Do you actually mean enunciation rather than annunciation? The latter refers to the angel Gabriel telling Mary that she was going to give birth to Jesus.
"Anncunciate" does have a more general meaning, as in making an announcement. Still, I agree with your point, that "enunciate" was clearly what was meant.
The birth of Jesus ? You mean that son who liked wearing dresses, had 2 dads and a surrogate virgin mother because Joseph never touched her ? And that would not correspond to gay enunciation ????
Being bilingual myself, I can surely tell the gay accent in both english and spanish speakers. In both cases, they sound girly and the S sound is more accentuated. Cool video
Not a language expert or anything close, but your video triggered a couple memories. (I'm 76 now, but these are from my pre-coming out years as a pre-teen and then a late teen.) When I was around 8 or 9, my teacher got my mom to consent to sending me to voice therapy for an over-pronounced S (i.e. a distinctly said S with almost a whistle at the end) -- both teacher & mom were public school teachers, and I'm astonished to realize that my hometown had such resources. The therapy ended when I could pronounce S's more standardly. The second memory related to speaking French in France -- by age 19 I'd studied the language in the USA for years, from grade school to college, and spoke it fairly fluently. I was traveling with a group of other teens/early 20s folks from the USA and did a lot of the translating for them. One night, in Avignon, after we'd been in France for at least 2 weeks, a waiter at a restaurant who took care of our table took me aside after dinner to advise that I was speaking French quite well but also quite like a woman speaks! He gave a couple examples and quickly conveyed how I should butch it up. On reflection, I supposed it was due to most of my French teachers having been women -- but this waiter (a very handsome and engaging guy, quite a conversationalist) was the only person in the nearly 4 weeks in France that mentioned my speech patterns. Not even the brother of my long-time pen-pal, who met our ferry from England the day we arrived, said a word -- nor did their mother and his sister (the pen-pal) -- they were perhaps surprised by how well I spoke the language in general to think of "giving me notes." So maybe that waiter in Avignon was actually flirting with me? LOL. Anyway, thanks for sparking a couple of walks down Memory Lane.
Thanks for the memories! It was an interesting read. I wonder if the waiter in Avignon was perhaps a homosexual man himself (or had been around a few quite a bit), so he was more in tune with what he thought was gay male speech?
If you got positive vibes from the waiter maybe he was giving a heads up to a young foreigner. I can this as the timeframe you’re mentioning was still very homophobic across the western world. He might have been advising a little lower profile to a young North American (?) tourist.
@@ThePolyglotFiles The waiter was about the same age as me -- late teens to a max of early 20s. (Yes I'm North American -- from NY state, then Fla. (in college there, also living with parents there) when I was on that trip. I now live near Washington DC, where I came out around age 25 in the mid-1970s.
@@kevinfile3690 The waiter was about the same age as me -- late teens to a max of early 20s. (Yes I'm North American -- from NY state, then Fla. (in college there, also living with parents there) when I was on that trip. I now live near Washington DC, where I came out around age 25 in the mid-1970s.
As a professional actor and a gay male I’ve given a great deal of practical thought to this question. I’ve read the research and as usual researchers ask the wrong questions based on wrong assumptions. What it comes down to is power. This is my observation. If you have power and you are comfortable in your power you say a thing as simply as possible. If you do not have power or believe that you have power, there’s a great deal of wheedling that works its way in - in the gay male accent as well as in feminine speech. Over emphasis, more musicality, etc. If you want it sound straight you just simplify simplify simplify.
That's a very interesting point! I wonder if research could be done on the accent in relation to a homosexual speaker's perceived power dynamics. You also caught me on the Canadian thing 🤣 Thanks for watching!
@@ThePolyglotFiles When I traveled to the UK I was often asked if I was Canadian. I wondered why people asked me that. What did I do that sounded Canadian? And the answer I got was they couldn’t tell whether I was American or Canadian but they knew that if they asked a Canadian if they were American the Canadian would have a meltdown but if you ask American if he’s Canadian he’d just be confused. It was a peaceful way to satisfy their curiosity.
Interesting! I've been doing a series of RUclips Shorts about different Canadian accents (with the intention of doing a full-length video soon), and the giveaway seems to be "out and about." However, I am always surprised when Canadians claim not to say it differently than Americans. It's so evident to me!
It could be that heterosexual males on average tend to be more dominant biologically and have more masculinization of the brain. Girls voices are generally different from boys, even before puberty has hit. Gay males tend to have similarities in their brains to straight women, so that may have something to do with it. Different pathways can lead to homosexuality and some may be accompanied by a broader gender-nonconformity and others less so. All gay people have some gender-atypical traits( such as gay men are androphilic like most females and lesbians gynephilic like most males) but few have the entire package. Everyone, to some extent, is a combination of male and female traits . No one is 100 percent male or 100 percent female or 100 percent gender-conforming. It's just that people who tend to be more gender non-conforming are more likely to be homosexual. Sexual orientation is an aspect of gender that emerges from the prenatal sexual differentiation of the brain. Whether a person ends up gay or straight depends in large part on how this process of biological differentiation goes forward, with the lead actors being genes, sex hormones and the brain systems that are influenced by them. It's believed that gay men, during some point in fetal life, were exposed to unusually low levels of androgens, which allowed their hypothalamic circuits to develop in a female-typical direction. If testosterone levels during a critical prenatal period are high , the brain is organized in such a way that the person is predisposed to become typically masculine in a variety of gendered traits, including sexual attraction to females. If testosterone levels are low during that same time period, the brain is organized in such a way that the person is predisposed to become typically feminine in gendered traits, including sexual attraction to males. The association between sexual orientation and other gendered traits arises because all these traits differentiate under the influence of a common biological process-the sexual differentiation of the brain under the influence of sex hormones. To some extent, homosexuality is part of a package of mental traits, many of which can be considered gender-variant or gender non conformist(whereas heterosexuality is part of a package of gender-typical or gender conformist), If a man inherits a few of these genes, he will have some feminine characteristics, which might include increased empathy and kindness, decreased aggressivness and the like, These genes increase his attractivness to women, permitting him more sexual access and thus offering him the likelihood of having more offspring. If a man inherits all of these genes, however, he will be feminized to the point of homosexuality, and his reproductive success will drop markedly. Because each feminizing gene is present in many more straight men than gay men it only has to raise each straight man's reproductive success by a small amount to compensate for the lowered reproductive success of gay men Evidence that gender identity and sexual orientation are masculinised by prenatal exposure to testosterone and feminised in it absence is drawn from basic research in animals, correlations of biometric indices of androgen exposure and studies of clinical conditions associated with disorders in sexual development. Hormones in puberty have no effect in adulthood on gender traits or sexual orientation and these areas of the brain, and again this has also be tested in experiments on a variety on animals experimented on in labs. Only in early life and the brains development in the utero do these hormones have effect while the brain is developing and forming.The organisational effects of hormones on the brain prior to birth have permanent effects. So while testosterone in puberty may deepen a gay males voice, some of these brain differences could still cause a more female-typical speech pattern in some. Gendered interests are predicted by testosterone exposure in utero. Higher levels are associated with male-typical interests and behaviours, regardless of whether the baby is male or female. These include a preference for mechanically interesting objects and systemizing occupations in adulthood. Lower levels are associated with a preference for people orientated activities and occupations. stemming from evolutionary roots. Women. who are tasked with the role of bearing children, evolved to be more sociable, empathic, and people focused, while men, as hunter-gatherers, were rewarded for strong visuopatial skills and ability to build and use tools. Boys, are typically exposed to higher levels of testosterone in the womb, and tend to gravitate toward mechanical toys and ,mechanically interesting activities, like playing with wheeled toys, trucks and related occupations in adulthood. and being sexually attracted to women upon reaching puberty. A boy who is exposed to lower levels of is more likely to be female-typical when he is born, gravitating toward toys and activities that girls prefer, since girls are also generally exposed to lower levels of testosterone. He will also be sexually attracted to men in adulthood. Testosterone is needed to “masculinize” a prenatal brain; if that doesn’t happen, the child will grow up to desire men. The same can be said for girls who experience high levels of testosterone exposure. As shown in girls with congenital adrenal hyperplasia, even if their parents give them more encouragement for playing with dolls, they will still prefer toys typical to boys because greater exposure to testosterone in utero is associated with male-typical interests. Childhood gender nonconformity refers to sex-atypical behaviours, interests, hobbies, activity levels, and play partner preferences before the age of 12. 75% of boys demonstrating CGN will grow up to be gay or bisexual. Rough-and-tumble play, which is behavior typically seen in little boys, is less common in gay men and more common in lesbian women, due to lesser and greater masculinization of the brain. Pre gay children are gender nonconformists in a variety of traits, including phyisical aggressivness, engagement in rough and tumble play and sports, interest and peers they prefer the company of. Brains that are exposed to lower levels of testosterone, are more efficient at empathizing. Girls show a preference for socially engaging activities and occupations. This difference between children regarding preferences for people versus things is detectable within the first two days of life. Baby girls preferred looking at their caregivers’ faces and baby boys preferred looking at mechanical mobiles. The male superiority in mental rotation is evident by 3-5months of age. Difference in toy preference are evident at 3-8 months of age. Many of the sex differences exist widely across different countries and cultures, AND also gendered in non humans primates and other mammals, including vervet and rhesus monkeys. Despite lacking socialization from their caregivers or other monkeys, young female monkeys will choose dolls, and male monkeys will choose wheeled toys, similar to what is observed in human babies. No matter how much freedom a child is given, most will, time and time again, pick out gender-typical toys to play with and exhibit personality traits typical of their sex. If you try to force kids to play with opposite-sex toys when they prefer toys typical to their sex, they will be bored, or alternatively, will get creative. Boys, upon being given dolls, will swing them around mercilessly by the hair as though they are a weapon. Girls will arrange toy trucks into a family and tuck them into bed. A girl or boy who is gender-atypical will turn away from these cues if they're truly not interested. Even if a gender non-conforming child tries to hide that aspect of themselves, societal conditioning cannot override biology and the underlining preferences themselves. Sexual orientation is associated with distinct changes in brain structure and has strong associations with areas primarily linked to processing and integrating incoming sensory, reward-related, and motor information. Gay men and lesbians can also have gender shifted occupational preferences and also in instrumentailty, empathy, expressivness, and aesthetic/technological interests. Gay men and lesbians are gender shifted in a variety of male favoring-visuospatial traits such as mental rotation, targeting, and navigation, as well as female-favouring tasks such as verbal fluency and object location memory. Many of these functions, particularly the spatial skills and the verbal skills reside in different sides of the brain and they call it cerebral asymmetry, the asymmetry in the way the brain is organized. This asymmetry is determined and organized around the middle of pregnancy and these correlate very highly with who you are sexually. Sexual orientation is something that is hardwired before birth. Neuroscientific studies have shown that the brains of lesbians are partially masculinized and gay mens partially feminized. Patterns of brain organisation appear similar between gay men and heterosexual women and between lesbian women and heterosexual men. Gay men appear, on average, more “female typical” in brain pattern responses and lesbian women are more “male typical”. Differences in brain organisation mean differences in psychology and study after study show differences in cognition between heterosexual and gay people. Gay men and lesbians brains are also structured like those of the opposite sex. The mind of the average gay individual is a patch work of gendered traits, some indistinguishable from same-sex peers, some shifted past way toward the other sex, and others typical of the other sex. These are only shifts and not complete gender reversals, and they don't affect every gender trait.
I feel like the one thing that stands out it's probably not the pitch, but the pitch contour, where the ups and downs are and how they are. I feel like that's what may make sound someone more stereotypically gay.
I agree. It’s not that we necessarily follow a full-on Southern California ‘valley’ accent (in terms of pitch contours), but it’s certainly more emphatic and varied than stereotypical straight pitch contours, especially in Northeastern US accents which tend to fall in pitch and have shortened vowel lengths at the end of phrases.
My personal experience: For purposes of dating, a gay man would make mistakes if he relied on voice pitch or physical appearance alone: There are guys with football player build and low pitched voice who are 💯 queer. 🌈
As a younger man I worked as a broadcaster. My accent and speech patterns were as "neutral" as any other voice you might hear on professional radio. I never gave HOW I speak a moment's thought... and I never had any feedback, positive or negative, in my entire 18 year career on the air. I was able to work in Australia in both radio & TV where my North American "accent" was often mistaken for being "American" rather than Canadian. On a few occasions I was in the deep south of the USA where they speak with a distinctive DRAWL. I found myself "drawling" after only a few hours conversing with the locals. Gets me thinking that perhaps "The Gay Male Accent" has at least something to do with the community you live in. If you spend much of your time with other gay people who have some set of affectations in their manner of speaking, it's highly likely you'll start using the same phrasing and tones as they do. Now you have a community of people with an "accent" which identifies them as part of the group. I was never part of a gay community when growing up in Toronto in the 1940s and 50s. I don't think there even was one. So how I speak as a gay man perhaps has more to do with being brought up in a "straight" community. My times spent with other gay men were mostly "non-verbal" if you get my drift.
