Flamer
A gay man who is loudly, unmistakably gay in voice, gestures and style; from flaming faggot, recorded since 1948, an insult or a badge of pride.
A flamer is a gay man who is loudly, unmistakably gay: the voice, the hands, the walk, the outfit, all switched on at full brightness. It is mostly American, and it describes visibility more than sexuality. Plenty of gay men are not flamers; the flamer is the one nobody ever needs to ask.
The word can be an insult, a joke or a badge of honor, depending entirely on who says it. Thrown by a stranger, it means "too much". Said by a friend, it can mean "fabulous, and doesn't care who knows".
Where it comes from
Flamer comes from flaming, as in a flaming faggot or a flaming queen: so gay he is practically on fire. Green's Dictionary of Slang notes that the word is "underpinned" by flaming faggot, and records the variants flame, flame artist and flame thrower. Its earliest example of flamer in this sense comes from Horace McCoy's crime novel Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye, published in 1948.
Before it settled on us, flamer had other jobs in slang: an admirer or lover, and a conspicuous, showy person. The last one is the obvious bridge. A flamer is someone you cannot miss.
How it is used today
For decades flamer was a street and locker-room word in the United States, aimed at any man whose gestures looked too soft. It shares that history with sissy, swish and limp-wristed: insults built on how a man moves, not on what he does in bed.
Inside the community, it is complicated. Some gay men still use it as a put-down, especially in the "masc only" corners of the apps, where flamers are the people some profiles warn off in advance. Others wear it proudly, and plenty of us have noticed that the flamers were the ones who stood in the front line, because they never had a closet to hide in.
Online, flamer has a second, unrelated meaning: someone who starts flame wars on forums. Context usually makes it clear which kind of fire is meant.
Close relatives
- Nelly: effeminate, a little fussy; softer than flamer.
- Femme: the neutral or proud word for feminine gay men.
- Camp: the style itself, the theater of exaggeration that a flamer lives in.
Related terms
Sources 1
- Green, Jonathon. "flamer, n. 1." Green's Dictionary of Slang, online edition. https://greensdictofslang.com/entry/mvv5vwi