In 'Do I Sound Gay?', David Thorpe exam the myster orig of the "gay voice" while tryg—and failg—to rid himself of his own gayish flectn
Contents:
OF LISPS AND LGUISTICS: THE POWER OF THE GAY VOICE
Ask a Homo: Livg for the Lisp. Wele back to “Ask a Homo, ” Outward’s no-judgement answer service for all your qutns on LGBTQ polics, culture, etiquette, language, and other queer nundms.
THE PREVALENCE OF LISPG GAY MEN
This week, Bryan Lowr n-sth-irs the li-sth-p and other elements of the “stereotypil gay manner of speakg”—and honey, ’s jt fabulo! Send your queri—for publitn—to, and please put “ASK A HOMO” the subject le.
When Universy of Toronto rearchers Ron Smyth and Henry Rogers nducted a study on the so-lled “gay voice” the early 2000s, they me to an unsurprisg ncln. But we are not, as many gay men tend to be, an dible mory.
When openly gay humour wrer David Sedaris lls down to the ont sk at a hotel, for example, he is often addrsed as “ma’am, ” by the ncierge; a mischaracterizatn that lights him, but also fills him wh ep shame. Sedaris expounds on this feelg Do I Sound Gay?, an Amerin documentary starrg Brooklyn filmmaker David Thorpe that premiered this week at Doc NYC, and was featured at the Toronto Internatnal Film Ftival September. Thorpe, who directed the film and promoted at TIFF wh sex lumnist Dan Savage (who also mak an appearance the film), wanted to explore this shame and answer a qutn that has been on his md his entire adult life: Why do so many gay men who are seemgly fortable wh their sexualy hate the way their voic sound?
THE GAY LISP?
Thorpe never liked the sound of his own slightly effemate voice, but was the sound of other gay men’s voic that propelled him to make the film. “I was on a tra ri to Fire Island [off Long Island] and I heard all the gay voic around me, and I was repelled, ” he says.
“I uldn’t believe that after 20 years of beg out and fightg to create a gay muny, I was repulsed by my own people, and by myself. My voice was the way that my ternalized homophobia ma self known to me. In Do I Sound Gay?, Thorpe not only exam the myster, unrolved orig of the gay voice (characterized by a lisp and the elongatn of certa syllabl), but tri and fails, to rid himself of his own gayish flectn.
He practis a variety of voice epeng, speech therapy exercis—employed equently we learn, by closeted gay actors who want to butch up their voic for a straight dience. Savage, whose sex advice lumn is syndited ternatnally, says he se this distaste for the stereotypil gay voice progrsive straight muni, too. Savage often gets mail om straight people who are happy to accept their newly out, gay male iends, but who are equally annoyed by how “mpy” they sound.