Balderdash for the Medieval Gay #29
June 1, 2008
(a compendium of queer words for the modern fag with a passion for the Middle Ages added hebdomadally on the Sabbath day)
29.) Nidifugous
-adjective
a.) Leaving the nest almost immediately after birth or hatching.*
[Origin: from Latin nidus, "nest" and fugere, "to flee."]
*The young of nidifugous species, such as guinea pigs, chickens, geese, hares, and most ungulates are also usually precocial (relatively mature and mobile from the moment of birth or hatching). Like such beasts, I have observed that many members of our tribe have had to display nidifugous and precocial survival techniques due to increased vulnerability to attack from the predatory general public.
Yes, and then there are the exceptions who prove the rule: the late bloomers who stay at home, sheltering themselves from the hostile world, unconsciously playing out a reverence for the primordial Great Mother archetype (as wonderfully discussed in Erich Neumann’s _The Origins and History of Consciousness_ and _The Great Mother_, which of course inspired and informed Camille Paglia’s proposition that many gay men play out a Cybele priesthood through their adoration of divas and their devotion to their own mothers).