Misuse of words, or Did she really out him?

[karmyn75.livejournal.com]

As we all know, LKH has a strange way with words and misusing them in amusing ways. There's the infamous lose/loose, the new air/err, and my new favorite, the overuse and abuse of 'homophobe'.
I'm the first to admit I have no sort of gaydar at all. I mean, even after I saw a photo of a friend in a newspaper story about the university glbt club I still wasn't sure he was gay. Now he's in the middle of a sex change.
Anyway, it seems to me that LKH is misusing the word homophobe. When Richard is uncomfortable at seeing JC naked, Anita says he's homophobic. Maybe he just doesn't like seeing other men naked all the time. Nothing homophobic about that. The use of the word homophobe heavily implies that JC is totally and completely gay. Of course the readers know he and the other men are, but LKH has been denying this all along. Now she outs him.

Comments

[jycaegima.livejournal.com]

I think it is the Ronnie thing that confuses me the most, if only because it illustrates how incredibly one-note her characters are.

The woman has been Anita's best friend for years and knows her crap inside out and somehow, magically, their argument has Anita winning without Ronnie putting up much of a fight.
Maybe it is just my screwed up friends and I, but you start to have a fight like that, it is going to get dirty pretty quickly. The idea that Ronnie could not illuminate Anita as the worst kind of hypocrite is laughable.

Anita calling anybody homophobic is painful--especially, in light of how much she has tortured Asher and Jean-Claude.