Do you sound gay? What our voic tell – and what they don’t | David Shariatmadari | The Guardian

Contents:

• DO YOU SOUND GAY? WHAT OUR VOIC TELL – AND WHAT THEY DON’T
• HOW CAN I GET RID OF MY GAY VOICE?
• WANT TO GET RID OF YOUR 'GAY ACCENT'? THERE'S AN APP FOR THAT
• WHAT MEANS TO ‘SOUND GAY’
• FILMMAKER AND SPEECH PATHOLOGIST WEIGH IN ON WHAT IT MEANS TO 'SOUND GAY'
• "DO I SOUND GAY?"
• A DOCUMENTARIAN WONRS: 'DO I SOUND GAY?'
• I LIKE GUYS BUT I DON’T WANT TO BE GAY. HOW DO I STOP BEG GAY?
• THE GAY VOICE
• MY GAY VOICE AND YOURS

DO YOU SOUND GAY? WHAT OUR VOIC TELL – AND WHAT THEY DON’T

And y, the stretchg out of “sibilant” nsonants such as s and z (image Kenh Williams sayg “She sells sea shells on the sea shore” and you’re sort of there) what about gay women? There are a few theori knockg around as to why this might be: Arnold Zwicky, his mply tled 1994 paper Two Lavenr Issu for Lguists, suggts that: “For many lbians, what is most important is intifitn wh the muny of women – while for many gay men, what is most important is distancg themselv om straight men.

HOW CAN I GET RID OF MY GAY VOICE?

Third: this style of speakg isn’t simply an importatn of “feme” quali to male speech, although that appears to be what a lot of people, we’re still left wh the qutn of why a gay male voice might emerge. When dis, a subversive dance movement that spoke to black people and women and gays, broke through, was vilified by mastream rock lovers for beg ksch and plastic. If there are any lsons to be learned here, vol or otherwise, ’s surely that dis was ol, mp is fe and “soundg gay” is jt however gay people happen to sound.

WANT TO GET RID OF YOUR 'GAY ACCENT'? THERE'S AN APP FOR THAT

Should be easy enough to gay voice is often acpanied by gay you hold yourself like a woman, OP, you know, cross your legs like a girl, flounce your arms and all that?

I liked a lot of the gays he terviewed - they seemed very sey and nice (I know this is a VERY UN-DL thg to say) I agree - his attempts to change his voice were pathetic. I'd say 1 out of every 10 gay guys I meet do not have any "gay voice" flectns--voice and mannerisms, and that about 1 out of every 5 are "flam om space" gay wh very extreme gay voice and mannerisms. The rt are somewhere 's fely a workplace issue--whether should be or not is another matter, but men wh extreme gay voice do make some people very unfortable, the same way people wh strong regnal/ethnic accents that said, the person wh the most extreme gay voice and mannerisms I've ever met was married to a woman and equently talked about his viss to strip clubs.

WHAT MEANS TO ‘SOUND GAY’

[quote]I'd say 1 out of every 10 gay guys I meet do not have any "gay voice" flectns--voice and mannerisms, and that about 1 out of every 5 are "flam om space" gay wh very extreme gay voice and mannerisms. I will support someone's else's advice: this day and age, I don't thk they really re if you're GAY or not (and probably most would be down for a discreet BJ). It's not like black people llg each other the n-word, bee 's often ed as a way to "remd" other gay men that they are "ls than" as Anonymoreply 48April 2, 2017 2:38 PM.

A lot of gay men, I've noticed, particularly young on emulate the speech patterns of teenage girls: drawg out vowels, uptalkg, too many "lik, " why, speakg wh hancy rather than wh assurance, speakg fast and excedly, etc.

I agree that a vol ach n tra you to speak a mascule way, particularly if droppg your gay soundg iends isn't a sirable optn for you, and if hangg wh straight soundg men seems equally unsirable or voice do seem to be an affected accent (like the boys' the posted vio), but if you're havg a good time wh good iends, and also lovg your life, then maybe you simply shouldn't not give a damn about your voice, and jt nfintly speak like the gay man you actually are. In this way physil scientists n study the vol register of mal and turns out that gay voice is related to a specific equency measure Hertz characteristic of a speech pattern known as falsetto.

