Is There a “Gay Voice”? | The New Yorker

Contents:

• IS THERE A “GAY VOICE”?
• THE GAY VOICE
• AMERI’S MOST IMPORTANT GAY-RIGHTS SPEECH?
• A DOCUMENTARIAN WONRS: 'DO I SOUND GAY?'
• WHAT MEANS TO ‘SOUND GAY’
• WHAT TO KNOW ABOUT A SEEMGLY FAKE DOCUMENT A GAY RIGHTS CASE
• THE SOLUTN TO "GAY" INSULTS: FREEDOM OF SPEECH
• WATCH: INFANTO REFERENC FAMO “I FEEL GAY” SPEECH
• SPEECH ATIC FEATUR: A COMPARISON OF GAY MEN, HETEROSEXUAL MEN, AND HETEROSEXUAL WOMEN

IS THERE A “GAY VOICE”?

Gay adolcents, Thorpe pots out, often learn that the “tell” of their sexualy is their voic, even more so than physily—a limp wrist is easier to straighten out than an flectn. Print Obama ed the ocsn to make the first direct reference to gay-rights an Ingural Addrs, and he did so wh a power and forthrightns we have not heard before, even om two-thirds of the way to the speech, Obama referred to Stonewall, a gay bar where, 1969, a police raid provoked a rt, the same sentence as Sene Falls and Selma—th parg the women’s and Ain-Amerin civil-rights movements to the gay-rights stggle.

THE GAY VOICE

Had he stopped there, would have been historic—particularly g om the first Ain-Amerin Print—but, keepg wh the tradn of policians who refer to gay-rights obliquely or wh words, stoppg short of the Print ntued:Our journey is not plete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else unr the law—for if we are tly created equal, then surely the love we m to one another mt be equal as only was this a ll to end discrimatn, but an unambiguo argument for the regnn of same-sex marriage across the untry. In the wake of a bad breakup, journalist and gay activist David Thorpe did what many of do: He took tense ventory of his own flaws and securi, then stepped up one of them to a Thg.

A good Thg, as turns out, whose end rult is the charmg documentary Do I Sound Gay?, which Thorpe wryly treats his anxieti about his "gay" voice as an exercise self-improvement, and wds up wh a pellg portra of ternalized homophobia and liberatn. The explanatn that pleas him most is that gay speech has s origs ls blogy or nro-chemistry than early female fluence: Men who grow up mostly around women tend to mimic feme speech styl — which, Thorpe argu, would expla why some straight men sound gay, and why gays who grow up wh brothers often velop basso profundos. Is very good on the way many gay men who were bullied as children have learned to turn the hatred of others ward, which helps expla s of gay hyper-masculy and ternal ostracism of effemate men.

AMERI’S MOST IMPORTANT GAY-RIGHTS SPEECH?

Takg his cue om the swellg ranks of gay celebri (among them Gee Takei, Margaret Cho and the effably funny and ndid David Sedaris) who are willg to speak on mera about liberatg themselv om their own fears, Thorpe realiz he's been askg the wrong qutns. While he was by tryg to iron out his gay voice, New York State legalized gay marriage, and the film's release jt weeks after the Supreme Court legalized gay marriage across the natn. It rais a plited discsn about gay pri, lgerg homophobia, disguised misogyny, and the extent to which we all alter the image that we prent to the the film begs, Thorpe is disturbed bee he realiz he don’t like his voice any more.

He rri out thoughtful nversatns wh his iends and proment gay and lbian figur – cludg Gee Takei, David Sedaris, Dan Savage, Margaret Cho and Don Lemon – about what means to “sound gay. But so dog, v everyone to thk about what their own voice says about who they are, where they me om, and where they want to science of “the gay voice”To start wh, the stereotypil “gay voice” isn’t necsarily a study published 2003, Ron Smyth, a lguist at the Universy of Toronto, found that participants readily separated rerdgs of 25 diverse voic to those who “sound gay” and those who “sound straight. In Smyth's study, people rrectly gused a man’s sexualy about 60 percent of the time, only a ltle better than another small study at the Universy of Hawaii, both gay and straight listeners were equally as likely to misclassify people as gay or straight.

A DOCUMENTARIAN WONRS: 'DO I SOUND GAY?'

In fact, the straight men wh so-lled gay voic weren't aware that people thought they sound gay at turns out that what most people perceive as a stereotypil "gay voice" is jt a male voice that sounds more stereotypilly feme -- maly, higher pched and more melod. And that often has more to do wh the voic that a person intified wh as they grew up, rather than and other rearchers say some men, both gay and straight, velop more feme voic bee they are fluenced by women when they are young. If you've ever found yourself talkg to someone wh a different accent and gradually emulatg them, you're faiar wh the gay men, adoptg what's lled "mp" -- a theatril gay accent, like an old-school starlet -- n be a way of embracg their inty.

