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

Contents:

• THE GAY VOICE
• WHAT'S THE LK BETWEEN HOMOSEXUALY AND HAVG A 'GAY VOICE'
• THE FOTTEN SECRET LANGUAGE OF GAY MEN
• WHY DO GAY MEN WALK SO FAST?
• WHAT MEANS TO ‘SOUND GAY’
• DO YOU SOUND GAY? WHAT OUR VOIC TELL – AND WHAT THEY DON’T
• GAY STEREOTYP: ARE THEY TE?
• WHY ARE THERE GAY MEN?
• OF LISPS AND LGUISTICS: THE POWER OF THE GAY VOICE

THE GAY VOICE

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.

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

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.

“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. I know that talkg a certa way don't make somebody gay, and I know that beg gay don't make somebody talk a certa way, so why do the stereotype of a "gay voice" exist? Vada (“look at”), dolly eek (a pretty face), and chicken (a young guy) are all words om the lexin of Polari, a secret language ed by gay men Bra at a time when homosexualy was illegal.

THE FOTTEN SECRET LANGUAGE OF GAY MEN

Durg the terim years, when beg openly non-straight brought the risks of social isolatn and crimal prosecutn, Polari provid gay men wh a subtle way to fd one another for pannship and sex.

WHY DO GAY MEN WALK SO FAST?

In the late ‘60s, as gay liberatn groups were fightg for regnn and equaly, Polari h mastream Brish pop-culture the form of Julian and Sandy, two flamboyant, not-officially-but-pretty-obvly gay characters on a BBC rad show lled Round the Horne. When Ecclton and Fairbairn posted the film onle, they were surprised by the enthiastic rponse—and the level of fascatn wh Polari, this myster, cipherable “gay language.

“The kds of nts still exist where opprsn is still entrenched, ” says Ecclton, cg Swardspeak, a language based on English and Tagalog that is ed among gay men the Philipp. Dolan brgs up the pot that gay men shouldn’t have to be “straight-actg” orr to be accepted: “Might not be more fun to embrace a b more mp and actually have fun wh ourselv and wh each other?

WHAT MEANS TO ‘SOUND GAY’

Yet today’s gay men aren’t as reliant on reprentatns crafted by others, wh social media helpg to mocratize storytellg by providg a platform for people to share their experienc. Both found the accuracy of the new trop difficult to prove, but explored their plex and often ntradictory that sense, the new(ish) stereotype that “gay men walk fast” is no different.

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

” Others joke that gays n halve the journey time timate on most travel apps, or suggt that gay men walk fast “to flee the straights” bee “they learned to walk to the beat of ‘Womanizer’ by Brney Spears. To create “gay walkg lan” bee gay men supposedly walk so a fast walker, I’ve fely been there: that moment when you’re walkg through a public place, listeng to “Jump” by Madonna, and the (prumably heterosexual) public n’t seen to hurry up and get out of your way.

Psychologist Ian MacRae agre that walkg speed and style n be affected by eher posive or negative emotns, but also says that gay men are statistilly predisposed to walkg fast. ”MacRae tells me that walkg fast might be a method for gay men to give a “visual cue” of their physil fns and attractivens, and that there’s a genred element to how we perceive sexualy that may fluence walkg speed.

”Gammerl explas that is no cince that someone like me feels reprented by the stereotyp and helps to spread them, bee young, urban-dwellg gay men are central to society’s mappg of what gay men are like. For stance, gay men om ci (like me) might e this trope to subtly posn themselv as superr to suburban and ral people, who they associate wh beg behd the tim and irrelevant. For example, “sissy that walk”—a drag term meang “to stt the most feme way possible”—was turned to a pop banger by drag superstar Twter—or more precisely “Gay Twter, ” on which I spend far too much time —appearg to be “booked and by” will w you pliments.

GAY STEREOTYP: ARE THEY TE?

Quickly graspg the “ joke” that others might not unrstand ( this se, that gay men are lerally fast movers) adds a further dimensn to the perceived rrelatn between quickns and many of the “new” gay stereotyp, “gays walk fast” helps accs a shared muny wh humor and togetherns. We might be the hab of puttg each other to ltle gay box which have a perceived hierarchy attached to them, om “tops and bottoms” to “daddi and twks”, but all gays are created equal. But while might seem like a fairly superficial stereotype, the potential reasons why gay men might be keen to embody velocy are anythg but if you’ll exce me, I’ve got iced ffee to drk, rs not to drive, straight people to barge past, [redacted] pics to take and vios of Christe Baranski sayg “gay rights!

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.

WHY ARE THERE GAY MEN?

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. 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.

OF LISPS AND LGUISTICS: THE POWER OF 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?