OMG! Finally a video that's trying to be objective and honest about "gay" voice in men, but we're still so afraid to acknowledge difference from the typical male cuz we're afraid it'll be used against us. I think that one's economic class and of course cultural background might play a role but not in the way we might think. I remember going to London and going to gay bars and dance clubs there and so many gay guys seemed less typically gay than I had experienced in the States. Since then, I've come across people saying the same thing about their visits to Ireland and Germany, even though Europe seems more "liberal" overall than other parts of the world. Also, since moving, I've noticed a lot of men where I live now, I would've clocked as gay in my previous locale, not just from speech but their mannerisms as well. I have my theories but I'll withhold judgement until I can find more studies.
Your givaway that made me think you’re gay was at 0:05 of the video when you said ‘today’, with a singing voice and a lengthened and overly enunciated last syllable diphthong (dayyy). Here in Quebec, most gay men don’t speak with a noticeable accent, though a fraction speak with voice some would describe as ‘affected’, which is different from the US and English Canadian ‘gay voice’. This leads me to think that the ‘gay voice’ is probably mostly a sociological or cultural phenomenon
Suppose the popular imagination in a specific society associates a particular observable behaviour in adult males with a somewhat increased likelihood of them being gay. Many straight men there will consciously avoid being seen engaging in that behaviour, to avoid being mistakenly assumed to be gay. This is self-policing of "masculinity". For example, there is nothing inherently gay about wearing clothing of a particular colour. However, in current American society, people generally assume that the likelihood that a man is gay is somewhat higher if he is observed wearing pink or pale purple. (Popular assumptions can change dramatically over time -- e.g., pink was the standard colour to dress baby boys, and blue the colour to dress baby girls, in America circa 1900.) Even if the starting perception is that there is merely a slight correlation between a man wearing pink and him being gay, some straight men will then consciously avoid wearing pink, thereby making that correlation stronger, in a self-reinforcing loop. Another example: suppose two men are publicly holding hands while walking. In Saudi Arabia, that behaviour is NOT associated in the public imagination with being gay. However, in America, the popular imagination does associate that behaviour with a higher likelihood that both men are gay. The latter association becomes stronger over time in a self-reinforcing loop, as straight men increasingly tend to consciously avoid publicly holding hands, to avoid being misperceived as gay. A similar pattern may hold for any particular element of speaking with a "gay male accent". Suppose two particular men -- one gay and one straight -- both happen to have the exact same innate tendency to lisp, or to use dramatic ("flamboyant") intonation and hand gestures. The straight guy arguably will make greater conscious efforts to avoid or suppress exhibiting those behaviours. The popular supposition that a man who engages in those behaviours is somewhat more likely to be gay then ends up becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy, to some extent. Reality is, of course, more complicated. In situations where a gay man perceives a significant risk of being the target of homophobic violence or mistreatment if he is (accurately) perceived as gay, then he may be highly motivated to (at least temporarily) avoid or suppress any observable behaviour -- including certain speech patterns -- popularly perceived as correlated with being gay. This is sometimes termed "code-switching". Conversely, in situations where a straight man perceives no substantial risks if he is misperceived as being gay, then he may be relatively nonchalant about being observed engaging in a gayish-associated behaviour (such as Holden Caulfield wearing a pink shirt in Catcher in the Rye). Indeed, by demonstrating that he is "secure in his own masculinity", a straight man potentially might enhance his attractiveness to a subset of women. Ideally, society will continue moving towards allowing individuals to simply be themselves, so that people don't feel pressured to waste energy trying to suppress or change their personal mode of speaking.
Apparently in any language, the universal is the rhythm: gay men have a sort of " swing" in their voice, be it high-pitched or not. Also, the vocabulary. The voice is also used for ( mating) visibility, obviously- and that is not necessarily done consciously. You sound gay because of all of your vowels, the s and n endings, the rhythmic pattern of your sentences, your body language and your vocabulary.
Congratulations! Especially for someone as young as you are, being married and together in a relationship for twelve years is quite the achievement. Having watched several of your videos, I would have thought that your being gay was a possibility, but not definitely a certainty. If it had turned that you were straight with a girlfriend, I would not have been terribly surprised. It's not like the guys over at ASAPScience. In fact, as so much is, also, tied to intonation, dramatic delivery, gestures and body language, I left this comment on their video on this topic: "'Oh, girlfriend, I don't have a gay voice at all!' Snaps fingers for emphasis and effect."
I wonder just to what extent the need for gay men in films and TV series to be identifiably gay has skewed the research results of the researchers. However, there is one language-related issue regarding gay men that really stands out to me. Gay men seem to be better at learning new languages than straight men are. They also seem to show more interest in learning new languages and in language classes there seems to be a higher ratio of gay men to straight men than one finds in society in general. Gay men seem to be more interested in expressing themselves clearly. I wonder how much this has with the matter in hand. At work, one of my team leaders praised the documentation that I wrote because of its "clarity". The printed words on the page can't have had a higher pitch than the writing of other documentation writers.
I think the accent comes from being around other gay men. People tend to speak like their peers. So, when a group of gay men get together, they sound more like each by amplifying the gay male accent as a way of fitting in and feeling more like a cohesive group.
That can happen. But I had a really gay voice as a child, more than other kids of my age. And I was not conciously interestested at all in sounding gay. Maybe I have a gay voice now but not as stereotypical and I've never had a group of gay friends. Just groups of friends with a random and average amount of gay people.
Thanks for your thoughts :) I think that socialization could be part of it, but I didn't know any gay men--much less hang out with them--until I was in my 20s. I had a mixture of male and female friends growing up, and even now, other than my husband, most of my social circle consists of straight females and straight males.
Totally agree. Most people feel a need to fit-in with their respective peer group, so they adopt its characteristics such as speech patterns/cadence, vocabulary/slang, fashion, viewpoints/politics and whatnot. Not everyone does this, of course.
You're right in that there are many shades of the accent and also it varies with setting. I must not have it much if at all and when speaking with other males who are straight they seem to feel free to say things to me about gay men that are pretty bad, not knowing that i am one. Jokes, disparaging comments, etc... They also say things to me about women in a sexual way or griping about them thinking I would understand (locker room talk?). Also, yes, I knew you were gay from the first video I watched. Speech, mannerisms - there are subtle giveaways and our "gaydar" is usually right.😄 Even if a straight male might not pick it up, gay men do about me.
I'm gay and have often been complimented on my deep "radio voice," (natural baritone here), although when I hear my own voice recorded it sounds very gay to me. I was a radio DJ in college and would deliberately deepen my voice a bit and clip my "S" pronunciation while on air, because lower pitch and more curt consonants are picked up better by the microphone (especially with the ancient equipment our school had). What's missing to me in analysis of "gay voice" is the possibility that our vocal systems may be structured more like a woman's, leading to more feminine traits. I know there is research that other physical structures with slight measurable differences between male & female - finger length ratios, hair growth patterns, ear structures, blink rates - have been shown to be "shifted" toward the opposite gender in both gay men and lesbians, so it wouldn't be shocking to find out this is true also for voices - and like these other structures, would still vary among gay men so that we'd show a similar, but shifted toward feminine, range of voices.
I wonder if there's some physiological explanation? I mean, when I speak I feel like I am making the sound of someone like James Earl Jones. But then, I listen to a recording or video of my voice and I swear I sound like Jack from Will and Grace!
Yes there actually is- the sound you hear resonates through your jaw bones, and this means you hear a deeper bass tone than other people hear when they hear you speak. I have the same thing
As a gay man who has lots of gay friends, I've realized this is a learned affectation, not a natural speech pattern. It totally depends on who you hang around with, and the situation you're in. I've seen guys who switch from "straight" to "gay" speech. This demonstrates they know what they're doing and consciously do it. Same with mannerisms. We all must remember that language is LEARNED, not innate. There is no such thing as gay or straight speech. It's all learned from those you're around. Tom Holland is a great example of learned speech. He's a Brit who speaks with a definite accent (from the USA perspective) but sounds completely American when acting. Same with John Bowerman. You can control your speech making it different or keeping it similar to the norms around you.
Hi, My opinion (though experience)on this, is simply those studies were formulated around a set niche of gay men *flamboyant, in your face, eyes on me types* - a minority in in the LGBTQ++ community, I came out 28 years ago and i am openly out and proud (no reason to hide the fact) but people still cant guess I am gay, my husband's voice is low and he mumbles a lot (mine is deep and rough) most of our friend group are also not high pitched or obvious, I was born and grew up in the southern parts of Africa and the last 12 odd years lived in East Asian countries. This so called "Gay Male Accent" is mainly a western thing (with the obvious exceptions of flamboyant, in your face, attention seekers I mentioned before
This is another topic, but you should also cover non-verbal body language. I don't think there is a 100% correlation between being gay and gay speech, but there seems to me to be some lesser correlation -- maybe 60-70% or more. I come from a family of five boys. I am the oldest and am gay. I don't speak with any kind of a gay accent and have no gay mannerisms. On the other hand, the youngest brother is also gay. Growing up, he never talked like the stereotypical gay male, but somewhere along the line, he seems to have adopted it. My personal feelings about this accent is that, in general, I don't like it -- especially coming from my brother, who seems to have changed and adopted this form of speech. I don't mind it with some people, but with others, it seems phony and affected. You mentioned exact pronunciation. Here I am torn. I am fluent in another language. I am proud of my abilities in this language and I think the native pronunciation of this language is beautiful, and I try to emulate it. However, when I try to pronounce the language exactly and not mumble, I feel so effeminate and uncomfortable, so I prefer to mumble.
In my experience, the voice is only one of many things that differentiate gay and straight males. It has equally or more to do with facial expressions and body language. I'm gay but don't have the "gay voice" and not so much of the facial expressions and body language so I always surprise people when I come out to them. You have more of the voice but not over the top. You definitely the facial expressions though. 🙂
As a linguistics student and a queer man myself, I have noticed that the queers I know tend to speak like each other and I have linked that to Social Network Theory because these people interact frequently so these speakers eventually make unconsious changes to sound like each other. Based on that observation, I do believe that quuer men do make changes to their speech, it's just not a conscious decision.
Yeah I wondered if you were straight or not since I always wonder about someone, but as long as a person is a good person and not killing people I don’t need to know what they do when the lights are off. I did think you were a nice and happy looking guy. I figured you had a special person in your life from the first video I saw of yours. ❤❤❤❤
You sound like medical residents. There must be a lot of gay doctors. This is an interesting topic in the realm of linguistics. On your speech example, I hear you stretching out the words at the end of each word. This is something I wouldn't notice without this discussion. Great job; it's refreshing!
So, there is no answer. But there is at least a segment of the gay male population who speak with the features you've described and studied--simply according to observation. It's perplexing.
I agree! However, I do think most accents/dialects are like this. It's hard to say that one person speaks a particular way because of their location, social circle, sexual orientation, etc. because everyone's accent is slightly different. I guess that's what's makes it interesting too. Thanks for watching!
Gay males catch the feminine side of their environment since they are born. Just like babies in general learn their parents’ language with their parents’ accent and their social class and cultural level features, a gay male will catch the women’s way of expressing themselves. Not only language, accent, or cultural level, but also things related to the gender. Then along the developement as a child and teenager, they adapt or not their way of talking to what they find natural according to how much of approval or disapproval they get. There is almost always something. Also in the eyes. Eye movement or eyes expressions that expose the sexuality. Not the obvious things like hand movements or hip posture, there are micro almost undetectable things that makes us immediately tell if someone is from the south, the north, learnt the language at certain age or is gay. It’s not the voice nor the accent. Is the tendency of absorbing the femenine way of expressing themselves in an automatic way of adapting to the environment and taking part of a group. In this case is the opposite group, that’s why gays and lesbians are noticed by our femenine or masculine way of talk.
I think we're always framing this question backwards because straightness is viewed as default - but when we talk about enunciation, pitch, and melodic contour in the gay male voice, what we should really be asking is "why do so many straight men mumble?" It's like - some straight men are so afraid of being perceived as gay that they subconsciously teach themselves to not allow their voice to sound musical, to not allow their elocution to 'pop', etc.
