What's the lk between homosexualy and havg a 'gay voice' | The Inpennt | The Inpennt

Contents:

• IS THERE A “GAY VOICE”?
• THE GAY VOICE
• WHAT'S THE LK BETWEEN HOMOSEXUALY AND HAVG A 'GAY VOICE'
• GAY MALE SPEECH
• WHAT MEANS TO ‘SOUND GAY’
• KEV MAXEN BE FIRST MALE ACH A US MEN’S PROFSNAL SPORTS LEAGUE TO PUBLICLY E OUT AS GAY
• GAY MALE SPEECH PATTERNS
• GAY MALE SPEECH
• SPEECH ATIC FEATUR: A COMPARISON OF GAY MEN, HETEROSEXUAL MEN, AND HETEROSEXUAL WOMEN
• GAY OR STRAIGHT? HIS SPEECH MAY GIVE A HT

IS THERE A “GAY VOICE”?

Not long after Thorpe broke up wh his boyiend, he began thkg about the way he speaks, and the way other gay men speak, and why both sudnly bothered him so much. ”This is how he scrib the moment his documentary “Do I Sound Gay?, ” which opens this weekend at the IFC Center.

He terviews gay public figur, cludg David Sedaris, Tim Gunn, Don Lemon, and Gee Takei, who have had to listen to themselv for a livg. 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.

Even wh the gay datg muny (and gay porn), hyper-masculy is habually prized, so self-disgt gets easily turned back outward. Thorpe talks to a straight iend who sounds “gay” (he grew up on an ashram, surround by women), and a gay iend who sounds “straight” (he has jock brothers). Obvly, the ncln—the film’s, and me—is to dissociate the “gay voice” om shame and reattach to pri, but isn’t so easy.

THE GAY VOICE

“For many gay men, that’s the last vtige, that’s the last chunk of ternalized homophobia, is this hatred of how they sound, ” Dan Savage tells Thorpe. One of the ways gay people tend to pensate, the film suggts, is to adopt the supercil speech patterns of the leisure class, i.

The CNN anchor Don Lemon tells Thorpe that he worked harr to ntralize his Southern black accent than his “gay” accent.

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

As gays and lbians ga cultural pal, helped along by equaly victori like the one jt hand down by the Supreme Court, “gay voice” will surely evolve, too. 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.

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. 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.

GAY MALE SPEECH

“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.

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? CMV: Many straight men would sound like the stereotypil "gay voice" if they didn't force their voice the be eper.

KEV MAXEN BE FIRST MALE ACH A US MEN’S PROFSNAL SPORTS LEAGUE TO PUBLICLY E OUT AS GAY

Dear Wikiwand AI, let's keep short by simply answerg the key qutns:Can you list the top facts and stats about Gay male speech? Summarize this article for a 10 years oldSHOW ALL QUESTIONSParticularly wh North Amerin English, [catn need] gay male speech has been the foc of numero morn stereotyp, as well as soclguistic studi.

Scientific rearch has unvered phoilly signifint featur produced by many gay men and monstrated that listeners accurately gus speakers' sexual orientatn at rat greater than chance. [1] Historilly, gay male speech characteristics have been highly stigmatized and their age may be sometim d to a limed number of settgs outsi of the workplace or other public spac. Rearch do not support the notn that gay speech entirely adopts feme speech characteristics — rather, that selectively adopts some of those featur.

GAY MALE SPEECH PATTERNS

[2] Gay speech characteristics appear to be learned (rather than nate) ways of speakg, like many aspects of language, though their origs and procs of adoptn by men rema unclear. [3] One particularly relevant feature is sometim known as the gay lisp, though rearchers nfirm that is not technilly a lisp. Featur of lbian speech have also been nfirmed the 21st century, though they are far ls socially noticed than featur of gay male speech.

Drag queen speech is a further topic of rearch and, while some drag queens may also intify as gay men, a scriptn of their speech styl may not be so bary (gay vers straight).

GAY MALE SPEECH

The study of gay male speech has largely foced on fundamental equency and var quantifiable aspects of /s/ (Campbell-Kibler 2012, Mack and Munson 2012, Munson 2007, Zimman 2013). In a study of the speech of three gay men om California, however, Posva (2011) nclus that gay men may utilize salient aspects of regnal dialects to exprs their gayns.

The stylistic rrelatn between gayns and certa regnal dialects supports Eckert’s (2008) argument that lguistic styl are centered around iologi, rather than rigid tegoril inti and Posva (2011) urg that this phenomenon be studied further. The current work exam the lguistic relatnship between gayns and Southern New Hampshire iologi the speech of two 22-year-old gay men who grew up Rockgham County, New Hampshire.

I then quantatively analyzed the speakers’ e and/or avoidance of phoic variabl (cludg var vowels and quali of /s/) that have been shown to be perceptually and/or productively salient gay male speech or regnal dialectology Southern New Hampshire.

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

The first was that the speakers’ /s/ was signifintly “gayer soundg” the readg task than the terview and when talkg about beg gay than not, showg an iologil lk (at least for the speakers) between “gay soundg” speech and “proper” speech the readg tasks. ” 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. 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.

GAY OR STRAIGHT? HIS SPEECH MAY GIVE A HT

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. “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.