Smear The Queer

[KidVermicious]

It's a game we used to play in the neighborhood, and at recess when the playground monitor wasn't looking. A random pack of hormone-crazed pre-adolescent gorillas and one ball, with the object being to catch whoever had the ball and pound them into the mud. Great fun. We called it Smear The Queer.

I hadn't thought about it until I just used the term in another thread, and it occurs to me that it might be a touch dated. Past its use-by date, if you know what I mean. What do they call that game now?

[Taur]

Originally Posted by KidVermicious

the object being to catch whoever had the ball and pound them into the mud.

Sounds like Aussie Rules Football to me.

We had No Rules Dodgeball, the object being to wing the ball as hard as you could in the tender bits or smack in the face.

[3acres]

Originally Posted by Board Taurus

We had No Rules Dodgeball, the object being to wing the ball as hard as you could in the tender bits or smack in the face.

Huh? That's just regular old dodgeball.

For real fun, you want No Rules Soccer. It was invented by one of my high school PE teachers. He got pissed at us when we couldn't (or wouldn't) play soccer by the rules and one day screamed at us, "You don't like rules?!! OK, no rules". It was awesome. After that, any time he asked the class for opinions on what we should do, we'd all yell "No Rules Soccer!!!".

Twenty-five guys on each team; fifty guys on the field at once. You could carry the ball. You could kick the ball. You could throw the ball. Flying wings, clotheslining, punching, leg-whips, you name it, it was allowed. Really, it was a lot like smear the queer, but with actual teams. There was always a goodly amount of blood by the end of gym class on those days. Mr. Wallach seemed to think we were psychos.

We did play smear the queer in grade school, but we called it sockball. I think that was because we played it with a ball we made out of a random assortment of socks we'd claimed from the school's Lost and Found. How do you lose a sock at school, anyway?

[Pere]

Originally Posted by KidVermicious

A random pack of hormone-crazed pre-adolescent gorillas and one ball, with the object being to catch whoever had the ball and pound them into the mud.

So why would anyone hang on to or accept the ball?

[KidVermicious]

Originally Posted by Peremensoe

So why would anyone hang on to or accept the ball?

Because the longer you could hang onto the ball without being clobbered into submission, the tougher you were. It all makes sense when you're a hormone-crazed pre-adolescent gorilla, trust me.

[THespos]

The late 1970s alternative name for this was "Smother the Mother" on my elementary school's playground.

Delightfully simple game. I'd like to play today, although the complete lack of scoring, rules and strategy would make getting a league going somewhat difficult.

[puttering]

We played Smear the Queer, back in the mid 70's. Before 'queer' took on its current connotation.

[mwm]

To the tagger: When we played it, it had nothing to do with 'homophobia'. We didn't even know what queer meant, as far as sexuality. It was a rhyming name with a hint of violence to it. The ball carrier was the queer because he was the only one with a ball and everyone was trying to get it.

[KidVermicious]

Originally Posted by mwm

To the tagger: When we played it, it had nothing to do with 'homophobia'. We didn't even know what queer meant, as far as sexuality. It was a rhyming name with a hint of violence to it. The ball carrier was the queer because he was the only one with a ball and everyone was trying to get it.

Yup. If the originator of the phrase intended it to be a slur, it was lost on me.

[Uthrecht]

Not that I'm saying anyone used "queer" in the homosexual sense or had an awareness of its use, but its use as slang for homosexual apparently dates to between 1914 to 1922. However, as mentioned in this article, the early use is really about pointing out the otherness of the individuals more than their sexuality. So I'd say even stripping out the more modern overtones, the point is to make the person with the ball the "other" and encourage the beating of him.

[Zeener Diode]

When you're a kid, you don't really recognize the political/societal implications of certain slurs. My peers in the primary grades threw around words like nigger and faggot to anyone and everyone, without regard to race or perceived sexual orientation. Back then, the worst insult you could sling was calling a boy a girl.

I played Smear the Queer. It was all about being able to possess the ball the longest, being able to out-race and out-fox the other kids; becoming the "queer" was the desired objective of the game. Until someone punched you in the face.

[Pere]

We played rough games too, but IIRC there was always some other objective, analogous to either football or capture-the-flag. Or just battles, with projectile or blunt weapons. But there was always a winning condition.