I call that the 'mojo dojo casa oubliette' syndrome. Toxic masculinity (mojo dojo casa) traps us in tiny little painful cells (oubliettes) where we are starved and left to die.
We gays can identify each other. Yes, sometimes it fails, but at the end of the day, it does take one to know one. Also, it's actually pretty likely that, if you're a polyglot, you're a gay male as well. Why? IDK, but it's true.
I’m not convinced about this matter. I mean, I met a lot of gay men in my life and they have all kinds of voices, from the most masculine to the rather effeminate ones, so having a certain type of voice doesn’t qualify your sexual orientation.
I recall learning about optimal pitch in college. This is the natural baseline for your voice. Many straight males speak below their optimal pitch which is perceived as more masculine. Think of actors speaking in superhero movies, most of the time the characters speak below optimal pitch when in the superhero character, but in their secret identity role the actors usually use their "regular" optimal pitch. Gay men, in my experience, often speak above their optimal pitch - but as you say with many variations. None of this is particularly conscious or affected, but this develops naturally. I wanted to point out that the voice change is present in straight as well as gay males. BTW - while you have a slight gay accent, in my view, what I notice more is the Canadian accent. :-)
I’m gay, and I’ve been told I have a high voice by people closer to me, but my voice changes to a lower pitch when I’m with friend groups😲😲. Very Interesting and informative video 🙂. Nice one. Also, what is the name of the background music ? 😲🙂🎶.
Frankly, the first thing that jumped out to me from your speech was that you were Canadian. That came across loud and clear. As far as whether you have a "gay accent" or not, not knowing anything more, I'd conclude there was a 50-50 chance you were gay from just listening to you. So, a little bit of a gay accent, but not enough to be completely determinative. Clearly, there are straight men who sound gay, and gay men who sound straight.
No idea why I have a gay voice, its just always been my voice. I'm more masculine than feminine for sure, so not sure why my voice doesn't reflect that. I've never tried to imitate women and I'm not too keen into feminine things, I related more to men in general. I remember when I recorded my singing for my friend, I kept hearing my S sounds, its crazy that its also linked to a gay male accent. Very curious indeed. I do get a gay voice vibe from you, but I can't really explain why either. I do watch a lot of queer content and the gay voice comes off as "this guy has a cute voice, I wanna listen to him talk". I'm not too crazy about my voice but some men did think I have a cute voice so maybe its not such a bad thing haha.
I'm curious, how engaged you are within the "gay community". Sorry, I'm having to use some stereotypes to clarify my question. What I'm getting at, is your 'gay voice' cultural or natural? I have several gay friends, who don't go to gay clubs, are not part of any groups, and what they watch (TV, movies, etc.) is not overly gay. You would never know they are gay, and there is no hint of a gay voice. My gay friends who are active in the gay scene, have a noticeable gay voice. So, I think it's cultural. To use an analogy, when my aunts or uncles visited us ( in Canada), my father's Irish accent was really pronounced, and he had it for a few weeks even after they left. Otherwise, his accent wasn't noticeable (to me). I know these are stereotypes, and it is actually a range. It's hard for me to judge since I'm bi, and don't really engage with the gay community. So, I'm curious to hear your perspective.
@@pcoleman1971 I've been mostly in the gay community since around college. Before that, its just mostly regular cartoons and PBS Kids. So not inherently gay. My parents speak Cantonese so I know I can mimic how my parents speak. Before college, I didn't really have much access to the queer community, most I got was like South Park and Moral Orel. I dated a couple of girls. Even at this point, people commented on my voice a lot so I was very shy even with my schools having a lot of Asian kids, so I guess it wasn't just a Cantonese voice. In college, I joined a queer club and they showed me a lot about queer culture like clubs, history, support, friendship, etc. I had to have courage to actually approach the table to get a pamphlet because it was my first experience to really come out. So since then, I started to befriend a lot of queer people, but I'm not into hookup culture or dating apps, I just have gaymer friends and engage in discussions, find interest in some queer shows or media. I watch a lot of queer content now on stuff like RUclips and I was in a Twitch community for LGBT+ for a few years until he stopped streaming. I play Splatoon which has a lot of queer people that play it. I've been questioning for a few years so I thought I could possibly be bi, so I also was part of the bi community for a bit. I wasn't in denial of liking men, but unsure of liking women. I don't think I'm bi after hearing a lot from the bi community experiences, this was a very recent experience. Bi people just seem to have a lot of different experiences to gay culture yet some similarities, I would like gay people and bi people to get along a lot more. Bi people are queer yes, but the gay community have some stereotypes for bi people of appearing too straight, so idk, that didn't impact my voice.
@@pcoleman1971 Mostly since college. Before college I was watching cartoons, mostly PBS Kids. Not a lot of queer exposure besides South Park and Moral Orel. I got bullied a lot in middle school and someone told me a guy likes me...I dated two girls and people were still commenting on my voice. My parents speak Cantonese and I can mimic their accent, but my schools had a lot of Asian people so it probably wasn't Cantonese voice related. I was also questioning for a few years wondering if I could be bi, but ended up not. This was recently. There are bi stereotypes in gay communities too about bi people being too straight, but that didn't change my voice I guess. I was in a queer club in college. I interact with mostly the gay and bi community through games, social media, watching videos, watching shows, etc. I don't do hookup culture or dating apps. Men just come up to me and ask if I'm gay or who I like and stuff.
@ArtAngelMouse Thanks for responding. I found what you said about the bi stereotype interesting. The old stereotype within the gay community was that bi guys were actually gay but were afraid to come out. Interesting how it has reversed. I suspect that I am older, I'm in my 50s, and it's remarkable how social attitudes have changed in the past 25-30 years. Suffice to say, there was some truth to gay guys pretending to be straight. Just not in my case.
My first name, Dennis, is a virtual announcement of being gay--especially the way I found myself pronouncing it! Since I happened to have studied speech science and linguistics, I was finally able to analyze the situation: all the consonants (d, n and s) are forward, articulated against the teeth or alveolar ridge, and the vowel sounds (short e and short i) are nearly indistinct. You barely need to move your lips or tongue to say it, and so it tended to come out as mincing speech, with the S a near-lisp. I found that if I articulate the initial D further back--with the tongue-tip well above the alveolar ridge, on the hard palate itself--the D makes a much stronger and well-defined sound. For some reason, it seems also to result in a lower vocal pitch; or perhaps it's just a less breathy voice. The finishing S never sounds lispy. It sounds much better: clear and assertive.
This "gay voice" thing happens in every language. My first language is spanish and you can definitely identify if a man is gay within the first seconds of speech in spanish, no matter the regional accent, the "gay voice" is almost always there in gay men, the most curious part is that even little boys have this gay voice. There are of course some exceptions but I'd say that about 99% of gay men I know speak like this, in fact, I've only met one gay man who doesn't 😅
Yep I’ve heard some young boys speak and I think he’s gonna be gay, not necessarily a high voice but the intonations, they don’t seem to have copied anyone it just seems the natural way they talk
I suspected you were probably gay within 10 seconds of seeing you for the first time. If I had been just listening and not also watching the video, it probably would’ve taken longer. But it’s hard to say specifically what it is that gives it away.
Since this seems to be a newer phenomenon, from the late 20th century (could be wrong) I always thought it was more of an affectation than an accent. I don’t think that’s good, bad , or whatever. I feel like more gay guys are owning it more, which is maybe a good thing?
I'm not one to buy into the theory that you can automatically tell a man's sexual orientation just by hearing him talk. My oldest brother had a relatively high-pitched speaking voice. He wasn't gay. (He was my brother and I knew him well.) My math teacher (who was also a track and field coach) had a high speaking voice. He wasn't gay either. (My brothers and I knew his kids.) I have two good (male) friends who are both gay. They don't lisp and there's nothing feminine about their voices. I've known straight men with lisps. (Not many, but I've known a few. They exist.) I also have a close (male) friend whose voice is relatively high for an adult male and for as long as I've known him, he's only gone out with women. Is he "in the closet" ? I don't know, and frankly, I don't care. He's my friend and to me that's all that matters. We're pretty open with each other and if I eventually find out he's gay, it will be because he chose to tell me. Not because his voice isn't deep. Until he tells me one way or the other, I'm not going to jump to conclusions based on a stereotype that's oversold in pop culture and that at least SOME gay males out there find offensive. I'm no expert on this subject, but I have an odd suspicion that the sound of your voice has a lot more to do with your vocal chords than with your sexual orientation. Peace.
I think the "gay voice" isn't necessarily about being a higher pitch but is about being an artificially elevated pitch. I mean, Tom DeLonge, Tom Chaplin and Nate Ruess all have very high singing voices but none of them sound gay in the slightest. One thing I wonder is if the "gay voice" is really caused by feelings of anxiety or defensiveness which artificially elevates the pitch of one's voice. Also, I've known some gay guys who have no hint of a "gay voice" but those that do have a "gay voice" have tended to also be arrogant in a "Oh honey, bless your pea picking little soul" type of attitude. Then again, that may have been projection to cover up how anxious they actually felt.
Liked your comment. A theatre person explained something: gay voice, which=fem voice, has more ups& downs, singsong-iness, while masc voice maintains a steady. In the musculuture of the jaw and mouth, the more forward muscles are more active
I seldom went to bars and I almost never hears this accent outside of a bar or other gay venue. I sometimes notice a kind of tone in my speech. Really depends on where I am and who I am with. If this accent is mingled with a particular regional accent the bar accent usually dominates. IMO Interesting episode.
So many people in language hobby circles like /r/conlangs etc seem to be fellow queer people. I must say that you always sound like you're "quietly shouting."
"Quiet shouting" is a good way to put it! I've been told a project a lot (sometimes to others' detriment...), but as a teacher with Italian heritage, talking loudly is in my blood. Also, I've also found that there are a lot of queer folks interested in languages and linguistics. I once participated in a study about it. I never read the results, but the implication seemed to be that there was a disproportionately large percentage of queer people in the language learning community. Thanks for watching!
I'm sorry to hear that. I hope you either didn't listen to that professor or you found something that makes you feel equally as fulfilled! Teachers can be such a huge influence on our views of ourselves.
@@ThePolyglotFiles I dropped out of that program because of it. I did continue with my education and found a fulfilling career. But I still would love to have a radio program. Who knows?
I have a deep baritone voice. It’s the sibilant S, clear enunciation and the more musical pitch range I use in my speech that makes it identifiable as gay. My pitch goes up & down a lot more than most straight men, who tend to speak in a monotone, less expressive way. I DEFINITELY didn’t try to imitate female speech
Maybe just beeing out and participating in studies for being gay makes a "social butterfly" profile, and it would make sense with the better pronunciation thing.
Your own voice sounds more like a stage actor whose voice must carry to the back of the theatre. To get one’s voice to carry it was/is not uncommon to raise one’s pitch. To go a step further, does anyone have any idea if the “gay” voice is more often based on one’s, shall we say, position preference. I.e. top or bottom?
I am a teacher and my heritage is Italian, so you aren't the first person who's told me I project. I think my normal, non-RUclips voice does that as well, I'm afraid 🤣 Thanks for watching!
Intonation and pitch are often dominated by the Right side of the Brain, which is related more to emotions and high-level patterns. Maybe it is related to the emotional patterns of gay people, which would explain them being more artistic and used to express emotions more (at least in the stereotype).
First time here, I don’t even understand why the algororythm proposed me that...I am not even english mothertongue. Still I speak (more ore less well) 6 languages with an universal accent: the gay accent😂. It’s more about an attitude, very similar in all languages, but there is a choice a selection of words, a lingo....very intersting subject....but since english is not my fav language it’s complicated to analyse.
The stereotypical “gay voice” of American gay males that we see in America movies is very different from that heard in the UK, although we still have some of the same basics. From over here it seems like in America (setting aside all the hyper masculine types) gay men are much more likely to be into drag, whereas here we tend to be more into “camp” which is more about irony and taking the p!$$ out of yourself. British drag when I was young was more Priscilla queen of the Desert, and less Ru Paul. More comedy and less glamour. I’ve always thought that gay men have historically had to be careful and so voice and suggestive vocabulary was like a coded signal that you could use in appropriate situations. Straight men (traditionally) don’t have to analyse what they say, and how they say it, they just speak. Watch characters like Mr Humphries in the British sitcom Are you being Served? He is high pitched, yes, but his gayness is signalled more by the wryness of what he says, and the double entendres and witty come backs he employs. This has deep historical roots as can be seen in the work of Noel Coward, Oscar Wilde etc. Whether it is natural or acquired/learned, I would lean towards the later because it seems so evidently cultural. I understand that straight boys growing up also sometimes have to police their behaviour and voice to appear “totally heterosexual”, so maybe it’s not about a “normal” and an artificial voice, but more 2 sides of the same coin. What do you think?
