When did GG start becoming an offensive term ?

[sometimes_miss]

and you can add me to those who "knew" privilege. <snip> Deny privilege all you want...but it is becoming more and more obvious everyday.

I've had perhaps the unique experience of having been on both ends as well. Growing up, I was a smaller kid; I had a big ugly birthmark on my face which made me an outcast, someone no one wanted anything to do with, I was seen as being diseased as if I was infectious or something. I saw repulsion in people's eyes whenever the hair that hung down and covered it would move away and suddenly they saw THIS THING on my face. So I spent my entire early life being looked at as less than a normal human. What I did know, later on, was that I was growing, and I knew that even if I had an ugly birthmark on my face, I was becoming large enough to inspire fear in other people, and I knew that I could use that to my advantage. I also learned that height and size gave a person a certain 'presence' among the rest, and I could use that to my advantage too. It didn't have to be fear, just being there had the effect. When I learned, too, how to speak in ways which inspired attention and confidence in others, it gradually turned my life around. Then, when I had my facial problem fixed, only then did I finally start to experience the privilege that everyone speaks of. And I was able to see how it worked; how people behaved and responded to the others around them, and importantly, how those in groups who traditionally felt that they were the victims of others' privilege, worked to manipulate their way around it. There are plenty of very successful women and racial minority individuals out there who have made it, in spite of what is perceived as white male privilege. Those who want to be as successful as them, would be wise to study them, and emulate what they learn, rather than just complain that they aren't being given what they think they deserve. Sure, the people who run the world have pre-conceived assumptions of what you are, based in initial appearances. It's up to the individual to make it clear of who and what they are, by presenting themselves properly instead of just wishing things would be different.

Have you noticed how many men call their female partners "My girl" but women take an opposite view and refer to the male partner as "my MAN"? If she called her male partner "My boy" he would take offense (yeah, yeah, I know it wouldn't bother you guys because after all, words don't hurt...until the situation changes...like being intimate and suddenly you have to prove you aren't a boy but a man..)

And yet, for some oddball reason that no one can explain, the terms girlfriend and boyfriend are used for all ages, and no one finds any offense to them. Anyone here able to explain that one? And how it relates to people continuing to use the words boy and girl in other ways? Hmmmm.