Talk:Boi (slang)

Category problem

I reverted the change (the removal of the LGBT category) made by Bearcat, because bois are almost always lesbians/dykes/queers. If anyone has a compelling reason to remove an article about lesbian/bi/trans people from the LGBT category, could you please explain? - solvent 18:51, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

The idea behind that is that the "Transgender people and behavior" is a sub-category of "LGBT", and articles shouldn't be in both a sub-cat and a category above that. Whether that always makes sense is another question, but some people are very ardent about "correcting" those "errors" in categorisation. It is not meant as removing people from any group, although occasionally, it sure feels that way ... -- AlexR 19:57, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

OK, I can see the reason in this, but not all bois ID as trans. I'm a boi, and I don't; that's why I thought to add the LGBT category to the page in the first place. Do you think the article should stay in the transgender people and behavior cat, because it is about trans behavior, if not always trans people; or should it be added to the larger LGBT category because that accounts for both dyke bois and trans bois? I know you've done a lot more work on the trans/queer articles on Wikipedia than I have, so your decision would probably be better informed than mine. - solvent 23:46, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the compliment, but I have to admitt that I am not familiar enough with "boi" culture to give a definite statement. My knowledge on trans-matters that come from the lesbian culture is usually 2nd-hand, and if it hasn't reached Germany, often somewhat sketchy. (Which does make it a very good thing that you came here and can put in your knowledge! Seems finally some transguys (in the widest possible sense) turn up. Good thing, too, because I started to feel a bit lonely ;-)

Anyway, I am one of those people who are not too happy with all too enthusiasticly sticking to the categorisation rules - and this being a prime example why. While technically "boi" is a transgender behaviour, one can be certain that you are not the only one who doesn't consider the label adequate. Hence sticking in another, equally adequate cat into the article seems perfectly appropriate to me.

Now, question is, is "LGBT", which is a very wide cat, the best one for this? If you think it is, just put in a HTML comment into the article, right above the cats, explaining shortly why. As far as I can see, the editing of these cats is all done manually, hence editors would see that. (Such a comment is done like this: <!-- comment --> .) However, maybe it would be best to create a new category, one that deals with transgender - or maybe better "gender-bending" or similar - behaviour among primary LGB identified people, or lesbian or female-bodied people. Something like "Gender-bending in the lesbian community"; can't think of a really good title at the moment. That would avoid the question of one cat being a sub-cat of another; although it probably still would need a comment, so that the "Transgender" cat wouldn't be removed with the argument that the new cat is a sub-cat of this one. What do you think? -- AlexR 09:53, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

---

Can anyone provide a source for 216.177.2.89's claim that boi was created to parallel grrl? I can find nothing on it. Also, I have reverted some of the edits that (s)he made, because many transbois ID as TG rather than as TS. solvent 22:20, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Boyish/effeminate/young

Don't agree with previous claim that "boyish" contradicts "somewhat effeminate." Compromising with "young-appearing." Also added "and in reality relatively young" because I think a "young-looking 65" would not fit the common usage.

65.96.178.162 16:10, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Ah yes, that makes sense, thanks for clarifying - I was thinking "boy" as in gender, rather than as in age. Mdwh 17:03, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Bisexual and/or submissive males?

I've certainly heard the term "boi" used for bisexual boys also - in general, a feminine boy independent of sexuality (although it's probably true that it tends to almost always refer to bi or gay boys). I've also heard it used in the BDSM community to refer to submissive boys (again, usually implying femininity) as well as butch girls. Mdwh 02:30, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

The term 'boi' is regularly used on SM websites such as worldskins.com / slaveboys.co.uk to denote a submissive male who may or may not be effminate. The term is used by the Dominany party and can be humiliating for you the submissive party. Lukeyboyuk 18:55, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Punk/Goth subculture

It most definitely is used in Goth (and sometimes Punk) subculture to refer to a young man not afraid to experiment with traditionally "feminine" things such as eyeliner, frills, etc. and as a protest against gender roles. Please don't remove my edits--google goth boi and it brings up hundreds of thousands of hits. It *does* exist in Goth. Snowgrouse 16:20, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Not only is boi used by goths to mean a guy that likes traditionally female styles, but it also doesn't always mean bi or gay in that context.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.27.213.98 (talk • contribs) 08:08, 23 February 2007