What you've said about gay males and drag culture in the UK is pretty interesting. I too lean more towards thinking that "gay male speech" is culturally-linked and more of a nurture development. However, there is something to be said about young children who are aware of their differences and perhaps even sexuality from an early age. That would make me think that nature plays a part of it too. It seems so complex! Thanks for watching :)
My husband and I are together for almost 20 years, but still no gay accent 😢😢😭😭🧐. We are such a bad example for our beloved pink triangle foundation. Our house is always a mess, too. But we do have a cleaning lady twice a week. Our life is so confusing.
While you’re right that traditionally gay men had to be closeted for survival, they could subconsciously speak differently in order to signal to other gay men.
I have a high pitched voice, but I got it entirely by accident and I had no choice but to speak with a high pitched voice. That’s because my voice was badly damaged by a grape, if you were to actually hear my voice, you could see I speak with a high pitched voice ( speaking like a girl), when I spoke with the police on a phone, the police operator thought I was a girl, not a guy. I have always had a high pitched voice, because of that accident when a grape got stuck in my throat for 10 mins and my Adams apple ( my voice box) was badly injured and I ended up growing up with a high pitched voice ( girls voice). If my voice could have been better, I could have starred in Anime.
Take advantage, whenever there's someone asking for you on the phone (especially bill collectors and solicitations, lol) "Ma'am, is your husband available?" "No, that bastard abandoned me and I'm pregnant, so call me when you find him." I guarantee it'll stop those pesky calls, lol! 😊 I'm being cheeky, but I did it once 😊
It's hard to find good examples of "gay voice". The one that came to mind is Bowen Yang from Saturday Night Live. Here's an example: ruclips.net/video/qP5bu9hLH9E/видео.html. From what I can hear in his voice, he elongates the vowels in the final word of a sentence and raises the pitch like he's asking a question. It's not a uniformly high pitch. He doesn't lisp. First, I should say that it seems like a speech affectation that gets picked up which people have called "code switching". This was pointed out. For example, there was someone I knew with a stereotypical Boston accent, but when she moved away, they made fun of her speech patterns (I think it would be hard to characterize a Boston accent by simple rules like pitch, lisp, or other factors that are applied to "gay voice", yet there are some characteristics, as accent coaches can tell you). I would imagine an accent coach that teaches an actor to have a gay accent, might have more accurate ways to achieve this by treating it like a regional accent. If you listen to the early parts of the SNL skit, Bowen says "That was a really long time ago, Colin", the "o" in ago is stretched out and goes up in pitch. He doesn't do it in every sentence. Some of it is more mannerisms like being highly excitable or noticeably irritated. I have been in an audio-only Zoom group chat, and I can hear it from some people. I think the challenge is how to characterize it. The "gay accent" has changed over the years. For example, the cartoon character, Snaglepuss, has an older style gay voice: ruclips.net/video/k4qFxTTi8q0/видео.html. This has some aspects similar to, say, Bowen Yang, but sounds old-fashioned. It's easier to find gay voice among certain gay comedians. Here's an example: ruclips.net/video/-bbt92u2Xuw/видео.html. I think even without the video, you might tell. There are different degrees. Comedian Matteo Lane doesn't have it as strongly (ruclips.net/video/2o2vL1ItF5o/видео.html). Some of it is how words are emphasized, sort of the stereotypical, gay attitude. If you search for research related to gay voice, there's a recent YT video covering the same topic: ruclips.net/video/SF7KCsvcw2g/видео.html. It has some of the same results covered in this video. There's the much older NY Times segment that's less about the science: ruclips.net/video/Lkm0rmigGOw/видео.html. It shows some straight men sound gay, some gay men sound straight (in particular, they seem to have found one of each). The point is, I think people can tell, in exaggerated cases (the gay comedian I posted) just from audio only. Those might be exaggerated for effect for the audience, or it might just be normal speech pattern. It could also be done as a way of signalling one is gay or to fit in with gays (gay males, to be precise) by using similar speech patterns, so you don't have to come out and say it.
Hey Michael, What accent? I love languages and am so happy to have subscribed to your channel for some time now. Where nature vs nurture is concerned I have always believed that most men that speak more or less like what perhaps many would say is a stereotypical drag queen’s stage persona’s way of speaking are simply affecting the speech to serve as identifiers for other gay men and/or to show pride in their sexual identities. You however when you started to speak in this video, quickly made me correctly guess that you are Canadian from your pronunciation patterns. The above said. I will say in closing that I love what you do, your mind and ability to not only know as much as you seem to know but that you share it. Congratulations on your 12 years of marriage.
To me, the gay accent sounds similar to, but not identical, to a typical Californian accent. I knew a few straight Californians, and while they don't have an accent totally identical to the stereotypical gay accent, it does sound similar to it. I wonder if another layer of influence over the gay accent is a Californian accent, San Francisco being such a epic center of gay culture. Just a thought.
My musical theatre teacher pointed out to me that I had silibant S’s, which isn’t how you described it. It’s not closing your teeth to the point of touching when you make the s sound. You can consciously counter act it. It is just a diet lisp and you definitely have silibant S’s. Focus on it a while and you can stop making silibant S’s unconsciously
i have this too. My family is 89% women even friends/ coworkers of both parents my and as a kid i was around them all the time and talking to them. I also had more female friends than male ones so i think i kinda taught myself to match the environment i was around. Now its just annoying being called ma'am on the phone.
Someone beat me to the annunciation/enunciation error. I'll add a characteristic to your list of stereotypical gay male voices -- enthusiasm. Look for the most animated person or people in a crowd, and there we are. This animation serves two purposes -- to control the crowd and to call attention to oneself. Controlling the crowd provides a level of protection from bullies. Since we're socialized away from telling everyone we're gay and asking everyone else if they are too, we've adopted vocal techniques that make our voices cut through the din. In addition to the stereotypical higher pitch, the sound is often very nasal and well supported, with a nails on a chalkboard quality to it. And let me add one more thing: I sang with the Gay Men's Chorus of Los Angeles for many years. GMCLA is comprised of men of all vocal ranges, from the lowest to the highest. Only a small minority of the members have this "gay male accent." The vast majority have unremarkable speaking voices. I wouldn't go so far as to say we sound straight, because what does that even mean? In a crowd of gay men, the quality of our voices is not what will stand out the most. What you will notice is the kindness we share with each other. So I would add enthusiasm and kindness to your list of characteristics of the gay male accent.
Believing is seeing, or hearing in this case. If we believe that there is a specific “Gay accent”, then we identify certain people who sound like that as Gay. Other Gay men, who don’t have that accent, are not noticed. The false Gay speech stereotype is thus reinforced.
Fascinating, I think it’s part social, as we copy speech patterns and vocab from those around us. Then again, my accent is pretty Southern Californian (West L.A.) now affected by 7 years of living in the UK, which I don’t think makes me sound any more straight. Don’t really think I do the s thing tho
My voice, is a slightly higher pitch version of my dad's voice, and I hate it with a passion, ESPECIALLY when I hear it recorded. It's an old habit of mine to lower my tone or just not to talk most of the time. So yeah, I guess I have the gay voice. Interesting vid though, and congrats for your marriage.
I would NEVER have told that you are gay from your way of speaking. But then 99% of my friends are/were straight. I only met one person in my life who sounded gay but he did it on purpose, it wasn't his natural voice. And a lot of gay men are married to women, at least in Italy...
I’m straight but I have a good number of gay friends, and the main thing I notice is that they use light L (especially in onset position) where straight guys who are otherwise demographically indentical would use dark L. I’ve actually never noticed the S thing before
That's very interesting! I didn't find any research on the use of light L and dark L but homosexual males, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. Can you give an example?
@@ThePolyglotFiles Any word with an onset L, really. Light, letter, livid, like, plethora, balloon, and especially… slay. I think Canada might always use light L in those positions so it may not be as apparent as it is in America (I’m from the US, forgot to mention that). I would pronounce all the above words with dark L
Yes. I'd say tge light/soft L does not exist in American English. The English light L is not very light in general,. but I digress. Maybe a light L is perceived as clearer articulation...hence "the gay thing."
All english speakers, american spanish speakers and southern Spain spanish speakers use the kind of S that is considered gay in northern Spain. Northern Spain's S is a little different and it's the most notticeable thing of gay accent when people use the english like S here.
I think human voice style has something to do with the energy level of the body. I think people who have feminine signature in their voice must have a physical energy state corresponding to the feminine energy flow. It has nothing to do with sexuality. But I think it simply stands out in a society that male is supposed to be masculine. And straight people with the feminie tone try to supress it for courtship, but most gay with the faminine energy flow simply reveal it eventually for many reasons, strengthening the confirmation bias of the society. Humans naturally resonate with people of the same energy level. The integration and reinforce of feminine tone through media and other female figures in life occur unconsciously like the acquisition of the native language. But this is my guess. After all, feminine gay from different cultures can have different way of being feminine further confirms that social influence is undeniable. What do men love? Girls, right? The idea definitely influences how a young gay choose their way of showing up since little. From my observation, people who have a late gay awakening seems to have a less gayish tone. Inner Identification must plays an important role, too.
I notice that many gay men change their tone, enunciation and mannerisms after being on the gay scene too long. I know plenty of guys who for want of a better term, would psss for straight, but put a few shots in front of them on a night out and they quickly turn a little Nelly. Of course there are exceptions to this rule. Lisps can be caused by thumb sucking as a child.I do think that tv shows can influence the way a lot of people talk, especially reality shows.Personally, i can deal with anyone if they are being true to themselves
my pitch is high. I sound not soft... and when I talk giving orders sound strong. the rest of the caracteristics depend where im with friends . feel more relax.
Thank you for bringing up this topic Michael you really didn’t have to it would’ve been OK if you didn’t this does not get talked about that much and I kind of figured from your first 10 videos so yeah
Thanks for the support! To be honest, it is just something I found interesting (just like most topics around languages and linguistics). This one just happened to be super personal, but after 7 years of making videos, I figured, why not explore this topic?
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Do you actually mean enunciation rather than annunciation? The latter refers to the angel Gabriel telling Mary that she was going to give birth to Jesus.
Hahaha, yes! I meant to write "enunciation." My mistake 🤣 🫣
Grrrrrl!
"Anncunciate" does have a more general meaning, as in making an announcement. Still, I agree with your point, that "enunciate" was clearly what was meant.
Yeah glad someone else also caught that. It was annoying the shit out of me.
The birth of Jesus ? You mean that son who liked wearing dresses, had 2 dads and a surrogate virgin mother because Joseph never touched her ?
And that would not correspond to gay enunciation ????
First 5 seconds I knew he definitely has it
Question top r bottom
Me too, perfectly obvious!
as a non gay person i can confirm that you do indeed have the gay man accent.
Yep
I can confirm
from a gay man.
When i was listening to u for the first time 3 years ago i was thinking "if you were queer"
We gay men can identify each other well, I guess 🤣 Thanks for watching!
@@ThePolyglotFiles that's the delineation of who is a gay man it's a bit shallow isn't it?
Being bilingual myself, I can surely tell the gay accent in both english and spanish speakers.
In both cases, they sound girly and the S sound is more accentuated.
Cool video
Affectation, not accent
Not a language expert or anything close, but your video triggered a couple memories. (I'm 76 now, but these are from my pre-coming out years as a pre-teen and then a late teen.)
When I was around 8 or 9, my teacher got my mom to consent to sending me to voice therapy for an over-pronounced S (i.e. a distinctly said S with almost a whistle at the end) -- both teacher & mom were public school teachers, and I'm astonished to realize that my hometown had such resources. The therapy ended when I could pronounce S's more standardly.
The second memory related to speaking French in France -- by age 19 I'd studied the language in the USA for years, from grade school to college, and spoke it fairly fluently. I was traveling with a group of other teens/early 20s folks from the USA and did a lot of the translating for them. One night, in Avignon, after we'd been in France for at least 2 weeks, a waiter at a restaurant who took care of our table took me aside after dinner to advise that I was speaking French quite well but also quite like a woman speaks! He gave a couple examples and quickly conveyed how I should butch it up.
On reflection, I supposed it was due to most of my French teachers having been women -- but this waiter (a very handsome and engaging guy, quite a conversationalist) was the only person in the nearly 4 weeks in France that mentioned my speech patterns. Not even the brother of my long-time pen-pal, who met our ferry from England the day we arrived, said a word -- nor did their mother and his sister (the pen-pal) -- they were perhaps surprised by how well I spoke the language in general to think of "giving me notes." So maybe that waiter in Avignon was actually flirting with me? LOL.
