What means to ‘sound gay’ - The Washgton Post

Contents:

• THE GAY VOICE
• WHAT'S THE LK BETWEEN HOMOSEXUALY AND HAVG A 'GAY VOICE'
• GAY VOICE: STABLE MARKER OF SEXUAL ORIENTATN OR FLEXIBLE COMMUNITN DEVICE?
• WHAT MEANS TO ‘SOUND GAY’
• GAY- AND LBIAN-SOUNDG AUDORY CU ELIC STEREOTYPG AND DISCRIMATN
• THE GAY SCIENCENONFICTN | BOOK | ADULT | PUBLISHED 1882A MORN ALTERNATIVE TO SPARKNOT AND CLIFFSNOT, SUPERSUMMARY OFFERS HIGH-QUALY STUDY GUIS THAT FEATURE TAILED CHAPTER SUMMARI AND ANALYSIS OF MAJOR THEM, CHARACTERS, QUOT, AND SAY TOPICS.DOWNLOAD PDFACCS FULL GUISTUDY GUISUMMARYCHAPTER SUMMARI & ANALYSJT, RE AND REVENGE: A PRELU IN RHYME-BOOK SENDBOOK THIRD-BOOK FIFTH: WE FEARLS ONKEY FIGURTHEMSYMBOLS & MOTIFSIMPORTANT QUOTESSAY TOPICSSUMMARY AND STUDY GUI
• "HEY, I'M PETER": ON LIVG WH A 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. 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.

In Study 1 (n = 20 speakers, n = 383 Italian listeners and n = 373 Brish listeners), g a simulated nversatn paradigm, we found that gay speakers modulated their voic pendg on the terlocutor, soundg more gay when speakg to a person wh whom they have had an easy (vs. Combg experimental and archival methods, this rearch suggts that gay speakers modulate their voic flexibly pendg on their relatn wh the terlocutor and as a nsequence of their public g out. Obvly some straight people and gay people have ep voic, voic e high and lows, but how many of the ep voiced men actually would sound like that whout purposely "puttg some bass their voice"?

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

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.

GAY VOICE: STABLE MARKER OF SEXUAL ORIENTATN OR FLEXIBLE COMMUNITN DEVICE?

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. 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. 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. ” 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.

WHAT MEANS TO ‘SOUND GAY’

The growg body of lerature on the regnn of sexual orientatn om voice (“dory gaydar”) is silent on the gnive and social nsequenc of havg a gay-/lbian- vers heterosexual-soundg voice. We vtigated this issue four studi (overall N = 276), nducted Italian language, which heterosexual listeners were exposed to sgle-sentence voice sampl of gay/lbian and heterosexual speakers.

GAY- AND LBIAN-SOUNDG AUDORY CU ELIC STEREOTYPG AND DISCRIMATN

In all four studi, listeners were found to make genr-typil ferenc about tras and preferenc of heterosexual speakers, but genr-atypil ferenc about those of gay or lbian speakers.

THE GAY SCIENCENONFICTN | BOOK | ADULT | PUBLISHED 1882A MORN ALTERNATIVE TO SPARKNOT AND CLIFFSNOT, SUPERSUMMARY OFFERS HIGH-QUALY STUDY GUIS THAT FEATURE TAILED CHAPTER SUMMARI AND ANALYSIS OF MAJOR THEM, CHARACTERS, QUOT, AND SAY TOPICS.DOWNLOAD PDFACCS FULL GUISTUDY GUISUMMARYCHAPTER SUMMARI & ANALYSJT, RE AND REVENGE: A PRELU IN RHYME-BOOK SENDBOOK THIRD-BOOK FIFTH: WE FEARLS ONKEY FIGURTHEMSYMBOLS & MOTIFSIMPORTANT QUOTESSAY TOPICSSUMMARY AND STUDY GUI

Keywords: Stereotyp, Discrimatn, Sexual orientatn, “Gaydar”IntroductnSexual orientatn is a social tegory that, differently om many others that are signaled by clear visual featur such as sk lor, is not ascertaed until the person self-disclos. Yet, people tegorize dividuals as gay or heterosexual on the basis of direct cu, cludg their physil appearance, their body language, and their vol characteristics (Rieger, Lsenmeier, Gygax, Garcia, & Bailey, 2010; Rule, 2017; Shelp, 2002).

Detectn of Sexual OrientatnThe above distctn between tegory- and feature-based procs is important, as rearch on tegorizatn of sexual orientatn has provid mixed rults wh regard to people’s abily to tect sexual inty (so lled “gaydar”).

"HEY, I'M PETER": ON LIVG WH A GAY VOICE

Studi have shown that people are que accurate judgg whether a person is gay or heterosexual on the basis of nonverbal behavr, cludg mannerisms, gtur, and ga (Ambady, Hallahan, & Conner, 1999).

However, other studi have often disproven this claim and suggted that people distguish between gay and heterosexual dividuals on the basis of the stereotypil ia of how gays appear or sound (Smyth et al., 2003; Sulpiz et al., 2015). Listeners make reliable and nsensually shared distctns between gay- and heterosexual-soundg speech that do not necsarily rrpond wh the speakers’ self-fn (Smyth et al., 2003; Sulpiz et al., 2015; Zimman, 2010). However, the fact that the tegorizatn as gay or lbian is driven by genr-atypil featur do not exclu the possibily that genr-atypil featur may also affect social perceptn the absence of tegorizatn.

Consequenc of Perceivg Sexual Orientatn om VoiceAlthough prr rearch has largely been mute on this issue, there is reason to believe that havg a gay- or lbian-soundg voice may have nsequenc for how the speaker is perceived, evaluated, and treated by others. In particular, we refer to stereotypg as the procs of attributg genr-atypil tras, characteristics, and terts to a person based on the fact that gay men are ually associated wh femy and lbian women wh masculy (Blashill & Powlishta, 2009; Ke & Dex, 1987). Hence, this work, stereotypg refers to an attributnal procs irrpective of whether the associatns reflect actual differenc between gays/lbians and heterosexuals (see Deve, 1989; Judd & Park, 1993), our studi vtigated discrimatory behavrs that may emerge a work-related ntext and specifilly the hirg procs.