cover image Gay-2-Zee: A Dictionary of Sex, Subtext, and the Sublime

Gay-2-Zee: A Dictionary of Sex, Subtext, and the Sublime

Donald F. Reuter. St. Martin's Griffin, $16.95 (235pp) ISBN 978-0-312-35427-5

In this dictionary of gender and sexuality, Reuter defines words that are sexual, political, playful, hateful and everyday, all brought together under the umbrella of ""queer vernacular"" or ""gayspeak."" He does well to include a brief history of gay culture, from the formation of well-known gay communities in port cities (like San Francisco and New York) after WWII, when men and women in the service did not wish to return to their traditional, pre-war gender roles, up to today's ""post-gay"" era of assimilation, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and the metrosexual. In a sentence demonstrative of Reuter's use of the vocabulary to illustrate cultural trends, he writes of the diverse gay community of the 1970s: ""Queers were not just queens anymore. 'Effies' could be he-men. Homos were women, too, and fairies danced in a rainbow of colors."" As Reuter calls himself a linguist in quotation marks, his project is akin to Judith Butler's linguistic discussions in queer theory and analyses of in-group construction, but simplified (some may say oversimplified) in this entertaining reference book.