Retrieved December 13, 2023
Even though I never experienced it personally hurled at me, as a Canadian, popular culture and media trained me to know that it was the gay N-word. Overheard in a bar back home, says Bengry, the word fag would have zero associations with cigarettes and would only ever be associated with faggot. While most likely to be used in a derogatory way, he says fag might also take on a less antagonistic inflection when used among some members of the gay community, where it could also be descriptive of a kind of effete or camp homosexuality, though in both senses, he says, its starting to feel a bit dated and has never been reclaimed in the way that queer has. I can remember going to the mall with a good friend in the late 1990s, says Bengry, to look at a shirt with her, and discussing playfully whether the shirt was too faggy. And it was
this is a weightier subject than can be treated fully in a short column
85% of smokers in these two cities had heard of Paxton, just under half had tried it and a quarter had bought at least one pack