FILMMAKER AND SPEECH PATHOLOGIST WEIGH IN ON WHAT IT MEANS TO 'SOUND GAY'

Obvly this is a very simplistic explanatn but you get the fact, neher heterosexualy nor gay voice would happen if the exposure to femal is elimated, bee the female sex is what nuerophysicists ll an "agent or a vector". The theori are the reason why sexual aroal is label as homosexualy and heterosexualy, and ncepts such as "sexual attractn" or "sexual orientatn" are monly ed stead. Exgay therapists love the psychology fabrited terms bee the terms overlook the nrologil of aroal, which is somethg that we do not choose, sce is impossible to ntrol the way our nrons functn when absorbg sexual Anonymoreply 63April 2, 2017 4:30 PM.

I haven't taken the time to fully analyze what people ll "gay voice" but a cursory listen mak me thk that some "gay voice" has to do wh addg a ntuo "breaths" and staed timbre--thk the female teacher who would sg-song say "People!

"DO I SOUND GAY?"

People wh gay voice sound wishy-washy and unsure of themselv, which mak me thk 's more a rult of your state of md and how you view Anonymoreply 83April 2, 2017 7:29 PM.

Even if you have the voice of Barry Whe, you will sound gay if you're are llg guys "girl, " "she, " or talkg about divas and show Anonymoreply 100April 3, 2017 3:33 AM. As a sger seems so strange to me that gay men live smaller liv wh more paful problems than choir sgers, amatr actors, CEO's, preachers or porn performers. [quote] would be hard to remember to force your voice to a lower register every time you speak;I thk that's a misnceptn about gay voice, that 's a matter of lowerg your are many gay men wh DEEP barone voic, who still sound gay as ever.

Sometim Southern men sound gay but really aren't and some that sound like the biggt hillbilly the world are as gay as Anonymoreply 133June 14, 2017 4:33 AM. If someone asked me if I was gay right after I met them, as the OP says is happeng to him, I'd tell them to go fuck themselv and md their own fuckg bs if they didn't want a boot their ass. In the wake of the whole Newsweek gay actors thg, Details sought out the wisdom of longtime voice ach Bob Corff, who helps actors get rid of Gay what, exactly, is the difference between a straight male voice and a gay male voice?

A DOCUMENTARIAN WONRS: 'DO I SOUND GAY?'

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. 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. “As a hly mted gay man, I learned how mpg up uld be liberatg, ” Thorpe says the there may be more subtle ways that sexualy and our sense of self fluence our voic.

I LIKE GUYS BUT I DON’T WANT TO BE GAY. HOW DO I STOP BEG GAY?

Benjam Munson, who studi language and speech at the Universy of Mnota, found one study that gay men did e a slightly different pronunciatn than straight men. 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. “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. ” 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.

He pots to Hollywood's proment “gaylebri, ” like Jse Tyler Fergon and Neil Patrick Harris, and young gay YouTube stars like Tyler Oakley, Kgsley and Lohanthony. "We are pneers our time changg societal perceptn of what means to be gay, ” Gee Takei, who played Sulu "Star Trek, " says the homophobia still affects Hollywood. Many actors work to make their voic sound mascule: In the film, Bob Corff, a Hollywood voice ach who Thorpe viss, says 20 to 50 people a year e to him to sound "ls gay.

THE GAY VOICE

" In his new film, Do I Sound Gay?, Thorpe search for the orig of that stereotype and documents his own attempts to sound "ls gay" by workg wh speech pathologist San Sank. At the same time, I totally get that when I me out, I wanted to be regnized as gay; I wanted the world to know I was gay and I wanted to f to this existg muny, so I thk my voice really did change after I me out.

On Thorpe's gay iends also stgglg to accept their voic Thorpe: One of the revelatns of makg this film was that this is somethg that had always bothered me and every time, basilly, I talk to a gay man I would fd out that he also had eher spent a lot of time thkg about his voice or ed to be self-nsc about his voice or still felt self-nsc about his voice. Through a seri of terviews and teractns wh Thorpe’s iends and relativ, a few celebri, and random strangers on the streets, we hear a spectm of perspectiv about what “sounds gay” and why soundg as such is perceived as bad. Many of the gay men the film adm to beg que fortable wh the sounds of their voic, not fully unrstandg why Thorpe would feel so strongly about his voice that he would even vis a speech pathologist and a celebry vol traer to get rid of his “gay voice.

MY GAY VOICE AND YOURS

” However, most of the gay men the film were able to relate to the secury of havg a more feme voice and some even relled tim that their “gay soundg” voic (and general gay inti) had led to gettg bullied or worse. As psychology profsors and rearchers, the first thg that popped to our mds while watchg the film was the ncept of ternalized opprsn, particularly ternalized homophobia* (please see note below about the term “homophobia”), which may be fed as the negative attus that LGBTQ people have about themselv bee of their sexual orientatns.