What means to ‘sound gay’ - The Washgton Post

Contents:

• WHAT'S THE LK BETWEEN HOMOSEXUALY AND HAVG A 'GAY VOICE'
• THIS IS WHY SOME MEN ‘SOUND GAY’ – EVEN IF THEY’RE NOT
• WHAT MEANS TO ‘SOUND GAY’
• "DO I SOUND GAY?"

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

Why are some gay men's voic high pched? 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.

On the Friday-night tra journey he found himself surround by loud chatterg gay men.

“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

A high-pched, lispg voice that go up at the end has been part of the gay male stereotype for years. 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’

A iend suggts that he was “advertisg” his homosexualy, havg kept a secret for so long. 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? Most of are faiar wh the stereotype of a “gay voice.

"DO I SOUND GAY?"

Do gay men actually sound different than straight men? The are the qutns a new documentary, “Do I Sound Gay?

” It’s a fascatg and nuanced film, which the filmmaker, David Thorpe,  his feelgs about his voice to look at attus toward homosexualy. 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. ” People picked up on featur of the gay stereotype – voic that were higher and more melod were more often labeled "gay.