively by oral history and teaching and was found in traveling professions such as those in the sailing and traveling entertainment industries (like minstrel shows and circuses). In Polari, fruit means queen, which at the time and still today is a term for gay men and can be used positively or negatively depending on the speaker, usage and intent.[17][18]
Several origins of the word fruit being used to describe gay men are possible, and most stem from the linguistic concepts of insulting a man by comparing him to or calling him a woman. In Edita Jodonytë and Palmina Morkienë's researchOn Sexist Attitudes in English they note "female-associated words become totally derogatory when applied to males"[19] and “[W]hen language oppresses it does so by any means that disparage and belittle.”[20] Comparing a gay man tofruit, soft and tender, effeminate, like a woman has possibly gained near universal use because both LGBT people and fruit are found nearly everywhere.[21] InOne of the Boys: Homosexuality in theMilitary DuringWorld War II author Paul Jackson writes "a number of words that originally referred toprostitutes came to be applied toeffeminate orqueer men - "queen, punk, gay, faggot, fairy, and fruit."[22]
From the 1857 "Dictionary ofObsolete andProvincial English: Containing Words from the English Writers Previous to the Nineteenth Century Which Are No Longer In Use, Or Are Not Used In The Same Sense. And Words Which Are Now Used Only In The ProvincialDialects" (e.g. all parts ofEngland other thanLondon) several routes seem likely,cockney was "an effeminate boy who sold fruit andgreens[23] whilecobble is the stone (or pit) of a fruit which also is presently defined as male testicles[24][25] from theCockney rhyming slang "cobbler's awls", meaning"balls" andblow was the blossoming of a fruit tree and is widely used as thePolari definition for oral sex on a man causing him to "blow" (ejaculate).[26][27]
Fruitcakes, which arecakes containing both fruit and nuts, have been in existence since theMiddle Ages,[28] but it is unclear when the term started being used disparagingly, especially in theUnited Kingdom and theUnited States, as aslur for a 'crazy person' (e.g., "he's a complete fruitcake") althoughCassell's Dictionary of Slang traces uses offruitcake meaning an eccentric (crazy) person to 1910s.[14] It is derived from the expression "nutty as a fruitcake", which was first recorded in 1935.[29] A nut can be either aseed or a fruit.
By the 1930s bothfruit andfruitcake terms are seen as not only negative but also to mean male homosexual,[8] although probably not universally. LGBT people were widely diagnosed as diseased with the potential for being cured, thus were regularly "treated" withcastration,[30][31][32]lobotomies,[32][33]pudic nerve surgery,[34] and electroshock treatment.[35][36] Due to this, transferring the meaning offruitcake, nutty, to someone who is deemed insane, or crazy, may have seemed rational at the time and many apparently believed thatLGBT people were mentally unsound. In the United States,psychiatric institutions ("mental hospitals") where many of these procedures were carried out were calledfruitcake factories while in 1960s Australia they were calledfruit factories.[14]
From 1942 to 1947,conscientious objectors in the US assigned to psychiatric hospitals underCivilian Public Service exposed abuses throughout the psychiatric care system and were instrumental inreforms of the 1940s and 1950s.
"Strange Fruit" is most often a reference to the lynchings of black people in the American South, in reference tothe jazz song of that name popularised byBillie Holiday.Fruit of thegibbet (used 18th through late 19th centuries) refers to a hanged man[37] and derives from theHalifax Gibbet Law under which a prisoner was executed first and his guilt or innocence determined afterwards.[38][39]
"Strange Fruit" as a song and concept has been used inLGBT art including a 1944 lesbian novel,[40] Kyle Schickner's 2004 video,[41]performance artist andethnographerE. Patrick Johnson's one-man show (which toured the US between 1999 and 2004),[42] anddrag queenMonét X Change's cover and music video. The combination of the song's meaning and the derogatory history of the word for queer people has created a subgenre of adaptions speaking to the intersection of anti-Blackness and queer issues.[43]
"Fruta Extraña,"Spanish for "Strange Fruit", is a Spanish and English gay-themedtalk show onBronxNet,Bronxpublic access television. Eric Stephen Booth directed the show as well as one of the longest-running programs on Bronx public access television. "Strange Fruits," which the New York Times describes as "a 30-minute burst ofgender-bendingcamp and low-budgetintrigue" that is "flamboyantlyirreverent,unabashedly gay and teeming with men in high heels and pantyhose." The bizarre sometimes free-formsoap-opera was aired from 1997 to 2007 and has multi-racial cast of straight and LGBT actors.[44] The show was "one of the few public displays ofhomosexuality in ablue-collarborough that is a bastion ofLatinmachismo" The show was also broadcast onManhattan Neighborhood Network andQueens Public Television.[45]
Thefruit machine was a pseudoscientific machine built to aid in the detection of gay people in theCanadian Civil Service from 1950 to 1973.[46] In discussing his choice for naming a 1994Ontariogay andlesbian film and video retrospective and then re-using the phrase for his bookThe Fruit Machine: Twenty Years of Writings onQueer Cinema, film critic Thomas Waugh explains
"[I]n the late fifties and early sixties our very ownMounties, ever conscious of security threats, had commissioned research into a mechanical devices for detectinghomosexuality, inspired by similar research in the [United] States whereMcCarthyism and thesex panics had created a market for such lunaticpseudoscience. The idea was to unmask perverts by measuring involuntarypupillary dilations and otherphysiological reactions to pictures and words. Dubbedthe fruit machine by terrified straight Mounties who didn't want to be theguinea pigs and whose security was already threatened, the technology came in several proposed models. One involvedperspiratory responses to vocabulary with homosexual meanings likequeen, circus,gay, bagpipe,bell, whole, blind, mother,punk,queer,rim, sew,swing,trade, velvet, wolf,blackmail,prowl,bar, house,club, restaurant,tea room, andtop men."[47]
Other devices involved showing subjects pictures of seminude men and measuring eye movement orattention span.