The term "boi" is a Lesbian term more than a gay male term. The word "boy" is male, but gay males often refer to their boys as chickens, who I think serve the older dominant gay males. The lesbian "boi" is the more submissive of the female partner, and may indeed be a lipstick and not a butch femme lesbian, but the significance is in that the "boi" is the submissive one, who often requires care. And boi is correct in the fact that Bi-Lesbian couples will, from time to time, invite a male into their circle; however, he must be a "boi" and assume the submissive role most of the time. Such a male is dominated or ruled, and it matters little whether she used to be his wife, whether he sought them out, they sought him out, it just is. We won't say what also may be his fate or role if he accepts entering their circle. The fact that he is submissive is the "boi" factor but almost all "boi's' are lesbian or bi females. But like all terms, they become convoluted over time. My position is that boi is the submissive lesbian or a submissive male who will submit to lesbian dominance. Martinez mary (talk) 00:22, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Verifiability, Reliable Sources and Notability

I have some concerns that this article covers a Neologism. As of now it has no reliable sources and is unverifiable. I'm considering deltion, before replying please review policy on what wikipedia is not, esp the section on dictionaries. I will try and find some sources for this article and would appreciate any help as of right now the article seems to be original research. NeoFreak 18:57, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Here are a few references for you: http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/features/n_9709/ http://www.dailydoseofqueer.com/2005/10/29/boi-culture-in-female-chauvinist-pigs/ http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/0743249895/105-9191015-6269227?SubscriptionId=0VSTEG9X9NAQ8JVP2H02/105-9191015-6269227 /Boi Leo

Sorry this took so long. Those appear to more or less be one source, the first being an execrpt form Levy's book, the second being an article about the book and the last being her book on amazon. Still, that's cool. My primary issue with the article is the nature of the subject: I think of it as a neologism and a unencyclopedic dicdef on a little used word. Marking the term as a gender label is inappropriate as well. The issue with the lack of sources was just an additional hurdle. I'm really stoked that someone took the time to go out and find some sources instead of just deproding the article with "well it's not a neologism and it's notable, cause I like it" type bullshit. So, thanks. I'll work the sources into the article and look for some others. In the end, unless alot more really solid sources emerge and it gets a firm grouding in both WP:N and WP:V, I'm going to take it to WP:AFD. NeoFreak 23:48, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Boi's, gender queerness and the like are generally impenetrable to the majority of heterosexual people; it is also much, much more widely speciated and categorised in America, than say Australia. But...neologisms aren't neccessarily unencyclopedia. Given enough time, they can turn into accepted widespread terms. Or fall into and then out of vogue. See wowser, bounder, and especially flapper.75.59.229.245 22:15, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Why was this not deleted?

A couple of sources do not change the fact that this is a neologism. While its recent use in certain subcultures might warrant its mention on those respective entries, it does not need an entry of its own. Its use within those subcultures isn't even consistent. It's just an alternate spelling of boy sometimes used for a specific reason and sometimes just used stylistically. At most it should just be a disambiguation page. 70.21.171.213 19:20, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

So what if it's a neologism? So is e-mail. Disagree that article isn't worthy of inclusion. Although article (like most) needs improving this is part of queer culture and self-empowerment self-labeling and identifying. Numerous sources exist to validate its usage even if they have yet to find their way into the article. Benjiboi 21:09, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

First, let me clarify. Yes, e-mail is a neologism, but to be more specific, it is a "stable" neologism and is well-defined and has been in use for over a decade. "Boi" is an "unstable" neologism, or a protologism, "a recently created term possibly in narrow use but not yet in general use".

Second, have you read Wikipedia:Avoid_neologisms? Allow me to highlight.

• The use of neologisms should be avoided in Wikipedia articles because they are not well understood, are not clearly definable, and will have different meanings to different people.

While e-mail is well-understood and means the same thing to everyone, the same is not true for "boi". It has different meanings in different subcultures within the queer subculture (i.e. gays, lesbians, transgendered) as well as to other subcultures (i.e. goths, S&M). In fact, the NYMag article sourced explicitly states that being a boi means different things to different people.

• The first [reason why articles titled with neologisms may not be appropriate] is that Wikipedia is not a dictionary, and so articles simply attempting to define a neologism are inappropriate.

This is exactly what people are trying to accomplish with this article. This is not Wiktionary. Oddly enough, the uses of "boi" in this article are not found on the Wiktionary entry for boi boi, though it is found in Wiktionary's List of protologisms article (which needs cleaning up).

• Articles on protologisms are almost always deleted as these articles are often created in an attempt to use Wikipedia to increase usage of the term.

I don't mean to single you out, User:Benjiboi, but your username really doesn't help you there.

