As a chick with a few gay friends, I'm often labeled a fag hag. Every time it happens—at a gay bar or in the company of friends—I fantasize about saving my shit in a duffel bag until I can lovingly deposit a small mountain on the offender's bed pillow. So what if the majority of my closest friends are gay? We all enjoy dancing, theater, and fucking men, and in these shared hobbies the seeds of friendship are sewn.

To my gay friends who attach this label to me "affectionately" I'd like to say this: No term that ends in "hag" is flattering. Nor can it be called an endearment. I don't "affectionately" label my gay friends in the most unflattering possible ways. It seems unfair that I'm stuck with "fag hag" but my gay friends aren't stuck with "chubby co-dependent" or "self-mutilated anorexic pillow biter" or "sexually promiscuous child." "Fag hag" is a short way of saying, "This is my homely female sidekick. You can ignore her unless you want a free drink, and feel free to lightly tap her in the ovaries with your foot if she gets too needy."

Attention, gay men: Life is not one big gay parade, in which I and all the other fag hags are content to sit on the sidelines cheering. We do not wait breathlessly for the occasional queen on a float to stop dry humping something male long enough to toss us a wave or a Tootsie Roll. This is why, when I hear gay men joke about My People, I have the urge to whip out my duffel bag and shake it threateningly.

Aside from being horribly offensive, "fag hag" does not begin to describe the intricate and loving relationship between a heterosexual woman and her gay male friends. Who else would ditch her very handsome date to bring your drunken ass home from a bar, or spit on the sidewalk every time she passes some guy you made out with three years ago who then neglected to call you, or tell your snoopy relatives that the gay porn they find in your house is really hers?

This is why I would like to see the gays spearhead an initiative to officially abolish "fag hag" for the more apt and respectable term "gay nanny." After all, isn't that what we do?

In America you're innocent until proven gay, and that's how you were raised, honey. Most teenage boys aren't instructed by their mothers or in sex ed (if we still have sex ed) on the social mores of dating and fucking other boys. Until you tell them otherwise, your family—everyone—assumes you will grow up to fuck women. So it isn't your mom or sister who coaches you through your first date with a man; it's your gay nanny. We become transitional maternal figures. We impart wisdom handed down to us from our mothers concerning the evil ways of horn-dog males. We're with you when you first ask a guy for his number, or purchase your first lipstick if you're into that sort of thing. And "fag hag" is how you've chosen to label and repay us?

In addition to the initiative to scrap the term "fag hag," I would like to see another initiative filed: The Gay Nannies' Rights and Benefits Act of 2006. It's past time that our rights were enumerated and protected.

At the top of our list of demands is a 40-hour work week. Your gay nanny cannot always be on call for you. Like when you're drunk and being publicly belligerent, and your gay nanny gets a message from a Concerned Friend (who isn't concerned or friendly enough to get you to stop racing traffic in the streets himself—just concerned enough to wake your gay nanny at 2:00 a.m.) to fetch your drunken butt. Or the time your painfully sober gay nanny spent her Friday night scooping vomit out of your bathroom sink with her hands before putting you in your pajamas and tucking you into bed. And then when you drunkenly insisted that she sleep with you because you couldn't "stand to be alone anymore" (you melodramatic ass), she endured a sleepless night on the pillow next to yours, well within range of your rancid alcohol puke breath, and daydreamed of a 40-hour work week.

We also deserve paid overtime. Your gay nanny will reschedule two weeks of her vacation in Mexico so that you can lounge around Mexico City in the beefy arms of your new Mexican boyfriend. When you are happy, your gay nanny is happy. But the trouble begins when your Mexican boyfriend neglects to get his shit together and acquire a visa in time to visit you during his Christmas vacation, and you beg your gay nanny to drop everything and solve this problem for you. When your gay nanny perjures herself by writing to the Mexican consulate and saying she has leukemia and her dying wish is that her "boyfriend" pay her a visit, because emergency visas to the United States are awarded if a significant other is suffering from a terminal disease and the Mexican consulate won't recognize your homo love—when that happens, and she does all of that for you, she fucking deserves overtime pay.

Oh, and when you leave your gay nanny waiting alone on her birthday in her favorite restaurant while you play tennis with some "bonorific" straight dude, she deserves overtime plus punitive damages for mental anguish. (And no, we will never forgive you for that.)

You know what else would be nice? Health insurance. For instance, when you fall in love with a homeless gay trucker you met online, and after one date that homeless gay trucker has a home! It's with you and your gay nanny! And in the morning your poor gay nanny has to wade through dirty gay trucker underwear in your living room! Your gay nanny will try to be open-minded and understanding—who is she to judge what you choose to insert into your asshole?—but homeless gay truckers are not notoriously clean creatures, and health insurance would be comforting.

Paid vacation time also becomes a necessity when your formerly homeless gay trucker boyfriend explains that he converted to Judaism because he believes Yahweh has a special plan for him. You see, after World War II, formerly homeless gay trucker explains, Yahweh started reincarnating the souls of Holocaust victims and Nazis to help "reclaim the balance between good and evil." It turns out that your gay trucker boyfriend is one such reincarnation. Guess what? He's a former Nazi turned freaky New-Age Jew! Also, he cheats at the board game Risk! Who over the age of 14 cheats at Risk? Reincarnated Nazis, that's who. Goddamned gay Nazis living in your gay nanny's house. When the fuck did that become okay? You owe her a paid vacation—someplace far, far from you and your gay ex-Nazi trucker boyfriend.

These are only a few examples of the sacrifices we have made for the sake of your continued happiness. The least you can do is honor us with a more dignified job title and the benefits to which we're entitled. We are heroes. We are martyrs. We are gay nannies, not fag hags.