Gay Men and Straight Men as Friends

THE GAY VOICE

Self-nsc about the way he speaks, David Thorpe has explored why some people his muny ‘sound gay’ and others don’t a new documentary. * why do gay men talk like that *

After intifyg phoic characteristics that seem to make a man’s voice sound gay, their bt hunch is that some gay men may subnscly adopt certa female speech patterns.

WHAT'S THE LK BETWEEN HOMOSEXUALY AND HAVG A 'GAY VOICE'

People wh stereotypilly high-pched or ‘mp’ voic n fd people assumg that they’re gay, acrdg to one Amerin film-maker - even if they aren’t. Likewise, men wh ep voic n fd themselv wrongly assumed to be beg straight. * why do gay men talk like that *

They want to know how men acquire this manner of speakg, and why – pecially when society so often stigmatiz those wh gay-soundg voic.

Rogers and Smyth are also explorg the stereotyp that gay men sound effemate and are regnized by the way they speak.

The straightt-soundg voice the study was fact a gay man, and the sixth gayt-soundg voice was a straight man.

WHY DO GAY MEN SOUND LIKE ~THAT~?

What the way we talk says about gay pri and lgerg prejudice * why do gay men talk like that *

Stay ahead of the trend fashn and beyond wh our ee weekly Liftyle Ed newsletterStay ahead of the trend fashn and beyond wh our ee weekly Liftyle Ed newsletter After a particularly bad break-up, David Thorpe, a journalist who’s his forti, cid to take his md off thgs by leavg his ts his Manhattan apartment and drowng his sorrows at a gay beach town on Fire Island.

“I knew then that I had to get to the bottom of that feelg and to the importance of the voice as part of gay inty. ”It was the start of a four-year journey of self-disvery durg which Thorpe tried to figure out his so-lled “gay voice”: when did he start talkg that way, what ed , how exactly did sound, and, fally, what was so wrong wh anyway? The rults n be seen his new documentary, Do I Sound Gay?, which featur terviews wh lguists, amics, fay and iends, as well as a number of high-profile personali, cludg David Sedaris and Dan Savage.

THIS IS WHY SOME MEN ‘SOUND GAY’ – EVEN IF THEY’RE NOT

* why do gay men talk like that *

Another expert that he terviews for the film is a Canadian lguist who studi vol microvariatns between gay and straight men and speculat that many gay men more readily pick up speech s om women. Intertgly, a straight iend of Thorpe’s has what is nsired to be an archetypal “gay voice” and turns that out he was raised entirely by women at an ashram.

WHAT MEANS TO ‘SOUND GAY’

When he was younger, Thorpe not, the only “gay voic” on televisn were those belongg to figur such as Liberace and Charl Nelson Reilly, the host of The Match Game. He also wonrs if Disney villas such as Aladd’s Jafar and The Ln Kg’s Sr, wh their soft, threateng voic, have ma young people associate soundg gay wh beg evil.

It pleas him to hear so many more “gay voic” reprented today, pecially young vloggers such as Lohanthony and Tyler Oakley. “Growg up, I was always told that what was wrong wh me was that I was gay, so ’s not hard to unrstand that a moment of vulnerabily I might also feel secure about my sexualy.

As Dan Savage, the activist who found the It Gets Better mpaign, says the film: “What’s wrong wh soundg like you are who you are – a gay man? An exploratn of the gay accent and how beme popularized ( @jvn / Instagram)As most people are acctomed to believe, gay men have a very “gay” sound when they speak.

GAY STEREOTYP: ARE THEY TE?

Acrdg to Radice, lguists often viate away om the popular assumptn that gay men sound more effemate bee not everyone falls to the “box. Radice emphasized that when analyzg gay speak, ’s more important to foc on an dividual se rather than a populatn as a whole. For example, a gay man whose first language is Spanish and who grew up New York is gog to speak drastilly different than a gay man whose first language is English and who grew up Texas.

He explaed that the filmmakers disvered that uptalk (when you end a sentence on a higher pch), a vol y (when you kda end your sentenc wh a very low pch croak-like sooooounnnndd), and even a lisp are the most stereotypilly proment featur of gay speak.

As mentned before, while this rmatn is eful, n also be harmful and rerce unwanted stereotypAnother aspect of gay speak are the actual words or phras ed by members of the LGBTQ+ muny. While the words n be stereotypilly seen as “gay speak” they often tend to origate om another dialect: Ain Amerin Vernacular English (AAVE) do exist?

WHY ARE THERE GAY MEN?

One of the explanatns for why some men speak wh gay speak is bee, Radice said, some gay boys gravate toward women and girls more. This would expla why some (but not all) gay men have gay speak and why even some straight men speak like this. Radice also said he believ var words and phras specific to the gay muny n be traced to the gay ballroom culture of 1980’s New York, pecially Black gay men and Black drag queens.

Another tertg thg I learned my nversatn wh Radice was that a lot of gay speak veloped as a way for queer people to avert discrimatn. From a historil aspect, if a gay man wanted to refer to their partner but wasn’t out or feared for his safety, he’d refer to them as she/her public.

In fact, Radice told me to look to the Polari dialect This dialect veloped om the entertament dtry the early 1900s (when homosexualy was still illegal the U. Gay speak todayWhile gay speak may have partially veloped om a place of discrimatn, this form of speakg now, some way, has bee mastream and even rri a sense of “prtige. ” In the past few years, public opn has shifted greatly favor of gay culture to the pot where gay people are almost seen as this ol llective group of people everyone wants to or should be iends wh.

Why Do Gay Men Sound Like ~That~?

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