[oats]

Originally Posted by Void

Faggot was pretty common for me all throughout childhood and into my 20's. Dated this girl who was vegan, had multiple gay friends and smoked weed 24/7. She gave me shit about it, and I was exposed first hand to a culture I knew existed, but had never dealt with directly. Growing up, faggots were gross, but not because I'd thought about it, more because they just were. The word faggot was like pussy, or bitch. The older I get, and the more aware of other perspectives, the more I realize using words like that is useless and ignorant. If I was going to accept gay people, then using the word seemed kind of counter productive.

This. I still say it around friends and whatnot, but not very often anymore.