"Basically they'd show suspected homos slides of naked men and measure their responses (dilated eyeballs, sweaty palms). The poor dilated sweaty souls would then be fired or arrested. Needless to say, the Mounties' machine was a crock: after a decade of breathtaking inaccuracy, it was consigned to mothballs."[48]
The Fruit Machine is anITV Productions 1988 thriller about twoBrighton gay teenagers running from an underworld assassin and the police.[49][50]
On 8 July 1992 The Fruit Machine weekly club for "queers,dykes and their friends" opened atEngland's largest gay dance venueHeaven inLondon and recently celebrated their fifteenth anniversary.[5][6]
On June 1, 1963,Alfred Chester ofThe New York Review of Books gave an extremely unfavorable review of gay authorJohn Rechy's first novelCity Of Night under the disparaging title"Fruit Salad"[51] including speculation that Rechy was a pseudonym. The story is of amale hustler seeking love while working the streets ofNew York City,Los Angeles, andNew Orleans. It was later revealed that the book was at least partly autobiographical.[52] The protagonist has sex with "men for money but with women to prove his masculinity intact" with the book exploring seedy gay sex and those who deal with the criminal aspects of it.[53] Over three decades later Rechy complained noting "I'm no longer young, I understand the attack, and I protest the abuse and its recent extension" referring to the reprint of the review in a 1988 collection of reviews,Selections which was again rerun, intact, in 1996. He specifically cites the title and adds thatCity of Night became an international bestseller, has never been out of print, is taught in literature courses and is considered a modern classic.[54] In an interview inPoets & Writers it was revealed by Chester's once-editor Edward Field that "the title of the offending review…was not Alfred Chester's but the New York Review of Books's."[54]
In South Africa, fruit salad refers to male genitals[55] while elsewhere it can refer to a group of gay men, a set of military medals and badges or a selection of drugs (because of the various colors) or even a mixture ofmarijuana andhashish called a fruit salad bowl referring to the pipe used to smoke the mixture, the later two in the context of gay men partaking of them.[56]
Agayslang term from the 1970s meaning a sexuallyuninterested gay man.[37]
In the 1970sAnita Bryant became the spokesperson forFloridaorange juice, making a series oftelevisioncommercials for them. She is also widely known for her strong views againsthomosexuality, and for her prominentSave Our Children campaign to preventgay equality by overturning a 1977Dade County (now Miami-Dade County)human-rightsordinance that prohibiteddiscrimination on the basis ofsexual orientation. Bryant led a highly publicized successful campaign to repeal the ordinance waged on what was labeledChristian beliefs regarding thesinfulness ofhomosexuality and the perceived threat ofhomosexual recruitment of children andchild molestation. The campaign was the start of an organized opposition togay rights that spread across the nation and many credit it as a secondStonewall mobilizingLGBT people tocome out of theirclosets.[57]Jerry Falwell went to Miami to help her and Bryant made the following statements during the campaign: "As a mother, I know that homosexuals cannot biologically reproduce children; therefore, they must recruit our children" and "If gays are granted rights, next we'll have to give rights toprostitutes and to people who sleep withSt. Bernards and tonail biters." In response gay activists countered with the sloganSuck a Fruit for Anita playing on the words to imply that oral sex ("Suck") with other gays ("Fruit") was an appropriate response.[3]
Jonathon Green, author ofCassell's Dictionary of Slang, lists several definitions for "Fruit Loops" including the loop at the back of a man's shirt collar which can be used to "hold a victim ready for buggery" (circa 1980 on college campuses), gay men[58] and an area where they hang out andcruise each other.[56] "Fruit Loop" can also refer to a cluster of gay bars, stores and businesses likeLas Vegas' "Paradise Fruit Loop" just off theLas Vegas Strip.[59] A fruitloop can also refer to a person consideredcrazy.[14]
Fruit Loops, (also singularFruit Loop andFruitloops) are alsoFreedom Rings), a set of six rainbow-colored metal rings worn as necklaces, bracelets, etc., to symbolizegay pride or solidarity with LGBT people that were popularized in the 1990s.[56][60]ForNational Coming Out Day (United States held 11 October) students have made home-made versions of the "freedom rings" with actualFroot Loops cereal.[citation needed]As a fundraiser, an LGBT student group has madeRice Krispies treat using Froot Loops cereal and called them "Fruity Gay Bars".[61]