However, the difference wasn’t the stereotypil “gay voice, ” but a tenncy to e a more ntemporary, pan-Amerin accent, rather than the old-fashned Mnota accent (like  the movie “Fargo") says that the gay men he terviewed may have wanted to nvey an inty that is more stylish and cuttg edge.

WHAT MEANS TO ‘SOUND GAY’

“As speakers of a language, we have lots of eedom how we pronounce sounds … People explo that variatn to create different social meangs, " he those who are proud n still feel stigma“Do I Sound Gay? ” shows that even men who are out and proud may still rry wh them some shame about havg a stereotypil “gay voice, ” even if those feelgs are Savage, a gay activist and thor, argu  the film that this is a natural nsequence of boys beg bullied for walkg and talkg a certa way when they are young. As Thorpe pots out the film, there have long been public entertaers or artists wh stereotypilly “gay voic” – Liberace or Tman Capote, for example -- but few people openly talked about their when characters wh “gay” mannerisms or voic appeared popular culture, they were sometim d wh negative or sid the 1940s on, Amerin film saw the rise of a sni, supercil, and vaguely gay villa, startg wh the manipulative Clifton Webb the tective noir film “Lra.

WHAT TO KNOW ABOUT A SEEMGLY FAKE DOCUMENT A GAY RIGHTS CASE

” That tradn of the effete, aristocratic villa has lived example, film historian Richard Barrs argu  the film that many of the Disney villas have simperg voic or mannerisms that are subtly – or not so subtly – stereotypilly gay, cludg Prce John "Rob Hood, " Sr "The Ln Kg, " and many more, In an terview, Thorpe poted out what he viewed as one particularly egreg example – the bad guy the 2012 Disney animated film “Wreck-It Ralph. The issue of homosexualy, of the ordatn of gay clergy and of the blsg of same-sex unns, has ed tremendo divisns the church recent s, and the church remas substantially divid over the issue today.

THE SOLUTN TO "GAY" INSULTS: FREEDOM OF SPEECH

On the one hand, the most mon them voiced by those who support changg tradnal church teachg on homosexualy are those of acceptance, cln, and love, while on the other hand, those who oppose the chang exprs ncerns about sexual pury, hols, and most fundamentally, the place of Scripture our muni. Christians who are gay – those who are only attracted to members of the same sex – are th lled to rea om actg on those attractns, to ny themselv, to take up their cross and to follow Christ.

But the nsequence of the tradnal terpretatn of the Bible is that, while straight people are told to avoid lt, sual relatnships, and promiscuy, gay people are told to avoid romantic relatnships entirely. But gay people, though they are pable of and sire lovg relatnships that are jt as important to them, are told that, for them, even lifelong, mted relatnships would be sful, bee their sexual orientatn is pletely broken. But the necsary nsequence of the tradnal teachg on homosexualy is that, even though gay people have suable partners, they mt reject them, and they mt live alone for their whole liv, whout a spoe or a fay of their own.

WATCH: INFANTO REFERENC FAMO “I FEEL GAY” SPEECH

But that is the only nnectn that n be drawn between this passage and homosexualy general, and there is a world of difference between vlent and ercive practic like gang rape and nsensual, monogamo, and lovg relatnships. And ed, Sodom and Gomorrah are referred to 20 tim throughout the subsequent books of the Bible, sometim wh tailed mentary on what their ss were, but homosexualy is never mentned or nnected to them. So if our three Old Ttament passag do not, upon closer examatn, furnish persuasive arguments agast lovg relatnships for gay Christians, then what about our three New Ttament passag?

Do this passage require to reject the possibily of lovg relatnships for gay people, and if so, how do that make sense, given the problems that I outled earlier wh that posn? ” It’s monly assumed by those who hold to the tradnal terpretatn that the terms refer back to Genis 1 and 2, and are tend to fe heterosexualy as God’s natural sign and homosexualy as an unnatural distortn of that sign. And if applied to gay people, Pl’s argument here should actually work the other directn: If the pot of this passage is to rebe those who have spurned their te nature, be relig when to idolatry or sexual, then jt as those who are naturally heterosexual should not be wh those of the same sex, so, too, those who have a natural orientatn toward the same sex should not be wh those of the oppose sex.

In the ancient world, homosexualy was wily nsired, not to be a different sexual orientatn or somethg herent a small mory of people, but to be an excs of lt or passn that anyone uld be prone to if they let themselv go too much.

SPEECH ATIC FEATUR: A COMPARISON OF GAY MEN, HETEROSEXUAL MEN, AND HETEROSEXUAL WOMEN

Several s later, after the distctn between sexual orientatn and sexual behavr me to be more wily unrstood, this was changed to say that only “practicg homosexuals” will not her the kgdom. Neher Greek, the language of the New Ttament, nor Hebrew, the language of the Old Ttament, nor Lat, the language of early Christian translatns of the Bible, had a word that means or rrponds to the English word for gay.

But today, there are many translatns of the Bible—though certaly not all of them—that lk the terms some way to homosexualy, renrg them varly as “mal who practice homosexualy, ” “men who have sex wh men, ” or “male prostut.