[mwm]

Originally Posted by Peremensoe

We played rough games too, but IIRC there was always some other objective, analogous to either football or capture-the-flag. Or just battles, with projectile or blunt weapons. But there was always a winning condition.

Boys don't need some flimsy excuse like winning to beat up on each other. I think every boy's favorite part of vacation bible school (three words that do not belong together, btw) when I was a kid was singing the action songs, because performing the actions was a good excuse to 'accidentally' beat the ever-loving snot of other kids right in the middle of church.

[AHunter3]

::raises hand::

Played it. Liked it. I can't throw, can't catch, can't aim. But I was hard to tackle and pretty good at tackling others. After each tackle the former ball-carrier would throw it straight up like a basketball tip-off thingie and some folks got smashed into the ground at the instant of possession. good fun!

I was also one of the people regularly called queer, and pansy and fairy and faggot. People may have been slinging "queer" around in this particular context without thinking much about what it meant, but if you'd asked anyone what a queer was they'd have said "you know, a pansy, a fairy, like..." and flapped their wrist at you. Saying otherwise is like pretending that the phrase "head nigger in charge of" {whatever} has nothing whatsoever to do with race.

[mwm]

Originally Posted by AHunter3

People may have been slinging "queer" around in this particular context without thinking much about what it meant, but if you'd asked anyone what a queer was they'd have said "you know, a pansy, a fairy, like..." and flapped their wrist at you. Saying otherwise is like pretending that the phrase "head nigger in charge of" {whatever} has nothing whatsoever to do with race.

Because you can personally speak for every single person who has ever been a kid? Because kids where you were used queer like that doesn't mean every kid did. Honest. When I was growing up, we didn't really even think about gayness until junior high or so. It just wasn't anything that crossed our minds. We called each other pansy, panty-waist, etc. without a clue as to what it really meant. We just knew it was something that would set someone else off, so it was a good insult. Even when gayness did become a thing we were aware of, it was fruit, fairy, homo, or fag, with queer occasionally getting used. I'm not saying that queer does not mean, nor has it ever been used as a derogatory term for homosexual; that'd be idiotic. I am saying you can't say that every kid who played 'smear the queer' was just doing some good old fashioned gay-bashing.

[eleanorigby]

We used the word queer all the time with zero knowledge of its sexual connotation. It doesn't just mean homosexual and isn't always used to refer to that. I still use it when not talking about gay people.


Now, calling all our nursing professors dykes.... That was silly, untrue and non-PC....

We didn't play that (although the boys may have). We played Keep Away and Running Bases, both of which allowed anyone to knock anyone else down. Girls played these as well--well, the non-Miss Prisses did. Prissy girls weren't held in complete contempt (and I still look askance at them. Get over your squealy-ass self already), but tomboys were welcomed into the games. I was quarterback of our neighborhood "football" team (I didn't call any plays, Tim told me what to do. I just had a nice spiral).

And there was always the Boys Chase the Girls or Girls Chase the Boys which I loved. God, we had fun.... Now kids are barely allowed recess and no running games etc.

[Salambo]

Heh. When I was a kid, anytime we would drink apple juice, we'd clink our cups together loudly and bellow "CHEERS TO QUEERS WHO ALWAYS DRINK BEERS!" and then chug.

It meant nothing. Well, except that we were all rather heavily exposed to drunks.

[welby]

I remember it as Smear the Queer unless we were playing it when there were adult like people around. Then it was "Tackle the Man".

[hatesfreedom]

It was smear the queer here too, but we grew up and started playing massive 50 player games of capture the flag on the parks soccer field. Which is still one of the better memories of my life.

I'd try to defend our unPC actions as kids, but we're all little shits when we're kids.

[Jaglavak]

Originally Posted by AHunter3

After each tackle the former ball-carrier would throw it straight up like a basketball tip-off thingie and some folks got smashed into the ground at the instant of possession.

The way we played, it was considered extra credit if the ball carrier could get an arm clear long enough to smash the ball into a tender spot on some other kid. Who was then the ball carrier.

[Mustard Stain]

Yeah, I played a version of that. Although I think at the time we didn't particularly call it anything. It started as a game of "keep-away" when some kid brought a Cabbage Patch Kid to school. And then it just became a bloodsport in which the object of the game was to hang on to the stupid thing until it was forcibly removed from your cold, dead hands.