Anyway, thanks for sparking a couple of walks down Memory Lane.
Thanks for the memories! It was an interesting read. I wonder if the waiter in Avignon was perhaps a homosexual man himself (or had been around a few quite a bit), so he was more in tune with what he thought was gay male speech?
If you got positive vibes from the waiter maybe he was giving a heads up to a young foreigner. I can this as the timeframe you’re mentioning was still very homophobic across the western world. He might have been advising a little lower profile to a young North American (?) tourist.
@@ThePolyglotFiles The waiter was about the same age as me -- late teens to a max of early 20s. (Yes I'm North American -- from NY state, then Fla. (in college there, also living with parents there) when I was on that trip. I now live near Washington DC, where I came out around age 25 in the mid-1970s.
@@kevinfile3690 The waiter was about the same age as me -- late teens to a max of early 20s. (Yes I'm North American -- from NY state, then Fla. (in college there, also living with parents there) when I was on that trip. I now live near Washington DC, where I came out around age 25 in the mid-1970s.
As a professional actor and a gay male I’ve given a great deal of practical thought to this question. I’ve read the research and as usual researchers ask the wrong questions based on wrong assumptions. What it comes down to is power. This is my observation. If you have power and you are comfortable in your power you say a thing as simply as possible. If you do not have power or believe that you have power, there’s a great deal of wheedling that works its way in - in the gay male accent as well as in feminine speech. Over emphasis, more musicality, etc. If you want it sound straight you just simplify simplify simplify.
PS: you also sound very Canadian. Teehee.
That's a very interesting point! I wonder if research could be done on the accent in relation to a homosexual speaker's perceived power dynamics.
You also caught me on the Canadian thing 🤣 Thanks for watching!
@@ThePolyglotFiles When I traveled to the UK I was often asked if I was Canadian. I wondered why people asked me that. What did I do that sounded Canadian? And the answer I got was they couldn’t tell whether I was American or Canadian but they knew that if they asked a Canadian if they were American the Canadian would have a meltdown but if you ask American if he’s Canadian he’d just be confused. It was a peaceful way to satisfy their curiosity.
Interesting! I've been doing a series of RUclips Shorts about different Canadian accents (with the intention of doing a full-length video soon), and the giveaway seems to be "out and about." However, I am always surprised when Canadians claim not to say it differently than Americans. It's so evident to me!
It could be that heterosexual males on average tend to be more dominant biologically and have more masculinization of the brain. Girls voices are generally different from boys, even before puberty has hit. Gay males tend to have similarities in their brains to straight women, so that may have something to do with it. Different pathways can lead to homosexuality and some may be accompanied by a broader gender-nonconformity and others less so. All gay people have some gender-atypical traits( such as gay men are androphilic like most females and lesbians gynephilic like most males) but few have the entire package. Everyone, to some extent, is a combination of male and female traits . No one is 100 percent male or 100 percent female or 100 percent gender-conforming. It's just that people who tend to be more gender non-conforming are more likely to be homosexual.
Sexual orientation is an aspect of gender that emerges from the prenatal sexual differentiation of the brain. Whether a person ends up gay or straight depends in large part on how this process of biological differentiation goes forward, with the lead actors being genes, sex hormones and the brain systems that are influenced by them. It's believed that gay men, during some point in fetal life, were exposed to unusually low levels of androgens, which allowed their hypothalamic circuits to develop in a female-typical direction. If testosterone levels during a critical prenatal period are high , the brain is organized in such a way that the person is predisposed to become typically masculine in a variety of gendered traits, including sexual attraction to females. If testosterone levels are low during that same time period, the brain is organized in such a way that the person is predisposed to become typically feminine in gendered traits, including sexual attraction to males. The association between sexual orientation and other gendered traits arises because all these traits differentiate under the influence of a common biological process-the sexual differentiation of the brain under the influence of sex hormones.
To some extent, homosexuality is part of a package of mental traits, many of which can be considered gender-variant or gender non conformist(whereas heterosexuality is part of a package of gender-typical or gender conformist), If a man inherits a few of these genes, he will have some feminine characteristics, which might include increased empathy and kindness, decreased aggressivness and the like, These genes increase his attractivness to women, permitting him more sexual access and thus offering him the likelihood of having more offspring. If a man inherits all of these genes, however, he will be feminized to the point of homosexuality, and his reproductive success will drop markedly. Because each feminizing gene is present in many more straight men than gay men it only has to raise each straight man's reproductive success by a small amount to compensate for the lowered reproductive success of gay men
Evidence that gender identity and sexual orientation are masculinised by prenatal exposure to testosterone and feminised in it absence is drawn from basic research in animals, correlations of biometric indices of androgen exposure and studies of clinical conditions associated with disorders in sexual development. Hormones in puberty have no effect in adulthood on gender traits or sexual orientation and these areas of the brain, and again this has also be tested in experiments on a variety on animals experimented on in labs. Only in early life and the brains development in the utero do these hormones have effect while the brain is developing and forming.The organisational effects of hormones on the brain prior to birth have permanent effects. So while testosterone in puberty may deepen a gay males voice, some of these brain differences could still cause a more female-typical speech pattern in some.
Gendered interests are predicted by testosterone exposure in utero. Higher levels are associated with male-typical interests and behaviours, regardless of whether the baby is male or female. These include a preference for mechanically interesting objects and systemizing occupations in adulthood. Lower levels are associated with a preference for people orientated activities and occupations. stemming from evolutionary roots. Women. who are tasked with the role of bearing children, evolved to be more sociable, empathic, and people focused, while men, as hunter-gatherers, were rewarded for strong visuopatial skills and ability to build and use tools.
Boys, are typically exposed to higher levels of testosterone in the womb, and tend to gravitate toward mechanical toys and ,mechanically interesting activities, like playing with wheeled toys, trucks and related occupations in adulthood. and being sexually attracted to women upon reaching puberty. A boy who is exposed to lower levels of is more likely to be female-typical when he is born, gravitating toward toys and activities that girls prefer, since girls are also generally exposed to lower levels of testosterone. He will also be sexually attracted to men in adulthood. Testosterone is needed to “masculinize” a prenatal brain; if that doesn’t happen, the child will grow up to desire men.
The same can be said for girls who experience high levels of testosterone exposure. As shown in girls with congenital adrenal hyperplasia, even if their parents give them more encouragement for playing with dolls, they will still prefer toys typical to boys because greater exposure to testosterone in utero is associated with male-typical interests. Childhood gender nonconformity refers to sex-atypical behaviours, interests, hobbies, activity levels, and play partner preferences before the age of 12. 75% of boys demonstrating CGN will grow up to be gay or bisexual. Rough-and-tumble play, which is behavior typically seen in little boys, is less common in gay men and more common in lesbian women, due to lesser and greater masculinization of the brain. Pre gay children are gender nonconformists in a variety of traits, including phyisical aggressivness, engagement in rough and tumble play and sports, interest and peers they prefer the company of.
Brains that are exposed to lower levels of testosterone, are more efficient at empathizing. Girls show a preference for socially engaging activities and occupations. This difference between children regarding preferences for people versus things is detectable within the first two days of life. Baby girls preferred looking at their caregivers’ faces and baby boys preferred looking at mechanical mobiles. The male superiority in mental rotation is evident by 3-5months of age. Difference in toy preference are evident at 3-8 months of age. Many of the sex differences exist widely across different countries and cultures, AND also gendered in non humans primates and other mammals, including vervet and rhesus monkeys. Despite lacking socialization from their caregivers or other monkeys, young female monkeys will choose dolls, and male monkeys will choose wheeled toys, similar to what is observed in human babies.
No matter how much freedom a child is given, most will, time and time again, pick out gender-typical toys to play with and exhibit personality traits typical of their sex. If you try to force kids to play with opposite-sex toys when they prefer toys typical to their sex, they will be bored, or alternatively, will get creative. Boys, upon being given dolls, will swing them around mercilessly by the hair as though they are a weapon. Girls will arrange toy trucks into a family and tuck them into bed. A girl or boy who is gender-atypical will turn away from these cues if they're truly not interested. Even if a gender non-conforming child tries to hide that aspect of themselves, societal conditioning cannot override biology and the underlining preferences themselves.
Sexual orientation is associated with distinct changes in brain structure and has strong associations with areas primarily linked to processing and integrating incoming sensory, reward-related, and motor information. Gay men and lesbians can also have gender shifted occupational preferences and also in instrumentailty, empathy, expressivness, and aesthetic/technological interests. Gay men and lesbians are gender shifted in a variety of male favoring-visuospatial traits such as mental rotation, targeting, and navigation, as well as female-favouring tasks such as verbal fluency and object location memory. Many of these functions, particularly the spatial skills and the verbal skills reside in different sides of the brain and they call it cerebral asymmetry, the asymmetry in the way the brain is organized. This asymmetry is determined and organized around the middle of pregnancy and these correlate very highly with who you are sexually. Sexual orientation is something that is hardwired before birth.
Neuroscientific studies have shown that the brains of lesbians are partially masculinized and gay mens partially feminized. Patterns of brain organisation appear similar between gay men and heterosexual women and between lesbian women and heterosexual men. Gay men appear, on average, more “female typical” in brain pattern responses and lesbian women are more “male typical”. Differences in brain organisation mean differences in psychology and study after study show differences in cognition between heterosexual and gay people. Gay men and lesbians brains are also structured like those of the opposite sex. The mind of the average gay individual is a patch work of gendered traits, some indistinguishable from same-sex peers, some shifted past way toward the other sex, and others typical of the other sex. These are only shifts and not complete gender reversals, and they don't affect every gender trait.
I feel like the one thing that stands out it's probably not the pitch, but the pitch contour, where the ups and downs are and how they are. I feel like that's what may make sound someone more stereotypically gay.
I agree. It’s not that we necessarily follow a full-on Southern California ‘valley’ accent (in terms of pitch contours), but it’s certainly more emphatic and varied than stereotypical straight pitch contours, especially in Northeastern US accents which tend to fall in pitch and have shortened vowel lengths at the end of phrases.
My personal experience: For purposes of dating, a gay man would make mistakes if he relied on voice pitch or physical appearance alone: There are guys with football player build and low pitched voice who are 💯 queer. 🌈
As a younger man I worked as a broadcaster. My accent and speech patterns were as "neutral" as any other voice you might hear on professional radio. I never gave HOW I speak a moment's thought... and I never had any feedback, positive or negative, in my entire 18 year career on the air. I was able to work in Australia in both radio & TV where my North American "accent" was often mistaken for being "American" rather than Canadian.
On a few occasions I was in the deep south of the USA where they speak with a distinctive DRAWL. I found myself "drawling" after only a few hours conversing with the locals.
Gets me thinking that perhaps "The Gay Male Accent" has at least something to do with the community you live in. If you spend much of your time with other gay people who have some set of affectations in their manner of speaking, it's highly likely you'll start using the same phrasing and tones as they do. Now you have a community of people with an "accent" which identifies them as part of the group.
I was never part of a gay community when growing up in Toronto in the 1940s and 50s. I don't think there even was one. So how I speak as a gay man perhaps has more to do with being brought up in a "straight" community. My times spent with other gay men were mostly "non-verbal" if you get my drift.
Also tend to laugh harder. More healthily expressive.
This was one of the best analyses I've seen on this topic! Thank you.
OMG! Finally a video that's trying to be objective and honest about "gay" voice in men, but we're still so afraid to acknowledge difference from the typical male cuz we're afraid it'll be used against us. I think that one's economic class and of course cultural background might play a role but not in the way we might think. I remember going to London and going to gay bars and dance clubs there and so many gay guys seemed less typically gay than I had experienced in the States. Since then, I've come across people saying the same thing about their visits to Ireland and Germany, even though Europe seems more "liberal" overall than other parts of the world. Also, since moving, I've noticed a lot of men where I live now, I would've clocked as gay in my previous locale, not just from speech but their mannerisms as well. I have my theories but I'll withhold judgement until I can find more studies.
Sometimes (especially when more stern/sassy) you have that neck thing going that makes your head move like a strong black woman.
I have noticed I can be quite expressive with my body language 😂 Thanks for watching!