So, based in Wikipedia's guidelines, this subject does not warrant its own article (at least not at the present time) and would probably be more appropriate over at the Wiktionary project. However, the few sources given so far seem to suggest that it might be on its way to being a "diffused" neologism (the line between unstable and diffuse isn't well-defined), so I'm willing to come to a compromise and say this should either be a disambiguation page or a redirect to a section in a more appropriate article. Ozw 01:34, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Nonsense. Just because a neologism article isn't yet to GA status hardly means it won't be; the use of this unstable word (a lot of words had multiple meanings BTW) in the title is because that's what the article is about. And I completely agree with the use of neologisms should be avoided in Wikipedia articles because they are not well understood, are not clearly definable, and will have different meanings to different people in context as you shouldn't replace "boys and girls" with "bois an grrls" unless the article's context and subject matter call for that. "Boi" is making it's way into mainstream culture (see Boi magazine, Avril Lavigne's Sk8er Boi, Soul-Ja Boi Records, Big Boi, alternative explanation for BOI, article references "Club Boi, a gay club in Miami" (their website is way adult oriented so won't link that directly), a Texas term meaning "Born On the Island.", "Cao Boi" (cowboy variation) used on Survivor: Cook Islands, 1950s emergence of the gei boi in Japan, etc. Your compromise to eliminate this article in any way possible seems to fly in the face of consensus although I agree there should be a boi disambiguation page ... and look - there it is (see Boi). Please WP:AGF on other editor's intentions and consider that perhaps they are not as skilled as you at writing or sourcing articles.

«"Boi" is making it's way into mainstream culture», «seeAvril Lavigne's Sk8er Boi» — I don't think Avril meant anything mentioned in the article by “boi”. “Boi” is just “boy” sometimes, it isn't necessarily related to LGBTQ — in fact, most of the times, it isn't. Pooh110andco (talk) 07:38, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

Also (from wiktionary) They typically have not been in circulation long enough or widely enough for their social status to be determined. Protologism (which is a neologisms) is for other contexts that have not been fully investigated, such as industry jargon or regional use. The term may not generally be understood even within those contexts. This is exactly why a decent article would help explain the use at least in this context. The term is widespread in the LGBT community and just like genderqueer wikipedia is better for having an article so those who want to learn more can. Benjiboi 02:39, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Around where I live "Boi" tends to mean a male, generally submissive, who acts and appears very youthful but who is of legal age. I agree it's a flexible term, your mileage may vary.Saxophobia (talk) 13:08, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Generalizing "Boi"

I think we need to consider generalizing our definition of "boi" outside of the lesbian community. Currently it defines a boi as a young gay or bisexual male, but the usage is becoming more broad. Many people use the term in reference to any young male (like a teenager) - gay, straight, or otherwise. This is to distinguish from "boy," which would refer to young children. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Creator95 (talk • contribs) 03:40, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

UPDATE: Since no one has objected to the proposed change in over a week's time, I will make the edit in 24 hours unless there is an objection.Creator95 (talk) 01:11, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

What reference do you have for this? Mdwh (talk) 13:17, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Wouldn't your usage belong at Boi, not Boi (gender)? The LGBT usage is what's here because this article is about the use of "boi" to denote something about gender beyond "this is a young male". --Alynna (talk) 13:03, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

That's a good point, Alynna. I'll have to think more about this myself and wait for some more feedback, but here are some initial thoughts I have. First of all, as far as references, there are numerous examples on gay-oriented websites in which people refer to young males, often in their late teens, as "bois." However, in other instances, straight people use the term to refer to males in roughly the same age group, such as Avril Lavigne in her song "Sk8r Boi" or the rapper Big Boi. The point is that people of different sexual orientations use the same word, "boi," to refer to much the same people. Sometimes it refers to young gay males, and sometimes it doesn't.

So I think we have a few options here. We could change the title of this article to make it more specific to its content. Currently the article discusses the term in a somewhat narrow sense: it tells how "boi" is used in the LGBT community to refer to certain other members of that community. So we could change the title from "Boi (gender)" to something like "Boi (LGBT usage)" or something similar. Because the usage I'm referring to also denotes gender, the current title is somewhat misleading. If we did that, I think it would warrant creation of another article for "Boi" covering the usage I've described (and perhaps other uses as well); as it stands now, "Boi" is only a disambiguation page. Alternatively, and this is perhaps the best option, we could expand the current article, renaming it simply "Boi" and covering all of the word's uses. The current version of the article would be one section in the new, expanded article, the usage I'm referring to would be another, and if there are other senses in which the term can be used, we could create other sections to cover them.Creator95 (talk) 03:34, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Just to quickly clarify, I see there was another discussion about whether or not this article should even exist at all, or if "Boi" should just be a disambiguation page. I think there is certainly a reason for an article to exist, but the current one is insufficient. So I'm proposing that we take this article and combine it with some of the information on the disambiguation page as well as new information into one, comprehensive article on the term (not necessarily deleting the disambiguation page if its links are relevant).Creator95 (talk) 03:46, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

