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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1445 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
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Author | Topic: Why Do Gay Men Sound Gay? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Modulous Member Posts: 7801 From: Manchester, UK Joined:
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Seems to me you have a tin ear if you don't recognize that as a gay voice. And it was so identified, too. And as I said it doesn't sound feminine to me, it is its own thing. And since it IS recognizable as gay it suggests there really aren't all that many varieties of it as someone here suggested. It's a camp voice. There is correlation with the gay community.
I can see how you could pick it up by hanging around the gay community but how many acquire it that way? I'd guess not many. And you still have to explain how it developed in the first place. 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.
Trying not to sound macho? OK, that's a theory. 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.
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Modulous Member Posts: 7801 From: Manchester, UK Joined:
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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. The last sentence does not imply the presumption in the first sentence is false.
Your bigotry is showing. Are you sure?
Gay does not mean effeminate. Nor does speaking in a camp fashion. Your bigotry is apparently showing.
I know quite a few gay people. 10 says I know more.
There are hardly more effeminate sound gay men then straight men in my experience. And we should all base our conclusions on your experience. That would make sense. Hey, how about some science?
Some of the most masculine seeming men I know are gay and some of the most effeminate sounding men I know are straight. I'm sure you know how the distribution of traits actually works. I know a woman who is 6 foot 3 inches. I know a man who is 5 foot 2 inches. It would still be true to say that men are mostly taller than women. So whatever your opinion of the hypothesis is, this kind of reasoning is meaningless.
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Modulous Member Posts: 7801 From: Manchester, UK Joined: |
So you would all be ok if Faith had a post that said Why do black people like chicken so much? or Why are Mexican's so lazy? Why are Native American's drunks? ...but you were talking to Dr. Adequate.
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Modulous Member Posts: 7801 From: Manchester, UK Joined: |
You might have noticed I worded it as a general reply.
quote: I didn't notice that, looks pretty directed to me.
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Modulous Member Posts: 7801 From: Manchester, UK Joined: |
You have me confused. Yes that was part of my response to Dr. A. His statement was not logical. My response to you was a general over all response. What part of that are you having an issue with? Oh right. In that case your reply to me was utterly illogical and obviously confusing. Since it didn't respond to the points I was making, I'll just repeat them here. Going back to Message 34 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. The last sentence does not imply the presumption in the first sentence is false.
Your bigotry is showing. Are you sure?
I know quite a few gay people. 10 says I know more.
There are hardly more effeminate sound gay men then straight men in my experience. And we should all base our conclusions on your experience. That would make sense. Hey, how about some science?
Some of the most masculine seeming men I know are gay and some of the most effeminate sounding men I know are straight. I'm sure you know how the distribution of traits actually works. I know a woman who is 6 foot 3 inches. I know a man who is 5 foot 2 inches. It would still be true to say that men are mostly taller than women. So whatever your opinion of the hypothesis is, this kind of reasoning is meaningless. If you want to respond to my criticisms of your logic go right ahead. I don't need to no details about your opinion of Faith or any other poster. Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.
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Modulous Member Posts: 7801 From: Manchester, UK Joined: |
The last sentence does not imply the presumption in the first sentence is false I am not saying it does. So we're in agreement that you weren't constructing a logical argument.
Dr A was reinforcing a stereotype quote: Is not reinforcing a stereotype.
So you want to get into a pissing match? You got your cock out. Why else?
The only reason I mentioned it is that I wanted to express I was speaking from at least some personal experience. In contrast to Faith who is just spewing bigotry. ...but you were talking to Dr. Adequate. And what makes you think Faith is not talking from personal experience?
I think personal experience has as much or more legitimacy than a stereotype. The one is not necessarily in contradiction with the other. Stereotypes are cognitive tools for categorizing the world and thinking about groups. Personal experience is a part of their formation and persistence.
My point exactly. Lets look at the science not the stereotypes that everyone seems comfortable with. So far the only thing vaguely scientific I've seen in this thread has confirmed its existence.
Obviously the point about the harm of stereotypes is lost on you and others in this thread. I didn't realize you were so high minded, my apologies. Please tell me - a bisexual, cross dressing, mentally ill person - about how stereotypes can lead to harmful conclusions. Had it occurred to you that my position on stereotypes is lost on you? Stereotypes are a problem when one assumes the characteristics of the group apply to all its individuals, and thus tend to treat all individuals in the group accordingly
Even if 5 times as many gay men had a "gay sounding" voice than straight men, it would still be a stereotype. It wouldn't however, be intrinsically harmful to observe this phenomena and comment on it such as 'Some gay men do in fact sound gay'. Edited by Modulous, : No reason given. Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.
