What Do It Mean to Be a Gay Man? | Psychology Today

Contents:

• WHAT DO IT MEAN TO SOUND GAY?
• WHAT MEANS TO ‘SOUND GAY’
• FILMMAKER AND SPEECH PATHOLOGIST WEIGH IN ON WHAT IT MEANS TO 'SOUND GAY'
• WHAT MEANS TO 'SOUND GAY'
• CHECK OUT THE TRAILER FOR DO I SOUND GAY?
• 14. WHAT DO IT MEAN TO “SOUND GAY”? THE (ACCENTED) VOICE AS SURPL JOUISSANCE
• DO I SOUND GAY, AND DO MATTER ANYWAY?
• BE YOUR OWN SELF: THE LSONS OF 'DO I SOUND GAY?' AND 'TANGERE'
• WHAT DO IT MEAN TO BE A GAY MAN?
• WHAT DO MEAN TO SOUND GAY?
• HOW TO KNOW IF YOU ARE GAY
• SOUNDG GAY, PUNK, OR JOCK: WHAT LANGUAGE SAYS ABOUT YOUR SOCIAL GROUP

WHAT DO IT MEAN TO SOUND GAY?

Do I Sound Gay?, a documentary by filmmaker David Thorpe openg this week at IFC, prob the history, science, and cultural signifince of the gay male voice.

The film is stctured around his personal qut to get rid of his “gay voice”—recently sgle and middle-aged, David Thorpe began to fd his voice a source of anxiety, worryg turned off potential lovers—which grounds what uld otherwise have been a disparate web of amic theori and talkg heads. That spurred him to look more systematilly at the gay voice self; eventually he realized he’d found somethg signifint to say about the subject, a talogue of people reflectg about the history, prevalence, signifince, and science of the voice ’s clear om his enthiasm and breadth of knowledge that Thorpe, a wrer wh an quisive personaly and a voice I found entirely pleasant, has enough material for a whole seri on the subject. ” In the film, Thorpe nsults a speech therapist, a voice ach, several lguists and anthropologists, a film historian, gay actors, and famo queer celebri cludg David Sedaris, Dan Savage, Tim Gunn, Don Lemon, Gee Takei, and Margaret Cho.

In one sequence, he recreat a tra r full of boistero gay men bound for Fire Island: They wear lorful beach stum and talk non-stop about fashn, their mothers, chai tea, and what happened at the club last night.

WHAT MEANS TO ‘SOUND GAY’

“Well all the meaty gay rol go to straight actors, and I’m not buff so I n’t play the token hot gay guy, so really all that’s left is for me to play the bter queen, ” he says. Admtg that a roomful of gay voic n be annoyg giv space to pick apart anxieti—which parts are jt annoyance at other people’s nversatns, and which are tied to toxic the film velops, be apparent that much of what we intify as a gay voice is a characteristilly feme voice spoken by a man.

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

The stereotypil affectatns we associate wh gay men (what lguists ll micro-variatns) are: clearer and longer vowels, long S’, clearer L’s and over-articulated P’s, T’s, and K’s. To prove his pot, Thorpe shows a straight man who was raised on an ashram by a group of women, who talks a voice that would tonate most people’s gaydar; but he also troduc to a gay man raised the suburbs wh five macho brothers who has the sort of voice that porn actors strive for. Knows this herage, plac the ntext of film history, and ti to the vol spiratn for well known early gay voic on TV such as Liberace and Pl what drew gay men om across the untry and enomic strata to adopt the vol signifiers?

WHAT MEANS TO 'SOUND GAY'

Puttg on the airs of wealth signifi that the speaker isn’t fensels, at least a urt of some pot, though, I wonred, if the gay voice was gog the way of the bathhoe and gay bar—pecially as queer culture be more mastream. ”The feme ponent of the voice particular probably won’t fa until masculy no longer se queerns as a threat; the prevalence of “no homo” jok and the existence of Entourage suggt we still have a long way to go.

The film was so effective at monstratg jt how pervasive discrimatn agast the gay voice that I wanted to be a ll to arms stead of a lson about self-love.

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.

CHECK OUT THE TRAILER FOR DO I SOUND GAY?

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.

14. WHAT DO IT MEAN TO “SOUND GAY”? THE (ACCENTED) VOICE AS SURPL JOUISSANCE

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.

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.

DO I SOUND GAY, AND DO MATTER ANYWAY?

“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?

BE YOUR OWN SELF: THE LSONS OF 'DO I SOUND GAY?' AND 'TANGERE'

” 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 DO IT MEAN TO BE A GAY MAN?

” 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. " 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.

WHAT DO MEAN TO SOUND GAY?

And as Dan Savage says the movie, effemate kids, whether they are gay or straight, get persecuted for, kd of, how they walk and how they talk.... On where the "gay sound" om Thorpe: If I have to speculate about where the so-lled gay voice om, for me, both the most predomant answers work. 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. 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 realis 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.

HOW TO KNOW IF YOU ARE 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 per cent 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.

SOUNDG GAY, PUNK, OR JOCK: WHAT LANGUAGE SAYS ABOUT YOUR SOCIAL GROUP

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 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. 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.