Your givaway that made me think you’re gay was at 0:05 of the video when you said ‘today’, with a singing voice and a lengthened and overly enunciated last syllable diphthong (dayyy). Here in Quebec, most gay men don’t speak with a noticeable accent, though a fraction speak with voice some would describe as ‘affected’, which is different from the US and English Canadian ‘gay voice’. This leads me to think that the ‘gay voice’ is probably mostly a sociological or cultural phenomenon
Suppose the popular imagination in a specific society associates a particular observable behaviour in adult males with a somewhat increased likelihood of them being gay. Many straight men there will consciously avoid being seen engaging in that behaviour, to avoid being mistakenly assumed to be gay. This is self-policing of "masculinity".
For example, there is nothing inherently gay about wearing clothing of a particular colour. However, in current American society, people generally assume that the likelihood that a man is gay is somewhat higher if he is observed wearing pink or pale purple. (Popular assumptions can change dramatically over time -- e.g., pink was the standard colour to dress baby boys, and blue the colour to dress baby girls, in America circa 1900.) Even if the starting perception is that there is merely a slight correlation between a man wearing pink and him being gay, some straight men will then consciously avoid wearing pink, thereby making that correlation stronger, in a self-reinforcing loop.
Another example: suppose two men are publicly holding hands while walking. In Saudi Arabia, that behaviour is NOT associated in the public imagination with being gay. However, in America, the popular imagination does associate that behaviour with a higher likelihood that both men are gay. The latter association becomes stronger over time in a self-reinforcing loop, as straight men increasingly tend to consciously avoid publicly holding hands, to avoid being misperceived as gay.
A similar pattern may hold for any particular element of speaking with a "gay male accent". Suppose two particular men -- one gay and one straight -- both happen to have the exact same innate tendency to lisp, or to use dramatic ("flamboyant") intonation and hand gestures. The straight guy arguably will make greater conscious efforts to avoid or suppress exhibiting those behaviours. The popular supposition that a man who engages in those behaviours is somewhat more likely to be gay then ends up becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy, to some extent.
Reality is, of course, more complicated. In situations where a gay man perceives a significant risk of being the target of homophobic violence or mistreatment if he is (accurately) perceived as gay, then he may be highly motivated to (at least temporarily) avoid or suppress any observable behaviour -- including certain speech patterns -- popularly perceived as correlated with being gay. This is sometimes termed "code-switching".
Conversely, in situations where a straight man perceives no substantial risks if he is misperceived as being gay, then he may be relatively nonchalant about being observed engaging in a gayish-associated behaviour (such as Holden Caulfield wearing a pink shirt in Catcher in the Rye). Indeed, by demonstrating that he is "secure in his own masculinity", a straight man potentially might enhance his attractiveness to a subset of women.
Ideally, society will continue moving towards allowing individuals to simply be themselves, so that people don't feel pressured to waste energy trying to suppress or change their personal mode of speaking.
Apparently in any language, the universal is the rhythm: gay men have a sort of " swing" in their voice, be it high-pitched or not. Also, the vocabulary. The voice is also used for ( mating) visibility, obviously- and that is not necessarily done consciously. You sound gay because of all of your vowels, the s and n endings, the rhythmic pattern of your sentences, your body language and your vocabulary.
That's a good point. Perhaps more research should be done then to look at body language and intonation. Thanks for watching!
Congratulations! Especially for someone as young as you are, being married and together in a relationship for twelve years is quite the achievement. Having watched several of your videos, I would have thought that your being gay was a possibility, but not definitely a certainty. If it had turned that you were straight with a girlfriend, I would not have been terribly surprised. It's not like the guys over at ASAPScience. In fact, as so much is, also, tied to intonation, dramatic delivery, gestures and body language, I left this comment on their video on this topic: "'Oh, girlfriend, I don't have a gay voice at all!' Snaps fingers for emphasis and effect."
Thank you for the kind words, and thanks for watching!
Let’s put it this way: I wasn’t shocked when you said you had a husband. Very good post.
I've always thought gay speech is more 'sing-songy' than 'straight' speech, and is also often connected to/with hand movements.
Then all Italianswould be gay...
🤣🤣🤣
I wonder just to what extent the need for gay men in films and TV series to be identifiably gay has skewed the research results of the researchers.
However, there is one language-related issue regarding gay men that really stands out to me. Gay men seem to be better at learning new languages than straight men are. They also seem to show more interest in learning new languages and in language classes there seems to be a higher ratio of gay men to straight men than one finds in society in general. Gay men seem to be more interested in expressing themselves clearly. I wonder how much this has with the matter in hand. At work, one of my team leaders praised the documentation that I wrote because of its "clarity". The printed words on the page can't have had a higher pitch than the writing of other documentation writers.
I think the accent comes from being around other gay men. People tend to speak like their peers. So, when a group of gay men get together, they sound more like each by amplifying the gay male accent as a way of fitting in and feeling more like a cohesive group.
It might also have something to do with the kind of media you are exposed to as a child.
That can happen. But I had a really gay voice as a child, more than other kids of my age. And I was not conciously interestested at all in sounding gay. Maybe I have a gay voice now but not as stereotypical and I've never had a group of gay friends. Just groups of friends with a random and average amount of gay people.
Thanks for your thoughts :) I think that socialization could be part of it, but I didn't know any gay men--much less hang out with them--until I was in my 20s. I had a mixture of male and female friends growing up, and even now, other than my husband, most of my social circle consists of straight females and straight males.
Totally agree. Most people feel a need to fit-in with their respective peer group, so they adopt its characteristics such as speech patterns/cadence, vocabulary/slang, fashion, viewpoints/politics and whatnot. Not everyone does this, of course.
I am gay and have it. But I was never around any other known gay people growing up. Nor did anyone else talk like me.
You're right in that there are many shades of the accent and also it varies with setting. I must not have it much if at all and when speaking with other males who are straight they seem to feel free to say things to me about gay men that are pretty bad, not knowing that i am one. Jokes, disparaging comments, etc... They also say things to me about women in a sexual way or griping about them thinking I would understand (locker room talk?). Also, yes, I knew you were gay from the first video I watched. Speech, mannerisms - there are subtle giveaways and our "gaydar" is usually right.😄 Even if a straight male might not pick it up, gay men do about me.
That's unfortunate to experience as a straight-passing gay man, but I guess such is life. Thanks for watching :)
Hope you’re aware that there is a movie/documentary called Do I Sound Gay?
I am not! I'll have to watch it.
It's definitely a spectrum, the gift is different for all of us.
I'm gay and have often been complimented on my deep "radio voice," (natural baritone here), although when I hear my own voice recorded it sounds very gay to me. I was a radio DJ in college and would deliberately deepen my voice a bit and clip my "S" pronunciation while on air, because lower pitch and more curt consonants are picked up better by the microphone (especially with the ancient equipment our school had). What's missing to me in analysis of "gay voice" is the possibility that our vocal systems may be structured more like a woman's, leading to more feminine traits. I know there is research that other physical structures with slight measurable differences between male & female - finger length ratios, hair growth patterns, ear structures, blink rates - have been shown to be "shifted" toward the opposite gender in both gay men and lesbians, so it wouldn't be shocking to find out this is true also for voices - and like these other structures, would still vary among gay men so that we'd show a similar, but shifted toward feminine, range of voices.
I wonder if there's some physiological explanation? I mean, when I speak I feel like I am making the sound of someone like James Earl Jones. But then, I listen to a recording or video of my voice and I swear I sound like Jack from Will and Grace!
Hah! yeah, me too. 😅
Yes there actually is- the sound you hear resonates through your jaw bones, and this means you hear a deeper bass tone than other people hear when they hear you speak. I have the same thing
As a gay man who has lots of gay friends, I've realized this is a learned affectation, not a natural speech pattern. It totally depends on who you hang around with, and the situation you're in. I've seen guys who switch from "straight" to "gay" speech. This demonstrates they know what they're doing and consciously do it. Same with mannerisms. We all must remember that language is LEARNED, not innate. There is no such thing as gay or straight speech. It's all learned from those you're around. Tom Holland is a great example of learned speech. He's a Brit who speaks with a definite accent (from the USA perspective) but sounds completely American when acting. Same with John Bowerman. You can control your speech making it different or keeping it similar to the norms around you.
Hi, My opinion (though experience)on this, is simply those studies were formulated around a set niche of gay men *flamboyant, in your face, eyes on me types* - a minority in in the LGBTQ++ community, I came out 28 years ago and i am openly out and proud (no reason to hide the fact) but people still cant guess I am gay, my husband's voice is low and he mumbles a lot (mine is deep and rough) most of our friend group are also not high pitched or obvious, I was born and grew up in the southern parts of Africa and the last 12 odd years lived in East Asian countries. This so called "Gay Male Accent" is mainly a western thing (with the obvious exceptions of flamboyant, in your face, attention seekers I mentioned before
This is another topic, but you should also cover non-verbal body language.
I don't think there is a 100% correlation between being gay and gay speech, but there seems to me to be some lesser correlation -- maybe 60-70% or more.
I come from a family of five boys. I am the oldest and am gay. I don't speak with any kind of a gay accent and have no gay mannerisms. On the other hand, the youngest brother is also gay. Growing up, he never talked like the stereotypical gay male, but somewhere along the line, he seems to have adopted it.
My personal feelings about this accent is that, in general, I don't like it -- especially coming from my brother, who seems to have changed and adopted this form of speech. I don't mind it with some people, but with others, it seems phony and affected.
You mentioned exact pronunciation. Here I am torn. I am fluent in another language. I am proud of my abilities in this language and I think the native pronunciation of this language is beautiful, and I try to emulate it. However, when I try to pronounce the language exactly and not mumble, I feel so effeminate and uncomfortable, so I prefer to mumble.
In my experience, the voice is only one of many things that differentiate gay and straight males. It has equally or more to do with facial expressions and body language. I'm gay but don't have the "gay voice" and not so much of the facial expressions and body language so I always surprise people when I come out to them.
You have more of the voice but not over the top. You definitely the facial expressions though. 🙂
As a linguistics student and a queer man myself, I have noticed that the queers I know tend to speak like each other and I have linked that to Social Network Theory because these people interact frequently so these speakers eventually make unconsious changes to sound like each other. Based on that observation, I do believe that quuer men do make changes to their speech, it's just not a conscious decision.
I not queer but I'm GAY!
Yeah I wondered if you were straight or not since I always wonder about someone, but as long as a person is a good person and not killing people I don’t need to know what they do when the lights are off. I did think you were a nice and happy looking guy. I figured you had a special person in your life from the first video I saw of yours.
❤❤❤❤
Thanks for the kind comment and for all the support over the years 😀
@@ThePolyglotFiles - You are very welcome. Continue being an accomplished young man who shares your knowledge with others.
You sound like medical residents. There must be a lot of gay doctors. This is an interesting topic in the realm of linguistics. On your speech example, I hear you stretching out the words at the end of each word. This is something I wouldn't notice without this discussion. Great job; it's refreshing!
So, there is no answer. But there is at least a segment of the gay male population who speak with the features you've described and studied--simply according to observation. It's perplexing.
I agree! However, I do think most accents/dialects are like this. It's hard to say that one person speaks a particular way because of their location, social circle, sexual orientation, etc. because everyone's accent is slightly different. I guess that's what's makes it interesting too. Thanks for watching!
Gay males catch the feminine side of their environment since they are born. Just like babies in general learn their parents’ language with their parents’ accent and their social class and cultural level features, a gay male will catch the women’s way of expressing themselves. Not only language, accent, or cultural level, but also things related to the gender. Then along the developement as a child and teenager, they adapt or not their way of talking to what they find natural according to how much of approval or disapproval they get. There is almost always something. Also in the eyes. Eye movement or eyes expressions that expose the sexuality. Not the obvious things like hand movements or hip posture, there are micro almost undetectable things that makes us immediately tell if someone is from the south, the north, learnt the language at certain age or is gay. It’s not the voice nor the accent. Is the tendency of absorbing the femenine way of expressing themselves in an automatic way of adapting to the environment and taking part of a group. In this case is the opposite group, that’s why gays and lesbians are noticed by our femenine or masculine way of talk.
I think we're always framing this question backwards because straightness is viewed as default - but when we talk about enunciation, pitch, and melodic contour in the gay male voice, what we should really be asking is "why do so many straight men mumble?" It's like - some straight men are so afraid of being perceived as gay that they subconsciously teach themselves to not allow their voice to sound musical, to not allow their elocution to 'pop', etc.
I call that the 'mojo dojo casa oubliette' syndrome. Toxic masculinity (mojo dojo casa) traps us in tiny little painful cells (oubliettes) where we are starved and left to die.
Pretty sure your wrong there lol
We gays can identify each other. Yes, sometimes it fails, but at the end of the day, it does take one to know one. Also, it's actually pretty likely that, if you're a polyglot, you're a gay male as well. Why? IDK, but it's true.
