Akademik

v.

To force a celebrity to reveal that he or she is gay.

—lancing, lanceing, pp.

Doogie Howser wasn't outed, he was "lanced."

That's a new term to describe celebrities who have been forced to reveal they're gay, said Reichen Lehmkuhl, boyfriend of 'N Sync star Lance Bass.

"It's to be outed by someone in the public media and to a celebrity, and Neil Patrick Harris, I understand, has been 'lanced,' " Lehmkuhl told AP Radio News in a recent interview. The term was coined, he said, after Bass revealed earlier this year that he is gay.

"They're calling it a 'lancing.' It's to be 'lanced,' " Lehmkuhl said of Harris, who said last week he is "a very content gay man living my life to the fullest."

—RedEye, "Lance' a lot," Chicago Tribune, November 9, 2006

Should Reichen's attempt at turning his more famous boyfriend's name into a lower-case, media buzzword actually catch on, it could well be Lance Bass who ultimately suffers, the public's perception of the former, non-essential *NSYNCer becoming forever linked to the generic shorthand for "famous for being smoked out of the closet." Still, "lanced" does have a catchy succinctness to it, and we wouldn't be surprised if an entirely new vocabulary based upon the Great Celebrity Outings of 2006 were to follow suit, including "knighted" (announcing one's sexual preference as a direct result of an on-set choking or similar, violent attack), "doogied" (putting one's itchy-trigger-fingered publicist in his place with an unabashed rejection of his gay denials), and, not to leave out the man who started it all, the verb "to reichen," i.e. encouraging one's celebrity boyfriend to come out, then riding the free publicity for every photo-op, soundbite and self-promotional opportunity that it's worth.

—"Reichen Lehmkuhl Hoping To Augment Boyfriend Lance Bass's Cultural Profile By Turning Him Into Dictionary Entry," Defamer, November 7, 2006

There's a new way to describe celebrities who are coming out of the closet.

Lance-ing is the new it term, referring to *NSYNC member Lance Bass, who announced months ago he was gay and in a relationship with Reichen Lehmkuhl of The Amazing Race fame.

—Chad Martin, "Celebrities get lanced," Calgary Sun, October 24, 2006