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Modulous Member Posts: 7801 From: Manchester, UK Joined:
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I have to write something here because I don't want to be thought of as exclusively 'berating' someone. As a Mancunian, my favourite nights out in the city are in 'gay town' or 'canal street' or 'anal treet'. Straight bars can feel positively depressing or even threatening in comparison. Never forget the night some scrote started getting in our faces only to be picked up and thrown into the canal by a random passing six foot tall transsexual woman in heels. Everybody helped him back out, of course.
There's a tranny in my town called Patty O'Doors that just creases me up. (Apologies if that's a referrence only Brits might get. And yes, I know that trannies aren't necessarily - or even usually, gay.) I maybe thinking of someone else - but I think Patty O'Doors would generally be referred to as a 'drag queen' (it's certainly a name typical for drag queens). It's a different kettle of fish from transvestites...who generally prefer 'cross dresser'. 'Trannies' is kind of why cross dressers prefer that term - it's not a word that is traditionally used kindly (googling it is very NSFW - lots of porn uses the term). Historical usage of the term in general has left it tasting sour, though like other such terms - some people have taken to reclaiming/owning it. Though it can be used innocently, or even affectionately - in the medium you are in (ie internet forum) - I'd suggest sticking to a term almost nobody objects to. And that's how to set boundaries without demanding a person conform to the politically correct line through outrage. I hope.
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Modulous Member Posts: 7801 From: Manchester, UK Joined: |
There also seems to be a group that thinks that since they self identify as being part of the gay community that they should be the arbiter of if the "gay voice" stereotype is true or ok. Tackle what I said directly, rather than with innuendo please. You patronized me about the harm of stereotypes. I pointed out I tick three big boxes for being victimized by stereotypes as a means to mock your condescending tone:
quote: I have also been challenged to present scientific evidence about the "gay voice" stereotype. Studies have shown that they "gay voice" is more or less a myth. Read the whole article. I did. It seems to be providing evidence that is more or less in line with my views The Smythe study cited is about studying what characteristics 'sound gay' in people's view.
quote: What do the authors say? University of Toronto:
quote: I'd say a little under 50% of a group 'sounding gay' is pretty significant, it seems higher than I would have thought. Since 'gay men' is a relatively small group - it wouldn't take very much prevalence of 'gay sounding' voices in straight men to make it impossible to predict from voice to sexuality. It goes on to discuss code switching, something I raised without the jargon earlier:
quote: Then it talks about giving 'gay mannerisms' to evil cartoon characters. A thing that only makes sense if there is a pre-existing association in people's minds because the characters aren't actually engaging in gay relationships. And yes, taking stereotypes and tying them to evil in the media is awful. The word 'psychotic' is still used synonymously with 'ruthless and violent'.
Ultimately, it's a difficult and infuriatingly circular field to study.
Now lets look at the idea being put forward here that stereotypes are ok as long as they are not "bad" stereotypes. Nope. Well I wouldn't make that argument. I'd argue they serve a cognitive purpose, and we have to learn how to tame the beast because killing it is fundamentally impossible: it's part of the operating system.
quote: There is plenty of science to support this too, if any of you are so inclined to do the research. I'm aware of the harm stereotypes can cause, even 'positive' ones.
quote: Have you figured out that you are one of the only ones that got trolled? Edited by Modulous, : No reason given. Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.
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Modulous Member Posts: 7801 From: Manchester, UK Joined:
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Now would anyone like to provide any type of study that confirms a "gay voice" thing or the scientific existence of "gaydar". I was challenged to provide some science. I have presented a few studies and have been constantly attacked, but no one seems to have any science to back up the other side. In Message 74 you presented research that verifies the existence of a gay voice, as I pointed out in Message 76. You then posted Message 141 which suggests that since straight men can have a 'gay voice' so to can gay men have a 'straight voice' this means there is no 'gay voice'. You mention Gaydar, and although I have mentioned this previously, you still may be under the impression that saying that there is a gay voice is the same as saying 'people with a 'gay voice' are mostly gay' when instead what is being defended is that there is a voice which is used by a disproportionate number of gay men. To demonstrate how a gay voice does not provide gaydar imagine there are 10 million gay men in a group. There are 100 million straight men.10% of gay men have the 'gay voice', so 1 million gay men. 1% of straight men have the 'gay voice', so 1 million straight men. If you hear a gay voice, it's 50/50 that the person is gay. Therefore you can't really have confidence in that person's sexuality and it would be wrong to always assume they were gay. There would be no 'gaydar' as such. OF course, it would still be better than guessing in any representative sample, even though you are still wrong half the time. Rogers suggested 'maybe less' than 50% of gays have 'the voice'. Seems high, but anything in that order of magnitude would verify what I've been suggesting. Here is a speech therapist, she separates the lisp from the gay, but does confirm the existence of a gay voice which she says is predominantly code-switching. Which is in line with what I've been saying. The article you raised also talked of code switching. Basically everything in this thread seems to be verifying this thing. Given that code-switching is involved, regional differences will inevitably exist. Some people will code-switch consciously, others can't help it and it can even become the primary method of speaking. It's very existence can feedback to reinforce itself, or not in one context or another. As I indicated previously, it makes the subject incredibly difficult to study and its not exactly a 'sexy' fund-raising type of research: Socio-linguistic analyses of phoneme placement in declarative sentences of homosexual males....*snore* On the one hand, its ontology is accepted, on the other the nature of the thing itself is shifting, varied and inconsistent.