I’m not convinced about this matter. I mean, I met a lot of gay men in my life and they have all kinds of voices, from the most masculine to the rather effeminate ones, so having a certain type of voice doesn’t qualify your sexual orientation.
It’s the sibilant S. I also trained to speak lower.
As an actor, I can speak in a baritone or my feminine voice depending on the character.
Im often mistaken for a woman on the phone...Gets annoying being called "ma'am" often....!!
I recall learning about optimal pitch in college. This is the natural baseline for your voice. Many straight males speak below their optimal pitch which is perceived as more masculine. Think of actors speaking in superhero movies, most of the time the characters speak below optimal pitch when in the superhero character, but in their secret identity role the actors usually use their "regular" optimal pitch. Gay men, in my experience, often speak above their optimal pitch - but as you say with many variations. None of this is particularly conscious or affected, but this develops naturally. I wanted to point out that the voice change is present in straight as well as gay males. BTW - while you have a slight gay accent, in my view, what I notice more is the Canadian accent. :-)
Haha, you got me on the Canadian accent. Thanks for watching :D
I’m gay, and I’ve been told I have a high voice by people closer to me, but my voice changes to a lower pitch when I’m with friend groups😲😲. Very Interesting and informative video 🙂. Nice one.
Also, what is the name of the background music ? 😲🙂🎶.
I used to watch your channel many years ago and I just randomly saw your video pop up. Welcome back.
Welcome back to you as well! I took a break for a while, but I'm happy to be back. Any video topics you'd like to see covered? 😀
Frankly, the first thing that jumped out to me from your speech was that you were Canadian. That came across loud and clear. As far as whether you have a "gay accent" or not, not knowing anything more, I'd conclude there was a 50-50 chance you were gay from just listening to you. So, a little bit of a gay accent, but not enough to be completely determinative. Clearly, there are straight men who sound gay, and gay men who sound straight.
No idea why I have a gay voice, its just always been my voice. I'm more masculine than feminine for sure, so not sure why my voice doesn't reflect that. I've never tried to imitate women and I'm not too keen into feminine things, I related more to men in general. I remember when I recorded my singing for my friend, I kept hearing my S sounds, its crazy that its also linked to a gay male accent. Very curious indeed.
I do get a gay voice vibe from you, but I can't really explain why either. I do watch a lot of queer content and the gay voice comes off as "this guy has a cute voice, I wanna listen to him talk". I'm not too crazy about my voice but some men did think I have a cute voice so maybe its not such a bad thing haha.
I'm curious, how engaged you are within the "gay community". Sorry, I'm having to use some stereotypes to clarify my question. What I'm getting at, is your 'gay voice' cultural or natural? I have several gay friends, who don't go to gay clubs, are not part of any groups, and what they watch (TV, movies, etc.) is not overly gay. You would never know they are gay, and there is no hint of a gay voice. My gay friends who are active in the gay scene, have a noticeable gay voice.
So, I think it's cultural. To use an analogy, when my aunts or uncles visited us ( in Canada), my father's Irish accent was really pronounced, and he had it for a few weeks even after they left. Otherwise, his accent wasn't noticeable (to me).
I know these are stereotypes, and it is actually a range. It's hard for me to judge since I'm bi, and don't really engage with the gay community. So, I'm curious to hear your perspective.
@@pcoleman1971 I've been mostly in the gay community since around college. Before that, its just mostly regular cartoons and PBS Kids. So not inherently gay. My parents speak Cantonese so I know I can mimic how my parents speak. Before college, I didn't really have much access to the queer community, most I got was like South Park and Moral Orel. I dated a couple of girls. Even at this point, people commented on my voice a lot so I was very shy even with my schools having a lot of Asian kids, so I guess it wasn't just a Cantonese voice.
In college, I joined a queer club and they showed me a lot about queer culture like clubs, history, support, friendship, etc. I had to have courage to actually approach the table to get a pamphlet because it was my first experience to really come out. So since then, I started to befriend a lot of queer people, but I'm not into hookup culture or dating apps, I just have gaymer friends and engage in discussions, find interest in some queer shows or media. I watch a lot of queer content now on stuff like RUclips and I was in a Twitch community for LGBT+ for a few years until he stopped streaming. I play Splatoon which has a lot of queer people that play it.
I've been questioning for a few years so I thought I could possibly be bi, so I also was part of the bi community for a bit. I wasn't in denial of liking men, but unsure of liking women. I don't think I'm bi after hearing a lot from the bi community experiences, this was a very recent experience. Bi people just seem to have a lot of different experiences to gay culture yet some similarities, I would like gay people and bi people to get along a lot more. Bi people are queer yes, but the gay community have some stereotypes for bi people of appearing too straight, so idk, that didn't impact my voice.
@@pcoleman1971 Mostly since college. Before college I was watching cartoons, mostly PBS Kids. Not a lot of queer exposure besides South Park and Moral Orel. I got bullied a lot in middle school and someone told me a guy likes me...I dated two girls and people were still commenting on my voice. My parents speak Cantonese and I can mimic their accent, but my schools had a lot of Asian people so it probably wasn't Cantonese voice related.
I was also questioning for a few years wondering if I could be bi, but ended up not. This was recently. There are bi stereotypes in gay communities too about bi people being too straight, but that didn't change my voice I guess. I was in a queer club in college. I interact with mostly the gay and bi community through games, social media, watching videos, watching shows, etc. I don't do hookup culture or dating apps. Men just come up to me and ask if I'm gay or who I like and stuff.
@ArtAngelMouse Thanks for responding. I found what you said about the bi stereotype interesting. The old stereotype within the gay community was that bi guys were actually gay but were afraid to come out. Interesting how it has reversed. I suspect that I am older, I'm in my 50s, and it's remarkable how social attitudes have changed in the past 25-30 years. Suffice to say, there was some truth to gay guys pretending to be straight. Just not in my case.
My first name, Dennis, is a virtual announcement of being gay--especially the way I found myself pronouncing it! Since I happened to have studied speech science and linguistics, I was finally able to analyze the situation: all the consonants (d, n and s) are forward, articulated against the teeth or alveolar ridge, and the vowel sounds (short e and short i) are nearly indistinct. You barely need to move your lips or tongue to say it, and so it tended to come out as mincing speech, with the S a near-lisp. I found that if I articulate the initial D further back--with the tongue-tip well above the alveolar ridge, on the hard palate itself--the D makes a much stronger and well-defined sound. For some reason, it seems also to result in a lower vocal pitch; or perhaps it's just a less breathy voice. The finishing S never sounds lispy. It sounds much better: clear and assertive.
Correct analysis!
This "gay voice" thing happens in every language. My first language is spanish and you can definitely identify if a man is gay within the first seconds of speech in spanish, no matter the regional accent, the "gay voice" is almost always there in gay men, the most curious part is that even little boys have this gay voice. There are of course some exceptions but I'd say that about 99% of gay men I know speak like this, in fact, I've only met one gay man who doesn't 😅
Yep I’ve heard some young boys speak and I think he’s gonna be gay, not necessarily a high voice but the intonations, they don’t seem to have copied anyone it just seems the natural way they talk
I suspected you were probably gay within 10 seconds of seeing you for the first time. If I had been just listening and not also watching the video, it probably would’ve taken longer. But it’s hard to say specifically what it is that gives it away.
Interesting! I wonder then if a study should be done on body language/mannerisms in tandem with speech features. Thanks for watching!
Since this seems to be a newer phenomenon, from the late 20th century (could be wrong) I always thought it was more of an affectation than an accent. I don’t think that’s good, bad , or whatever. I feel like more gay guys are owning it more, which is maybe a good thing?
I'm not one to buy into the theory that you can automatically tell a man's sexual orientation just by hearing him talk. My oldest brother had a relatively high-pitched speaking voice. He wasn't gay. (He was my brother and I knew him well.) My math teacher (who was also a track and field coach) had a high speaking voice. He wasn't gay either. (My brothers and I knew his kids.) I have two good (male) friends who are both gay. They don't lisp and there's nothing feminine about their voices. I've known straight men with lisps. (Not many, but I've known a few. They exist.) I also have a close (male) friend whose voice is relatively high for an adult male and for as long as I've known him, he's only gone out with women. Is he "in the closet" ? I don't know, and frankly, I don't care. He's my friend and to me that's all that matters. We're pretty open with each other and if I eventually find out he's gay, it will be because he chose to tell me. Not because his voice isn't deep. Until he tells me one way or the other, I'm not going to jump to conclusions based on a stereotype that's oversold in pop culture and that at least SOME gay males out there find offensive. I'm no expert on this subject, but I have an odd suspicion that the sound of your voice has a lot more to do with your vocal chords than with your sexual orientation. Peace.
I think the "gay voice" isn't necessarily about being a higher pitch but is about being an artificially elevated pitch. I mean, Tom DeLonge, Tom Chaplin and Nate Ruess all have very high singing voices but none of them sound gay in the slightest. One thing I wonder is if the "gay voice" is really caused by feelings of anxiety or defensiveness which artificially elevates the pitch of one's voice.
Also, I've known some gay guys who have no hint of a "gay voice" but those that do have a "gay voice" have tended to also be arrogant in a "Oh honey, bless your pea picking little soul" type of attitude. Then again, that may have been projection to cover up how anxious they actually felt.
Liked your comment. A theatre person explained something: gay voice, which=fem voice, has more ups& downs, singsong-iness, while masc voice maintains a steady. In the musculuture of the jaw and mouth, the more forward muscles are more active
I seldom went to bars and I almost never hears this accent outside of a bar or other gay venue. I sometimes notice a kind of tone in my speech. Really depends on where I am and who I am with. If this accent is mingled with a particular regional accent the bar accent usually dominates. IMO Interesting episode.
So many people in language hobby circles like /r/conlangs etc seem to be fellow queer people. I must say that you always sound like you're "quietly shouting."
"Quiet shouting" is a good way to put it! I've been told a project a lot (sometimes to others' detriment...), but as a teacher with Italian heritage, talking loudly is in my blood.
Also, I've also found that there are a lot of queer folks interested in languages and linguistics. I once participated in a study about it. I never read the results, but the implication seemed to be that there was a disproportionately large percentage of queer people in the language learning community. Thanks for watching!
that is just the reddit effect
I was told by my broadcasting school professor that I sounded too gay to be a newscaster or DJ and I should pursue another line of work
I'm sorry to hear that. I hope you either didn't listen to that professor or you found something that makes you feel equally as fulfilled! Teachers can be such a huge influence on our views of ourselves.
@@ThePolyglotFiles I dropped out of that program because of it. I did continue with my education and found a fulfilling career. But I still would love to have a radio program. Who knows?
Yes, that S sound you have is the typical stereotype. But other than that, I couldn't tell if you see gay or straight based on your voice.
If I didn’t know the title of the video before it started I would known almost immediately and I would have been intrigued since you’re handsome :)
I have a deep baritone voice. It’s the sibilant S, clear enunciation and the more musical pitch range I use in my speech that makes it identifiable as gay. My pitch goes up & down a lot more than most straight men, who tend to speak in a monotone, less expressive way. I DEFINITELY didn’t try to imitate female speech
Maybe just beeing out and participating in studies for being gay makes a "social butterfly" profile, and it would make sense with the better pronunciation thing.
Your own voice sounds more like a stage actor whose voice must carry to the back of the theatre. To get one’s voice to carry it was/is not uncommon to raise one’s pitch. To go a step further, does anyone have any idea if the “gay” voice is more often based on one’s, shall we say, position preference. I.e. top or bottom?
I am a teacher and my heritage is Italian, so you aren't the first person who's told me I project. I think my normal, non-RUclips voice does that as well, I'm afraid 🤣 Thanks for watching!
Intonation and pitch are often dominated by the Right side of the Brain, which is related more to emotions and high-level patterns.
Maybe it is related to the emotional patterns of gay people, which would explain them being more artistic and used to express emotions more (at least in the stereotype).
First time here, I don’t even understand why the algororythm proposed me that...I am not even english mothertongue.
Still I speak (more ore less well) 6 languages with an universal accent: the gay accent😂. It’s more about an attitude, very similar in all languages, but there is a choice a selection of words, a lingo....very intersting subject....but since english is not my fav language it’s complicated to analyse.
