Filmmaker And Speech Pathologist Weigh In On What It Means To 'Sound Gay' : NPR

Contents:

• 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 YOU SOUND GAY? WHAT OUR VOIC TELL – AND WHAT THEY DON’T
• MY GAY VOICE AND YOURS
• "DO I SOUND GAY?"
• THE GAY VOICE
• THIS IS WHY SOME MEN ‘SOUND GAY’ – EVEN IF THEY’RE NOT

HOW CAN I GET RID OF MY GAY VOICE?

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. So Iike other gay men of my generatn I worked extra hard to get ahead, takg on more rponsibili than my straight lleagu to make myself dispensable. 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. [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).

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

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. It's a fact that many closeted gays don't sound gay until they e out, and subsequently beg makg iends wh guys who speak the gay vernacular and s tone.

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.

What the powerful psychology partments won't tell you is that what they ll male heterosexualy is actually a form of effemacy, as much as gay voice. 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".

WHAT MEANS TO ‘SOUND GAY’

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!

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. You hear ls and ls extreme gay voice which dit that a lot of is sub-culture herd mentaly and the tenncy youth to intify more wh young women than men.

Sayg that gay voice is becuase of gay culture is wrong, there are children wh affemate manerisms and gay voice, by Anonymoreply 86April 2, 2017 9:34 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.

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

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.

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

I thk the gay voice is mostly bee of the exprsivens our voic rather than the monotone of straight Anonymoreply 110April 3, 2017 6:16 AM. 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? 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.

MY GAY VOICE AND YOURS

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.

"DO I SOUND GAY?"

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.

THE GAY VOICE

“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. “[B]ee we do still live a misogynist and sexist culture, people cricize men who are effemate, whether or not they are gay, " says Thorpse.

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.

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

” 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. 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....