[McNutty]

Originally Posted by mwm

I am saying you can't say that every kid who played 'smear the queer' was just doing some good old fashioned gay-bashing.

I don't think he's saying that. I think he's saying that the term 'queer' was fairly well-known even to kids who called the game that without meaning it in a homophobic way. I am pretty sure that I knew what 'queer' meant back then, and that's what we called the game, but it was sort of like those kids on South Park who called the Harley riders "fags" and got in trouble and had to explain that they weren't talking about gay fags, they were talking about Harley rider fags.

[eleanorigby]

Correction: Miss Prisses were held in complete contempt.

I know we (at least some of us) had no knowledge of the other meanings of the word queer because I had the following fight with my sister, 5 years older.

<initial focus of fight long forgotten>
Me (aged 8): You're so queer, Liz, I hate you!
Liz: I am not queer!
Me: Are so.
Liz: Don't use words if you don't know what they mean
Me: I know what it means!
Liz: Do you? Do you know what queer means? What does it mean?
Me: I know what it means. It means you're weird.
Liz: No it doesn't. What does it mean?
Me <blank stare>: Does so mean that.
Liz: No it doesn't. <goes into obnoxious older sister superiority shit> You'll never grow up if you stay this stupid.
Me: MOM!*


Sadly, this has stuck in my head, mostly because the next day in school we had a vocab unit wherein we used the HUGE dictionary in the classroom and I looked it up. I found exactly what I was looking for: it does mean weird. I didn't care about the other definitions and disregarded them. Certainly I never thought about it again. I was in HS before I learned that you could call someone queer, but not call someone A queer.


*that last bit about MOM! is made up. My mother practiced Switzerland diplomacy amongst her daughters to no-one's long-term benefit.

[Random Precision]

We usually called that "Tackle the guy with the ball", but Smear the Queer does ring a bell, so it may have gone by that name too.

We had a similar recess game with much simpler rules - Dogpile. Like Smear the Queer, but everybody piled on after he went down. Damn near suffocated once.

[Zeener Diode]

We played "Dogpile", or "King of the Mat" in PE class. The teacher/coach laid out a large wrestling mat and we circled it, waiting for the whistle to blow, at which point we'd leap onto it. Last person standing was declared the winner and enjoyed a time out while the rest of us ran laps around the gym.

I recall that the winner always seemed to be the biggest (and heaviest) kid in the class.

[Chacoguy]

We reanimated 'Dogpile' in my National Guard unit. It still had its charms because fully grown men weigh a lot more.

[Marlitharn]

Originally Posted by Zeener Diode

We played "Dogpile", or "King of the Mat" in PE class. The teacher/coach laid out a large wrestling mat and we circled it, waiting for the whistle to blow, at which point we'd leap onto it. Last person standing was declared the winner and enjoyed a time out while the rest of us ran laps around the gym.

I recall that the winner always seemed to be the biggest (and heaviest) kid in the class.

That sounds like a lot more fun than the stupid square dancing we were always doing.

[Who_me?]

I remember smear the queer. Played it often, and have memories of the injuries I and my fellow players received. I quit after the second broken bone.

That's when tackle basketball got invented...

[Zeener Diode]

Originally Posted by Marlitharn

That sounds like a lot more fun than the stupid square dancing we were always doing.

We had to do square dancing, too. The promise of "King of the Mat" got us through those dark hours.

[Anacanapuna]

We just called it "smear." My mother called it "stainball" because of the stains it left on my clothes.

[mwm]

Originally Posted by McNutty

I don't think he's saying that. I think he's saying that the term 'queer' was fairly well-known even to kids who called the game that without meaning it in a homophobic way. I am pretty sure that I knew what 'queer' meant back then, and that's what we called the game, but it was sort of like those kids on South Park who called the Harley riders "fags" and got in trouble and had to explain that they weren't talking about gay fags, they were talking about Harley rider fags.

Even if that was his point, he's still wrong, as Eleanorigby's and my anecdotes both show. She as a kid, and I as a kid, did not know what queer meant beyond weird, so when I called someone queer, I was calling them weird. Queer as gay didn't enter my vocabulary until I'd outgrown games like Smear the Queer. And since I don't think I'm all that unique, I'm sure there are tons of others out there who can say similarly.