The stereotypical “gay voice” of American gay males that we see in America movies is very different from that heard in the UK, although we still have some of the same basics. From over here it seems like in America (setting aside all the hyper masculine types) gay men are much more likely to be into drag, whereas here we tend to be more into “camp” which is more about irony and taking the p!$$ out of yourself. British drag when I was young was more Priscilla queen of the Desert, and less Ru Paul. More comedy and less glamour. I’ve always thought that gay men have historically had to be careful and so voice and suggestive vocabulary was like a coded signal that you could use in appropriate situations. Straight men (traditionally) don’t have to analyse what they say, and how they say it, they just speak. Watch characters like Mr Humphries in the British sitcom Are you being Served? He is high pitched, yes, but his gayness is signalled more by the wryness of what he says, and the double entendres and witty come backs he employs. This has deep historical roots as can be seen in the work of Noel Coward, Oscar Wilde etc. Whether it is natural or acquired/learned, I would lean towards the later because it seems so evidently cultural. I understand that straight boys growing up also sometimes have to police their behaviour and voice to appear “totally heterosexual”, so maybe it’s not about a “normal” and an artificial voice, but more 2 sides of the same coin. What do you think?
What you've said about gay males and drag culture in the UK is pretty interesting. I too lean more towards thinking that "gay male speech" is culturally-linked and more of a nurture development. However, there is something to be said about young children who are aware of their differences and perhaps even sexuality from an early age. That would make me think that nature plays a part of it too. It seems so complex! Thanks for watching :)
My husband and I are together for almost 20 years, but still no gay accent 😢😢😭😭🧐.
We are such a bad example for our beloved pink triangle foundation. Our house is always a mess, too. But we do have a cleaning lady twice a week. Our life is so confusing.
I am gay and you do indeed have the gay male accent
While you’re right that traditionally gay men had to be closeted for survival, they could subconsciously speak differently in order to signal to other gay men.
No such thing.
I have a high pitched voice, but I got it entirely by accident and I had no choice but to speak with a high pitched voice.
That’s because my voice was badly damaged by a grape, if you were to actually hear my voice, you could see I speak with a high pitched voice ( speaking like a girl), when I spoke with the police on a phone, the police operator thought I was a girl, not a guy. I have always had a high pitched voice, because of that accident when a grape got stuck in my throat for 10 mins and my Adams apple ( my voice box) was badly injured and I ended up growing up with a high pitched voice ( girls voice). If my voice could have been better, I could have starred in Anime.
Take advantage, whenever there's someone asking for you on the phone (especially bill collectors and solicitations, lol) "Ma'am, is your husband available?" "No, that bastard abandoned me and I'm pregnant, so call me when you find him." I guarantee it'll stop those pesky calls, lol! 😊
I'm being cheeky, but I did it once 😊
It's hard to find good examples of "gay voice". The one that came to mind is Bowen Yang from Saturday Night Live. Here's an example: ruclips.net/video/qP5bu9hLH9E/видео.html. From what I can hear in his voice, he elongates the vowels in the final word of a sentence and raises the pitch like he's asking a question. It's not a uniformly high pitch. He doesn't lisp. First, I should say that it seems like a speech affectation that gets picked up which people have called "code switching". This was pointed out. For example, there was someone I knew with a stereotypical Boston accent, but when she moved away, they made fun of her speech patterns (I think it would be hard to characterize a Boston accent by simple rules like pitch, lisp, or other factors that are applied to "gay voice", yet there are some characteristics, as accent coaches can tell you).
I would imagine an accent coach that teaches an actor to have a gay accent, might have more accurate ways to achieve this by treating it like a regional accent. If you listen to the early parts of the SNL skit, Bowen says "That was a really long time ago, Colin", the "o" in ago is stretched out and goes up in pitch. He doesn't do it in every sentence. Some of it is more mannerisms like being highly excitable or noticeably irritated. I have been in an audio-only Zoom group chat, and I can hear it from some people. I think the challenge is how to characterize it.
The "gay accent" has changed over the years. For example, the cartoon character, Snaglepuss, has an older style gay voice: ruclips.net/video/k4qFxTTi8q0/видео.html. This has some aspects similar to, say, Bowen Yang, but sounds old-fashioned. It's easier to find gay voice among certain gay comedians. Here's an example: ruclips.net/video/-bbt92u2Xuw/видео.html. I think even without the video, you might tell. There are different degrees. Comedian Matteo Lane doesn't have it as strongly (ruclips.net/video/2o2vL1ItF5o/видео.html). Some of it is how words are emphasized, sort of the stereotypical, gay attitude.
If you search for research related to gay voice, there's a recent YT video covering the same topic: ruclips.net/video/SF7KCsvcw2g/видео.html. It has some of the same results covered in this video. There's the much older NY Times segment that's less about the science: ruclips.net/video/Lkm0rmigGOw/видео.html. It shows some straight men sound gay, some gay men sound straight (in particular, they seem to have found one of each).
The point is, I think people can tell, in exaggerated cases (the gay comedian I posted) just from audio only. Those might be exaggerated for effect for the audience, or it might just be normal speech pattern. It could also be done as a way of signalling one is gay or to fit in with gays (gay males, to be precise) by using similar speech patterns, so you don't have to come out and say it.
Hey Michael,
What accent?
I love languages and am so happy to have subscribed to your channel for some time now.
Where nature vs nurture is concerned I have always believed that most men that speak more or less like what perhaps many would say is a stereotypical drag queen’s stage persona’s way of speaking are simply affecting the speech to serve as identifiers for other gay men and/or to show pride in their sexual identities.
You however when you started to speak in this video, quickly made me correctly guess that you are Canadian from your pronunciation patterns.
The above said. I will say in closing that I love what you do, your mind and ability to not only know as much as you seem to know but that you share it.
Congratulations on your 12 years of marriage.
Thanks for the kind words and for all the support! :D
To me, the gay accent sounds similar to, but not identical, to a typical Californian accent. I knew a few straight Californians, and while they don't have an accent totally identical to the stereotypical gay accent, it does sound similar to it. I wonder if another layer of influence over the gay accent is a Californian accent, San Francisco being such a epic center of gay culture. Just a thought.
Have you checked the British one out? There are multiple, and one of them sounds suspiciously northerner.
I read that some gay males speak the way they speak because of self expression and because they want to attract potential partners.
Certainly feasible before laws changed
My musical theatre teacher pointed out to me that I had silibant S’s, which isn’t how you described it. It’s not closing your teeth to the point of touching when you make the s sound. You can consciously counter act it. It is just a diet lisp and you definitely have silibant S’s. Focus on it a while and you can stop making silibant S’s unconsciously
It's not just speech patterns but also mannerisms & body language.
I got harassed by many guys when I was a teen. They thought I was too gay.
i have this too. My family is 89% women even friends/ coworkers of both parents my and as a kid i was around them all the time and talking to them. I also had more female friends than male ones so i think i kinda taught myself to match the environment i was around. Now its just annoying being called ma'am on the phone.
There's no denying it.
I love that more testosterone basically made the guys more actively gay. ❤️🌈
Actively gay? Seriously. The word I would use is "horny."
Very first thing I noticed was how you pronounced "about".
I'm gay too and married 14 years. :) Congrats to u too. I don't have a lisp. I'm more straight sounding.
Someone beat me to the annunciation/enunciation error. I'll add a characteristic to your list of stereotypical gay male voices -- enthusiasm. Look for the most animated person or people in a crowd, and there we are. This animation serves two purposes -- to control the crowd and to call attention to oneself. Controlling the crowd provides a level of protection from bullies. Since we're socialized away from telling everyone we're gay and asking everyone else if they are too, we've adopted vocal techniques that make our voices cut through the din. In addition to the stereotypical higher pitch, the sound is often very nasal and well supported, with a nails on a chalkboard quality to it. And let me add one more thing: I sang with the Gay Men's Chorus of Los Angeles for many years. GMCLA is comprised of men of all vocal ranges, from the lowest to the highest. Only a small minority of the members have this "gay male accent." The vast majority have unremarkable speaking voices. I wouldn't go so far as to say we sound straight, because what does that even mean? In a crowd of gay men, the quality of our voices is not what will stand out the most. What you will notice is the kindness we share with each other. So I would add enthusiasm and kindness to your list of characteristics of the gay male accent.
As a gay man I can say that when those characteristics are very accentuated it can be very annoying as well. I'm sorry but that's my opinion!
Believing is seeing, or hearing in this case. If we believe that there is a specific “Gay accent”, then we identify certain people who sound like that as Gay. Other Gay men, who don’t have that accent, are not noticed. The false Gay speech stereotype is thus reinforced.
Sometimes I think being gay but not having any trace of a gay voice is a nuisance. You don't always stand out to anyone who might be interested.
3 seconds in....oh you got it Mary!
😂
And at 5 seconds in, I pegged him as Canadian as well.
But what gave him away? The lisp? Or the Chanel bag that popped out of his mouth every time he spoke?
Fascinating, I think it’s part social, as we copy speech patterns and vocab from those around us. Then again, my accent is pretty Southern Californian (West L.A.) now affected by 7 years of living in the UK, which I don’t think makes me sound any more straight. Don’t really think I do the s thing tho
My voice, is a slightly higher pitch version of my dad's voice, and I hate it with a passion, ESPECIALLY when I hear it recorded. It's an old habit of mine to lower my tone or just not to talk most of the time. So yeah, I guess I have the gay voice.
Interesting vid though, and congrats for your marriage.
I would NEVER have told that you are gay from your way of speaking. But then 99% of my friends are/were straight. I only met one person in my life who sounded gay but he did it on purpose, it wasn't his natural voice. And a lot of gay men are married to women, at least in Italy...
I’m straight but I have a good number of gay friends, and the main thing I notice is that they use light L (especially in onset position) where straight guys who are otherwise demographically indentical would use dark L. I’ve actually never noticed the S thing before
That's very interesting! I didn't find any research on the use of light L and dark L but homosexual males, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. Can you give an example?
@@ThePolyglotFiles Any word with an onset L, really. Light, letter, livid, like, plethora, balloon, and especially… slay. I think Canada might always use light L in those positions so it may not be as apparent as it is in America (I’m from the US, forgot to mention that). I would pronounce all the above words with dark L
Yes. I'd say tge light/soft L does not exist in American English. The English light L is not very light in general,. but I digress. Maybe a light L is perceived as clearer articulation...hence "the gay thing."
All english speakers, american spanish speakers and southern Spain spanish speakers use the kind of S that is considered gay in northern Spain. Northern Spain's S is a little different and it's the most notticeable thing of gay accent when people use the english like S here.
I think human voice style has something to do with the energy level of the body. I think people who have feminine signature in their voice must have a physical energy state corresponding to the feminine energy flow. It has nothing to do with sexuality. But I think it simply stands out in a society that male is supposed to be masculine. And straight people with the feminie tone try to supress it for courtship, but most gay with the faminine energy flow simply reveal it eventually for many reasons, strengthening the confirmation bias of the society. Humans naturally resonate with people of the same energy level. The integration and reinforce of feminine tone through media and other female figures in life occur unconsciously like the acquisition of the native language. But this is my guess. After all, feminine gay from different cultures can have different way of being feminine further confirms that social influence is undeniable. What do men love? Girls, right? The idea definitely influences how a young gay choose their way of showing up since little. From my observation, people who have a late gay awakening seems to have a less gayish tone. Inner Identification must plays an important role, too.
Interesting points! I imagine a lot of it is subconscious. It is for me. Thanks for watching!
Hello, I’m Julian and this is my friend Sandy. We have your actual gay male accent.
I notice that many gay men change their tone, enunciation and mannerisms after being on the gay scene too long. I know plenty of guys who for want of a better term, would psss for straight, but put a few shots in front of them on a night out and they quickly turn a little Nelly. Of course there are exceptions to this rule. Lisps can be caused by thumb sucking as a child.I do think that tv shows can influence the way a lot of people talk, especially reality shows.Personally, i can deal with anyone if they are being true to themselves
Whatever accent it is, it usually comes with the pursing of the lips.
clear as mud
Jeffrey Starr. Girrrrlllll.
I had a gay voice but the bullies at school got rid of it and now i don't 😂
Darling dont worry no one would think your gay by your voice
my pitch is high. I sound not soft... and when I talk giving orders sound strong. the rest of the caracteristics depend where im with friends . feel more relax.
Thank you for bringing up this topic Michael you really didn’t have to it would’ve been OK if you didn’t this does not get talked about that much and I kind of figured from your first 10 videos so yeah
Thanks for the support! To be honest, it is just something I found interesting (just like most topics around languages and linguistics). This one just happened to be super personal, but after 7 years of making videos, I figured, why not explore this topic?
I didn't care you sounded like a Californian like myself. I was more interested in how you organised your library. What was your structure?
It's 2024 and straights wear belly shirts. I hear gay voice from straights all the time.