Banks attempts to use bisexuality as shield from asshattery

A spat between Azealia Banks and Perez Hilton normally need not detain us, but given that it has now managed to generate one of the weakest defences of bad behaviour since "it was different in the 1970s", let's bring ourselves up to speed.

It all started when Banks recorded a song "dissing" Angel Haze. Perez Hilton - who apparently is still going - upbraided Banks for doing this.

Banks then reacted by going onto Twitter:

‘Omg u should just kill yourself… Like for real… lol what a messy faggot you are.’

Even before you get to the homophobic bit, she's gone too far with telling Perez to kill himself. Seriously, who types that into a Twitter box and doesn't then realise they've gone too far?

But rather than review the idea that she was telling someone to "really" kill themselves, Banks was gearing up to call Hilton a faggot.

The backblow was predictable. But Banks wasn't going to back down. No, it turns out that Banks wasn't being homophobic at all:

‘A faggot is not a homosexual male,’ she said. ‘A faggot is any male who acts like a female. There’s a BIG difference.’

Let's just accept the first half for a moment and poke the idea that "a male who acts like a female" is a bad thing. Or a thing at all. What does that mean? Is it about having lactating nipples or pissing sitting down? What on earth was that supposed to be as a justification?

But let's not worry too much about that second half, because it comes after the first half.

A faggot is not a homosexual male.

Not quite, Azealia. It's not a thing you should call a homosexual male, but it definitely is a slur against them. True, it was originally thrown at old women in the 16th Century, but for the last hundred years it's pretty much been an exclusive insult for gay men.

Azealia hadn't quite finished, though. She went off and had another little think.

‘Really not as moved by this f word thing as u all want me to be. As a bisexual person I knew what I meant when I used that word.

‘And I meant what I meant when I used that word.’

No, Banks. Being bisexual doesn't mean you can slag off gay men with impunity. It just makes it worse when you do.

Still, I suppose we should extend a grudging respect for this inventive updating of 'how can I hate women, my Mum was one' for 2013.