This article is screwed up. I've never, ever ever heard of "boi" referring to a female. It only refers to gay males. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.34.46.111 (talk) 23:47, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Sweetmale (talk) 21:53, 7 March 2009 (UTC)The term 'boi' as I have observed it in the Lesbian Community is a female, sometimes younger but always in the submissive role, regardless of age. It is also used to describe a male who a Lesbian couple invites because the male is sexually submissive, in other words will let them control him, but this is frequently because his wife or girlfriend is bi. But it almost always refers to the submissive in a lesbian led relationship when used, the femme of the butch half if used. I'm sure gay males and bi males consider it in their gender identities as well, to be the submissive in a relationships. I think it might be demeaning to the submissive if the controlling party, male or female, uses it as a form of mental control, although the existence of such a relationship is simply what it is, the submissive nature of the male or female, willing to serve the needs of the controlling person, male or female. However the only time I’ve ever heard the term is in the Lesbian Community. I think the gay males refer to their submissive as b~~tch. Sweetmale (talk) 21:53, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree with last poster. The term "boi" is a Lesbian term more than a gay male term. The word "boy" is male, but gay males often refer to their boys as chickens, who I think serve the older dominant gay males. The lesbian "boi" is the more submissive of the female partner, and may indeed be a lipstick and not a butch femme lesbian, but the significance is in that the "boi" is the submissive one, who often requires care. And he is correct in the fact that Bi-Lesbian couples will, from time to time, invite a male into their circle; however, he must be a "boi" and assume the submissive role most of the time. Such a male is dominated or ruled, and it matters little whether she used to be his wife, whether he sought them out, they sought him out, it just is. We won't say what also may be his fate or role if he accepts entering their circle. The fact that he is submissive is the "boi" factor but almost all "boi's' are lesbian or bi females. But like all terms, they become convoluted over time. My position is that boi is the submissive lesbian or a submissive male who will submit to lesbian dominance. Martinez mary (talk) 00:12, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

politically correct language.

A recent edit was made, edit reason stating "female-born is a cissexist term" which made two changes:

• New language / definition introduced as: "coercively assigned female at birth (cafab) person"
• Collateral damage which also removed an additional qualifier "or female-bodied" which is relevant to intersex bois in the following lines.

I'm all for a less offensive rewording of "female-born" to instead be "female-assigned at birth" as I've personally never heard a transman refer to himself female-born anyway (though "female assigned at birth" I'm familiar with, however "coercively" strikes me as a weasel word / neutrality issue) Initially reverted to the old version which includes female-bodied (intersexed or otherwise) and will change "female-born" to "female assigned at birth" in the second one... Either way, removing "female-bodied" in wasn't justified in the reason listed for the edit in question. --Kuzetsa (talk) 01:33, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

Title - sexual slang

I disagree with the move [1] from Boi (gender) to Boi (sexual slang), nor do I see where it was discussed? Whilst boi is not a gender as such[1], I don't think anyone's claiming that - rather it's a term that's related to gender, and that's all that the disambiguation implies.

[1] - Though what do we mean by this? The article says "Boi" is a term for someone's gender identity, so it seems reasonable to put it as such.

Perhaps there are better terms we could use - but I don't think "sexual slang" is right. It's a term that applies to ones sexuality or gender identity, but isn't directly about being sexual (I usually think of a rather different set of words when I think of "sexual slang"!) What about Boi (LGBT), Boi (LGBT slang), Boi (sexuality) or Boi (gender identity)? I think I'd prefer one with LGBT, as that covers both sexuality and gender identity aspects. Mdwh (talk) 11:55, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Don't remember how long ago the change was made, but since you're pointing it out, I agree. This subject as I understand is more about expressed or perceived gender than anything to do with sexual practice. Actually, I thought about it for a few minutes, and still can't think of a single way the term "boi" refers to sexual practices. How is this term "sexual" slang? --Kuzetsa (talk) 08:46, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

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French

"bois" just means wood in French. --94.217.191.110 (talk) 15:54, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

Generalization

Does anyone else not feel that 'boi' has far more general application than in LGBT subcultures? It seems like it's being used to refer humorously to all manner of males, and even dogs. I never see it being used in a gay context. 2607:FEA8:4D5F:FF82:D562:D331:1B64:F471 (talk) 11:43, 12 September 2018 (UTC)

Same. This article needs to be changed or updated to the current standards. It was written over 10 years ago. 108.30.110.252 (talk) 19:14, 14 February 2019 (UTC)