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

Contents:

• THE GAY VOICE
• WHY IS IT THAT MANY GAY MAL SOUND DIFFERENT OM OTHER MAL?
• WHAT'S THE LK BETWEEN HOMOSEXUALY AND HAVG A 'GAY VOICE'
• THIS IS WHY SOME MEN ‘SOUND GAY’ – EVEN IF THEY’RE NOT
• WHY DO GAY MEN SOUND…GAY? 
• WHY DO GAY MEN SOUND LIKE ~THAT~?
• DO YOU SOUND GAY? WHAT OUR VOIC TELL – AND WHAT THEY DON’T
• WHAT MEANS TO ‘SOUND GAY’
• WHY DO SOME GAY PEOPLE SEEM TO TALK DIFFERENTLY?
• FILMMAKER AND SPEECH PATHOLOGIST WEIGH IN ON WHAT IT MEANS TO 'SOUND GAY'
• SPEECH ATIC FEATUR: A COMPARISON OF GAY MEN, HETEROSEXUAL MEN, AND HETEROSEXUAL WOMEN

THE GAY VOICE

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. The purpose of IP for gays or anyone is to exalt their inty, blow up all the great thgs about themselv and play down or ually to flat out lie about all of the bad thgs about the group. As gay men are only 3% of all men, and 75% of sissy boys grow up gay, you n see that sissy boy backgrounds are credibly more likely among gay men than among straight men.

WHY IS IT THAT MANY GAY MAL SOUND DIFFERENT OM OTHER MAL?

However a gay man I know said he has followed the married flamers over a perd of time rangg om 5–20 years, and he said that all of the married flamers had e out as gay and left their wiv and kids durg that time ame. However, the graphs will look dramatilly different when we plot them out, and effemate men will be dramatilly more mon among gay men, and hypermascule men will be profoundly more mon among straight men. 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.

”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. 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.

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

“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.

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

Can we be hont and say that the majory (even if ’s not an overwhelmg majory) of gay men are effemate and a huge portn of gay men talk wh a lisp or wh a certa type of gay accent.

Whenever televisn shows or other forms of live actn media needs to let the dienc know a character is gay, what mol is prented; a mpy, effemate, sassy, fashnably trendy gay man who talks wh lispy dictns or gay twangs.

WHY DO GAY MEN SOUND…GAY? 

Before I ntue and hopefully before emotnal knee jerk reactns beg to fire off verbal shots of ternalized homophobia, effemophobia and patriarchal mascule standards, unrstand I’m no way sayg the typ of gay men need to adjt and change to make me or anyone else feel fortable. Whether ’s bee of their environment, social circl or nsumptn of the gay cultural archetyp prented, many gay men bee doctrated to gay mastream life, which clus language, slang and gay lisps.

WHY DO GAY MEN SOUND LIKE ~THAT~?

If you look at and listen to many gay men om around the world (regardls of race, ethnicy, relign or culture), a tremendo amount of them talk wh a lisp or “gay speak. 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.

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

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.

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. 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.

WHAT MEANS TO ‘SOUND GAY’

Shows, such as RuPl’s Drag Race, and social media have not only served to expose the public to gay culture, but have also ma gay speak and certa gay terms more mastream. Gay speak is so popular that, acrdg to Radice, var straight men on TikTok will tentnally e some form of gay speak bee they know ’ll ultimately get more clicks than if they ed their real voice. So even though ’s an tertg topic, pecially when lookg at s evolutn to the mastream, gay speak should be looked at as jt that — an tertg topic**(update: didn’t work)Luigi Bensme is an onle wrer at Rowdy Magaze.

WHY DO SOME GAY PEOPLE SEEM TO TALK DIFFERENTLY?

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?

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

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. 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. 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.

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

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.