This dates back to the seventies some family friends of ours had adopted a puppy found on the streets. Despite being of questionable parentage the puppy displayed evidence of German Shepherd ancestry, with a black and golden coat. When I went to see the puppy I was puzzled because a weight had been tied to the middle of it’s tail forcing it to remain down. Out of curiosity I asked Aunty who was a dog lover what was the purpose of the weights? She replied “Beta he has a gay tail and weights are to correct that.” In those days the word ‘Gay’ was associated with gaiety, laughter and fun. For the life of me I couldn’t figure out how the dog’s tail had anything to do with those qualities. After joining CMC and attending Bob Bullards Physiology lectures, he would sometimes draw a stick figure of a ‘happy dog’ with it’s tail in the air and then a sad dog whose tail pointed downwards. Maybe that was the gay tail indicating a happy and gay dog!

Then came the eighties with the advent of a mysterious disease affecting homosexual men, resulting in a suppression of the immune system was loosely described as Gay Related Immunodeficiency (GRID). The word ‘Gay’ took on a totally different connotation. Using the adjective ‘gay’ had a different meaning now. The Men’s Hostel inmates were given a questionnaire where one of the questions were “Do you enjoy yourself in gay parties?” This brought about a lot of tittering and clarifications were sought from the source of the questionnaire, K.S. Jacob who had just joined Psychiatry as a resident. He just smiled and left it unsaid, but we presumed it was gay as in gaiety.

The earlier slangs for homosexuals were faggot, homo, Queen, weird and the less known ‘grey cat’. The Men’s Hostel in their initiation programme used to refer to the freshers as fags which of course was an abbreviation of faggot. These obviously were derogatory words may not have been acceptable to the homosexual community. The word gay has it’s origin from old French ‘gai’, which meant joyful, mirth full,  carefree, colourful and showy.  In the 19th century it implied a prostitute in females or a man who had multiple sexual partners, though the original definition was still in vogue. Then in 1920 it implied a homosexual male,  by 1950 the gay community felt that homosexual was too clinical a term implying a disorder and actively pushed for being called gay.  

A lesser known fact that even the Indian Gay community not to be left behind gave themselves the name ‘Khush’ meaning happy, though it never caught on. 

Going back to the dog’s tail, he grew to be huge and his tail now came gracefully down with an upward curve at the tip. You could feel an angulation at segments of the vertebrae at the root where the weight forced it’s direction downwards. This was a Eureka moment for me. Was it called ‘gay tail’ because it pointed upwards exposing the anal orifice? 

However now I am much wiser and a Google search has revealed  that the word ‘gay tail’ used to describe an skyward pointing tail in a dog predates homosexual references. It is because of the resemblance of the tail to a flag being waved gaily and not an exposed anal orifice. 

We all live and learn. So like man’s  best friend I retreat with my tail placed firmly between my legs.