[hatesfreedom]

Originally Posted by mwm

Even if that was his point, he's still wrong, as Eleanorigby's and my anecdotes both show. She as a kid, and I as a kid, did not know what queer meant beyond weird, so when I called someone queer, I was calling them weird. Queer as gay didn't enter my vocabulary until I'd outgrown games like Smear the Queer. And since I don't think I'm all that unique, I'm sure there are tons of others out there who can say similarly.

I knew what it meant. You're more special than you think.

[THespos]

Originally Posted by Who_me?

That's when tackle basketball got invented...

Speaking of dangerous, invented playground games, did anybody play something called "Asses Up" growing up?

It was played with a racquetball, a wall and anywhere from 3-10 kids. Basically, everyone would throw the ball up against the wall and try to catch it on the rebound. If you bobbled the ball or dropped it, you had to run for the wall before somebody picked up the racquetball and beaned you with it. If you screwed up three times in a row or accidentally beaned someone who wasn't running for the wall, you were forced into this humiliating situation where you'd have to bend over with your hands on the wall and every other player got to bean you in the ass with the racquetball.

There was some variant called Suicide, but I can't remember what differences in the rules were between Suicide and Asses Up.

Many red welts while that game was in vogue. Yessirreeebob.

[mwm]

Originally Posted by hatesfreedom

I knew what it meant. You're more special than you think.

Sure thing, sparky. My response was to Ahunter making the blanket statement "but if you'd asked anyone what a queer was they'd have said "you know, a pansy, a fairy, like..." and flapped their wrist at you. Saying otherwise is like pretending that the phrase "head nigger in charge of" {whatever} has nothing whatsoever to do with race." That statement is wrong. As I said, and Rigs said, if you'd asked us (and in my case, my peers) what queer meant, it would've just been "weird." Since there's no concrete origination story for "smear the queer", saying it is has to do with sexuality like HNIC has to do with racism is just speculation.

[Taur]

Originally Posted by mwm

She as a kid, and I as a kid, did not know what queer meant beyond weird... Queer as gay didn't enter my vocabulary until I'd outgrown games like Smear the Queer.

This, exactly. I've definitely never used 'queer' in the pejorative, and back then I felt like I was affecting a British persona when I thought about using it to mean 'odd'.

My playground experiences were tame in comparison. Back then, every time we looked around, TEACHER LOOKING BACK. The level of acceptable aggression was much, much lower in the late 60s/early 70s. Moreover, we were limited to certain areas during recess and lunch--there was no going to the far corners of the grounds, out of immediate supervision. If you were out in the far corners, you'd better be hustling straight home for lunch.

And guh, square dancing. Fucking agony, that was.

[Fenris]

Originally Posted by puttering

We played Smear the Queer, back in the mid 70's. Before 'queer' took on its current connotation.

This

[Fenris]

Originally Posted by AHunter3

I was also one of the people regularly called queer, and pansy and fairy and faggot. People may have been slinging "queer" around in this particular context without thinking much about what it meant, but if you'd asked anyone what a queer was they'd have said "you know, a pansy, a fairy, like..." and flapped their wrist at you. Saying otherwise is like pretending that the phrase "head nigger in charge of" {whatever} has nothing whatsoever to do with race.

At least in the '70s, in elementary school where I played it, that's not the case. Queer meant "weirdo"--it was a pejorative that had (as far as we were concerned) nothing to do with sex--the kid who ate his boogers if you paid him a nickel was a queer. "Faggot" (not "fag" as far as I can remember) was what you called people who were...you know... < flips wrist >

[KidVermicious]

Originally Posted by THespos

Speaking of dangerous, invented playground games, did anybody play something called "Asses Up" growing up?

It was played with a racquetball, a wall and anywhere from 3-10 kids. Basically, everyone would throw the ball up against the wall and try to catch it on the rebound. If you bobbled the ball or dropped it, you had to run for the wall before somebody picked up the racquetball and beaned you with it. If you screwed up three times in a row or accidentally beaned someone who wasn't running for the wall, you were forced into this humiliating situation where you'd have to bend over with your hands on the wall and every other player got to bean you in the ass with the racquetball.

