Why Do Gay Men Sound Gay?

It's a camp voice. There is correlation with the gay community. I don't think anybody knows, but homosexuals were ostracized and groups that feel attacked from the outside tend towards adopting similar slang, dialects, and even inflection and intonation. Ostracized long enough and and the effect can be quite pronounced.Maybe there was a reason there was a leaning in the community towards that. Perhaps it comes from the theatre community. With their gregariuousness and campness, the thetre may have provided role models for the gay community whose performance also had a 'camp' tone. This might have meant consumers of this culture may have started to adopt some of the campy theatrical voices.It might be that some homosexuals found that by being a fearless and flaming homosexual they find that straight people tolerate their presence. Like they weren't viewed as a strange threat and more thought of as a jester. Indeed, it may be in this area. Some men are attracted to macho men, some men are turned off by this. It might have been a conscious method of subtly (at first) advertising they aren't a 'macho gay' while trying to find dating partners in a world filled with people they are attracted to who would beat them for asking them out.

Oh, be nice.Some gay men do in fact sound gay. Randall of "Honey Badger" fame comes to mind. And, as Faith points out, the Donald Gay Trump thing wouldn't work if this were not the case.Gay male speech - Wikipedia

Yes and some black men like watermelon. Some hispanics are lazy. Some hillbillys have sex with their sisters. Some asians are very good at math. Some gay men have a lisp.All stereotypes.I can also say that some white men like watermelon. Some white people are lazy. Some wealthy men have sex with their sisters and some straight men have a lisp.Faith is perpetuating a stereotypical view of a group of people. This is just another example of the vile bigotry shown by Faith time and time again.

Not hatred, disgust. Very different feelings. Hatred takes effort. You are not worth effort.

Some men may subconsciously adopt certain female speech patterns. The Gay Voice At least these linguistics professors seem to think so.Add By Edit: I also found an interesting article in The New Yorker that provided some possible food for thought.Edited by Phat, : added jabberwocky

Well, not all gay men talk like that. There are more effeminate one's than others, usually those are self-described within the gay community as Twinks. Others are very machismo and you would never know they are gay.As to how it developed, I don't know, but the continuation of it is probably the same as it is with accents. You speak how you are spoken to since people gravitate towards things they know.

I have not heard the 'gay voice' in question, but surely there is at least a 'stage' gay voice that we can expect will be taken on when someone is supposed to be identified as gay for one reason or another in some skit.Ok course some gay do take on that voice, and surely those that do are the origin of the stereotype. Given that the voice is an affectation, surely the most likely way it would be acquired would be hanging around other people who speak similarly. Why is that hard to believe?

And if hardly any white men did, then it would be reasonable to wonder why.

I imagine it is something similar to how the prototypical "Valley Girl" (like, OMG!) mode of speech began, and more importantly, how it perpetuated. There are noticeable inflections and intonations when hearing Valley Girl speech. And people living abroad often pick up the accents for certain words. Obviously not uncommon.My best educated guess as to how Camp first developed was likely because gay adolescent boys first had an affinity for girls as platonic friends long before they fully sexually matured. Girls tend to be much more animated in their speech by using lots of facial expressions, hand movements, and inflections for certain words. It's very expressive. So since they spent so much time talking to females, it seems that they might have picked up tendencies commonly associated with females.The inverse tendencies could likely be said of butch-type lesbians. But this is definitely not the case with all lesbians or all gay men.

For what it's worth, she sounded genuinely interested. You have to remember that she probably doesn't have much association with gay people because of their [to use Faith's words] "lifestyle." I don't think calling her a vile bigot when she's not acting like a vile bigot (at the moment) is going to help the walls come down... it'll probably actually build them up quicker and reinforce her beliefs. Just give her a little bit... After all, I'm sure there will be plenty of things to legitimately scorn her about at a later time! But for now, she seems genuinely interested. I think it might be a good opportunity to extend an olive branch, not a hand grenade.

Your response is not logical. It would presume that appreciable more gay men have this "voice" than straight men. I do not think facts would bear you out. Many straight men act and sound effeminate.
Your bigotry is showing. Gay does not mean effeminate. I know quite a few gay people. I also know some effeminate sounding men. There are hardly more effeminate sound gay men then straight men in my experience. Some of the most masculine seeming men I know are gay and some of the most effeminate sounding men I know are straight.If you want to help perpetuate stereotypes that is your choice.

No. Worldview. Lots of fundamentalist religious people love the word 'worldview'. To lots of them a lifestyle is a worldview.Edited by Pressie, : No reason given.

Hi, Theodoric. What possessed you to think that this response was proportionate to the offense?I thought we wanted to encourage asking questions as part of the process of tearing down walls and building bridges, and all that.We all harbor suspicions that Faith's question may be more than just innocent, idle curiosity; but letting yourself get all rankled at the very outset of a thread is only going to make it worse.Other posters seem to have been able to start a fruitful discussion on the topic, despite the potential undertone of bigotry in the opening post. Why not try that approach for once?

If they did a hillbilly voiceover of an American politician, would anybody notice the difference?

Speaking as a gay guy partnered with another guy, the responses so far to the OP makes me not want to associate with the liberal PC crowd.Faith asked a legit question.May be EvC should create a new section called "Safe Space"?