Arnold Zwicky's Blog

This morning, I went to get a bunch of lab tests done at the Palo Alto Medical Foundation (for a nephrologist consultation tomorrow) and discovered that a lot of the phlebotomists recognized me, greeted me enthusiastically by name, and asked about my life since they had last seen me. The thing is, I’m really visible (well, I also remember them, and facts about their lives too; they’re interesting people, and the question “How did you end up working here?”, while they are drawing my blood, elicits some extraordinary stories). Almost always wearing stunningly gay clothes (today, rainbow-flag track shorts and a honking big rainbow-colored DEI t-shirt).

(#1) The DEI shirt

The PAMF staff find these clothes cheering, which is indeed one of the things they’re for.

This makes me happy.

Then, from my 8/3/26 posting “Two notes on gay moral purpose”, about the remarkable Steven Levine, posting about communal care for participants in Gay Pride events:

SL breaks out in a combination of, on the one hand, genuine pride in occasions of humane concern and (to put it grandly) moral purpose in the gay world and, on the other, righteous anger at a long-standing tradition in psychology, sociology, and medicine of blanketly treating homosexuality as dysfunction and disease. With, as sideshow, celebration of the raw sexuality in homosexuality — recognizing the physical and emotional pleasures of the associated sexual practices — in the wonderful BIG FAG t-shirts created by Steven (which he’d been distributing with abandon at Amsterdam Pride).

Here I am modeling my own copy of this shirt, in neon pink:

(#2) The Big Fag shirt

In my current living place, this shirt is too offensive to wear in view of other residents, so I can wear it only in the locked privacy of my own apartment (as I did yesterday for posting to the monthly motss-zoom gathering). I had been accustomed to wearing it in my condominium development downtown in Palo Alto and on the streets there — where it garnered occasional compliments (from people who get its good humor) and generally served to protect me from verbal assaults (I believe the reasoning is that anyone willing to wear this shirt in public is probably not someone you want to mess with).

But the Avant situation chafes.

What does the Big Fag shirt convey? At least three possible thoughts:

— thought 1. In Mongo-Speak: BIG FAG GOOD. More generally: Treasure big fags. I like that idea a lot, especially since I’m happy to be identified as a fag — a queer with more punch, more bite. (Speak to me not of bad fags vs good queers; it’s bullshit.)

— thought 2. I’m a big fag. Well, I am. I am also a proud Pennsylvania Dutch guy and a proud Swiss-American. A lover of dick and a distinguished university professor. And a hell of a lot more. Get over it.

But the fag part is important, because it means I get a viewpoint from the outside of many normative expectations, which is a really good place for scholars and artists to stand.

— thought 3. I’m looking for a big fag, or better, big fags. Of course I am. Big fags welcome. See two previous thoughts.

(Yes, I’m known for being a nice guy, and I think that’s a fair cop, but I have my truculent moments (of which this posting is one); if you’re going to take offense at who I am — hell, millions of people think that people like me are an offense to their God, or to nature itself — you’d better have solid basis for your opinion that is both rational and humane. Otherwise, you are dead to me; I don’t know how to fix you.)

This entry was posted on August 25, 2026 at 4:35 pm and is filed under Clothing, Connotation, Homosexuality, Language and the body, Language of sex, Lexical semantics, Moral worlds, My life, Rainbow clothing, Social life, Taboo language and slurs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.