Many red welts while that game was in vogue. Yessirreeebob.

Oh shit yes, we played lots of that. It was really awesome when I could sneak a handball into my pocket and light up the poor sap with that.

After I got into hackeysack, we played a game called Pelt that was very similiar, except with kicking.

[Mustard Stain]

Originally Posted by Fenris

At least in the '70s, in elementary school where I played it, that's not the case. Queer meant "weirdo"--it was a pejorative that had (as far as we were concerned) nothing to do with sex--the kid who ate his boogers if you paid him a nickel was a queer.

That's how I remember it too, as a kid in the 1970s. But then a lot of insults were neutered at that age, IMHO. But that may have been a sign of ever-so-slightly more innocent times - with a bit less sexual knowledge than kids have today. At nine "queer" would have been apt for the booger-earting guy, but today my goddaughter knows that "queer" is a GLBT slur. (She also has two schoolmates who got their menses at the age of 10! And her schoolmates have a lot more sexual awareness than I did at their age.)

Lewis CK also did part some schtick on the word "faggot" which is also how I remember that particular word being used when I was under the age of 12. Weird thing is, I got into fistfights on my sister's behalf when people said: "You're sister's a lez/fag", but somehow the word "faggot" (pronounced more like a nasal "faggit") was used in the schoolyard in a non-slurry insult that's really hard to describe. If I had to define it I'd say people were using "faggit" with a meaning of "egregiously annoying twerp that you want to slap for acting so exuberantly twerpy." Quite the opposite of Fenris's experience "fag" would be accompanied by the limp-wrist gesture, not "faggit".

Used in context, think of Dean Martin's straight man (no pun intended) trying to have a serious conversation with someone, while Jerry Lewis was acting like this. At my school, Martin would turn around and say "Stop being such a faggit! I'm talking here."

By high school "fag/faggot" was definitely a gay slur.

[jayjay]

I'm betting the gay kids sure knew what "queer" meant...

[Salambo]

Not all of us. Not until later. Even then, context and intent were apparent (you know who the real assholes were, and by then you weren't hanging with those guys, anyway). Though my best friend, a gay man (teen at the time) decided to be angry about it for a while, even shunning our other friend. A lesbian.

[mwm]

Originally Posted by jayjay

I'm betting the gay kids sure knew what "queer" meant...

Luckily, they were over playing Barbie and Care Bears with the girls, so they never heard us say it.

[Mustard Stain]

Originally Posted by jayjay

I'm betting the gay kids sure knew what "queer" meant...

My sister is gay and was out by the time she was a sixth grader (I'm the younger kid). "Queer" meant diddly-squat to us growing up (in Michigan and Ontario) in the 1970s. Don't forget words come in and out of fashion. Like "groovy" is a word my parents used to hear all the time, and now you barely hear it at all.

"Queer" appeared in books we read in school in non-gay contexts (as a synonym of "peculiar"). There weren't any other regular cultural expressions of it as a slur that we had ready access to as middle schoolers. As an insult I thought it was a more emphatic but no more offensive alternative to "weirdo".

I don't recall ever hearing "dyke" in grade school. If someone had said "tosser" of "poofter" it would have been meaningless. I think I heard "lez" for the first time as a sixth grader, I had to ask my parents what it meant.

ETA: :: hijack :: A bunch of years ago, I remember reading a post somewhere (on the Durp?) in which the poster was annoyed with anachronisms in That 70s Show. In particular, Donna had said: "What are you stalking me now, Eric?" And the word "stalking" as we understand it today wasn't really used in the same way in the 1970s (though the behavior no doubt existed). I girl I knew in the early 80s once complained she was being "haunted" by her ex, because even then "stalking" was still kind of emerging as a term to describe the obsessive creep stuff.

[Who_me?]

I wasn't going to weigh in on the queer issue, but I figure I may as well. I'm a bit older than those of you talking about elementary school in the 70's, I probably didn't even realize homosexuality existed when I was in elementary school... hell, I barely knew what sexuality itself was. In junior high school around 69 or 70, I probably did know queer was a bad word for homosexuals, although I don't recall anyone being called queer excepting from self proclaimed bullies calling everyone queer.

