I heard from Stephen Fry that British soldiers used to walk with their arms linked together like sweethearts until Oscar Wilde was jailed for homosexuality and they all stopped doing it.
IIRC, it's still common to see male friends walk holding hands in the Middle East for the same reason.
... Except they knew the difference between "everyday" and "every day" back when the literacy rate for Americans was above 50%.
One of my favourite UK daytime TV shows is one where middle aged (and older) rich people buy houses in the countryside.
It's aimed at right wing, house price obsessed, retired people.
Every third couple is gay.
The show always describes them as "lifelong friends".
Like, I've got friends I've known for most of my life. I've never considered buying a house in the Cotswolds and moving in with them...
Tom and Steve are an interior decorator and fitness instructor, and lifelong friends. They are looking to move to brighton into a new house together, as they are looking to adopt some kids and their old studio flat they shared for 10 years in soho is too small to raise children, but they are not gay or anything like that.
As opposed to what? "modern" homie messaging?:
me and my homies (tw: gay, maybe sexy?)
we're both hererosexual and i have a gf
Also historians: gay meant happy back in the day. Of course it did, how could so many people be gay, back in the day.
(Yes, I know it really did mean that...)
Gay was one of those substitution words to imply a different meaning, that eventually became the word itself. No one wanted to say "homosexual," so they instead said that some guy was "gay" (happy) around other men. Wink, wink.
Eventually, it got overused to the point it became synonymous with homosexual, and now that's the preferred term. For a while it became a slur, but gay people have reclaimed it over the years. Bigots still try to use it as a slur, but it has very little effect nowadays.