Fruit Punch was one of the first gay radio show in the United States,[62][63] and possibly the world, which aired weekly from 1973 to 1979 fromBerkeley radio stationKPFA,[64] the first listener-supported radio broadcaster in the United States.Audio from the program is archived by theGLBT Historical Society in San Francisco.[65]
In South Africa afruit stand is agay bar[55] while in the US it is an area to pick up gaymale hustlers.[56]
In 1983, Frank Robinson, then manager of theSan Francisco Giants, joked that the team is planning to have a special seating section forgays. “Instead of agrandstand,” he says, “We’re going to call it a fruit stand.”[66]
Speaking of "celebratedfag hag" and formerWarhol superstarDorothy Dean, author Hilton Als writes (she) "reigned, with both cruelty and compassion, over that site of urban gay culture she called 'the fruit stand'."[67] It is unclear whether she was referring toThe New Yorker where she worked orManhattan where she socialized.
Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit is a 1985 novel byJeanette Winterson which she subsequently adapted into aBBC television drama. It is about alesbian girl who grows up in an extremelyreligious community. The main character is a young girl named Jeanette (Jess in the TV serial) who is adopted byevangelists, who believe she is destined to become a missionary. However, Jeanette finds herself subject to desires and feelings that contrast with the beliefs of the evangelical church. Because of these feelings, she finds herself subject to horrific practices and exorcisms, encouraged by her mother and her mother's friends.
The novel interweaves Biblical passages thus exploring the tension many LGBT people have with organized religion and Christianity in particular. The phrase "Be fruitful, and multiply" has been cited to support theories thatGod does not believe ingay rights, LGBT people are not born as such and instead have made alifestyle choice and that God does not approve ofhomosexuality.
Tropical Fruits is the name of an LGBTgrassroots community group led by xGarbageFire inLismore in northernNSWAustralia that hosts a number of gatherings throughout the year culminating in an annualNew Year's Eve multi-day party.[7] They started in 1988 and attract international travelers to the middle of theAustralian bush with attendance of 3,500 people.[7] “We’ve got oldies, youngies,fairies, muscle marys,trannies,queens,vanilla dykes,butch dykes,femme dykes, Michaels – that’s what we call thevanilla boys,” she laughs, “and we all hang out here together. Our parties are verycamp, veryqueer – we embrace the full queer mix.”[7]
Fruit Juice is a name of a magazine started in 1988 by "twodykes and twopoofters" inLismore in northernNSWAustralia that was a focal point for the formation of theTropical Fruits community group.[7] It can also refer tosemen for or from a gay man.[14]
 | This sectionmay need to be rewritten to comply with Wikipedia'squality standards, as Quoted pdf source does not mention it is unique or inherently Filipino but rather mentions possible etymologies of the English termfruit fly, which the writer(s) may have heard or read somewhere..You can help. Thetalk page may contain suggestions.(February 2019) |
People who associate with lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people may be called fruit flies[68] (along withfruit bats)[14] regardless of their sex.Fruit fly can also refer to a gay man.
Females associated with gay males are also known asfag hags, whereas men associated with lesbians are known as dyke tykes,[69] Dutch boys,[citation needed] lesbros[70][71] or lezbros.[72]
In South Africa the definition seems more stringent as a woman with only gay male friends[55] while in Filipino culture "fruit fly" is based on a metaphor of a woman buzzing around gay men.[73]
In the 1950s and 1960s, lobotomies ... were administered promiscuously in the treatment of homosexuals.
how men can establish relations and friendship with lesbians
If you're a boy who likes girls who like girls, then you are alesbro.
a growing trend: 'lesbros', males who are friends with gay women
For the lesbian, hanging out with alezbro may provide more freedom to engage in unfiltered commentary about other women
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