[Eats Crayons]

Originally Posted by jayjay

I'm betting the gay kids sure knew what "queer" meant...

Today's kids, sure. Especially because there's so much PSA information about bullying, and we same-sex marriage here so my friends' kids are the kids with two mommies, and so on.

I grew up as a gay kid and had no idea that "queer" meant anything different than "weird" or "odd." I totally had the hots for girls by the time I started kindergarten. As an only child though, I had no one to discuss this with, so I think I thought that ALL girls had the hots for other girls, but that they grew up and married boys anyway. Since I thought everyone was in the same boat, I never made any real attempt to hide the fact that I liked girls. I was bullied plenty as a result, but my peers and I couldn't really articulate what the bullying was about and I certainly never heard "queer" being directed at me. I did hear the word "fag" as a general schoolyard insult on occasion, but never directed at me. I'd figured by context that it was for men who were "meek and girly," and some some of the nerdier boys would fit that bill as far as I understood. Edit: Come to think of it, when I heard the word "gay" being used disparagingly, I think I thought it just meant "effeminate."

My parents had gay friends I wasn't particularly sheltered. Although I think I was 13 or 14 when it really dawned on me that my parents' friends were a couple and that same-sex relationships existed. THEN I understood the true meaning of "fag" as a gay insult. "Queer" still escaped me until a short time later, when I heard it used with an article in a movie. It might have been Fame, which came out in 1980, but I don't think I saw it until it was out of VHS or TV some time around 1984 or 1985 when I was in the 7th or 8th grade.

Someone said: "[Character Name] is a queer" instead of "[Character Name] is queer." Then I put two and two together.

Addressing the OP: We didn't have Smear the Queer, at least it wasn't named as such, but we had all kinds of other games whose primary goal was to beat the piss out of each other. British Bulldog was probably the most popular because you could have large TEAMS of kids working together in the pummelfest.

[eleanorigby]

Originally Posted by hatesfreedom

I knew what it meant. You're more special than you think.

Gee, thanks. I'm stuck in the queer group with mwm. :watch:

Wait... Mustard's with us, as is Eats Crayons. Yay! Enough for 4 square.

[KidVermicious]

4square is a girls game.

[Khampelf]

Originally Posted by THespos

Speaking of dangerous, invented playground games, did anybody play something called "Asses Up" growing up?

Many red welts while that game was in vogue. Yessirreeebob.

We had "butts up" which was very similar, but we were too poor for racquets, so it was a handball game, and you had to go up on the wall and give them a shot at you on your first error. You didn't have to bend down, though. That would have been faggy.

[Khampelf]

Like Fenris and puttering, we played StQ, and I think I was vaguely aware that Q was a pejorative, but didn't associate it with the game.

[Eats Crayons]

Originally Posted by eleanorigby

Gee, thanks. I'm stuck in the queer group with mwm. :watch:

Wait... Mustard's with us, as is Eats Crayons. Yay! Enough for 4 square.

There are probably regional/cultural differences and big leaps n vocabulary for kids with older siblings. I grew up in a very suburban middle class area and I simply didn't hear much sex-based swearing, in its proper context, when I was young. Most references to sexual practices would have been waaaaaay over my head.

For example, in the movie E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial when Elliot calls his brother "penis breath" and his mom cracks up, I always thought she was laughing because Elliot swore. It wasn't until I was much older that I understood the nature of the insult. Also that Eliot was probably using because he'd heard his older brother and friends use it and didn't necessarily know what it meant himself. I would have been Elliot's peer age-wise, but I didn't have siblings at all, let alone as old as Elliot's brother.

Also, our schooling system had grades 1 through 8 in elementary schools then 9 and up in high schools. The maximum age of the students we had was about 14. There were no formal rules in place, but generally grades 1-5 kept to one half of the playground to avoid being trampled by the bigger kids, grades 6-8 hung out on the west side of the school and there wasn't much co-mingling. So while older kids were preoccupied with thought soft getting to second base, I was trading scratch-'n-sniff stickers and friendship pins. The nearest high school was two kilometers away, and inaccurate sexual insults from the 7-8th graders just didn't trickle over to the younger side of the playground.

Originally Posted by KidVermicious

4square is a girls game.

Is that the one where you bounce a ball and there is a square with the corners marked off as king, queen, something and something?