So you got anything to show there is?
I have the opinions of a professor of linguistics, Henry Rogers and a speech pathologist, and David Thorpe who did 'Do I sound Gay?'. You have what appears to be an freshly graduated intern writer making a logical error as part of his intro flavour text leading to an interview with a professor at his university about a paper that had nothing to do with the gay voice.
Other than stereotype, anecdote or bigotry of course. You are either denying the existence of a homosexual culture, or you are suggesting that acknowledging the existence of a gay culture is bigoted. Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.
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Modulous Member Posts: 7801 From: Manchester, UK Joined: |
'Do I sound Gay?'.
Have you watched this? No.
If you hear a gay voice, it's 50/50 that the person is gay. Evidence? Can you provide some sort of study? No anecdotes please. Your deceptive tactics fail on me on the grounds that I have memory and am not stupid. However, since you have employed the 'quote mine' tactic to give the impression that I was making an empirical claim rather than a mathematical one I am obligated to point out your dishonest tactic and publicly shame you for your deception.
quote: Since it is beyond the scope of this thread to prove Set Theory, Probability Theory and Arithmetic your demand for evidence is absurd EVEN if you want to act innocent about the attempt at deception. Before you accuse of me being deceptive, I made this very same point earlier using evidence + mathematics in Message 76:
quote: You'll note that my hypothetical numbers used the figure of 10% which given the evidence presented in this thread so far, is surely a conservative value vis--vis the real world.
All I am saying is that this thing people call a "gay voice" is not restricted to gays Would you therefore agree with the statement:
quote:? Because this is the sentiment everybody else has expressed in this thread. Since you seem to be arguing about something I would have thought it was because you disagreed with something. Are you sure that this is ALL you are saying?
Evidence shows that this speech pattern is not a result of being gay but rather learned behaviour from upbringing. Nobody has claimed otherwise as far as I am aware. What are you arguing about? Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.
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Modulous Member Posts: 7801 From: Manchester, UK Joined: |
Maybe you should because it does not support your position, so maybe you should not present it as support. Which raises the question. What is my biggest barrier here? Your illiteracy or your innumeracy? I never presented the documentary as support.
your demand for evidence is absurd EVEN if you want to act innocent about the attempt at deception. You were the one that originally called for evidence. You had to quote mine me last time in order to make your point. Now you are quote mining me to the point of clipping off parts of my sentence in order to try and drive the perception that I was making an empirical argument rather than a mathematical one. The very sentence you sliced and diced to make this quote mine makes this quite clear. I can only assume it is mendacity on your part. Stupid people wouldn't have been capable of this. You are a lying, deceiving piece of human detritus. Please don't quote mine me again. Thank you.
quote: I mean to take my sentence out of it and try to insinuate I was saying the exact opposite of what I was explicitly saying must be dishonesty borne from a realisation that tackling my actual points is hard. Mendacious indeed, Theodoric.
How could this even make sense? Set Theory, probability theory, arithmetic.
You are making numerous assumptions here Yes, I was even awful enough to be explicit about my doing so. Terrible, neh?
YOu are pulling #'s out of the air and expecting them to be some how evidence for your argument. So you don't think there is any combination of numbers wherein a smaller group could have a disproportionate representation while having the same absolute numbers as the larger group? You think we should burn maths or something? 0.01N = 0.1X = n0.01N + 0.1X = 2n n / 2n = 1/2 This set of equations is somehow impossible? Do you know how to math? A small percent of a large group can be equal in size to a larger percent of a smaller group. This therefore means a) The smaller group has a larger proportionality of members belonging to the subgroup in question (its ten times more prevalent in this example since 0.1 is ten times higher than 0.01).b) But it would not be possible to actually reliably infer which supergroup someone was from simply by them belonging to the subgroup as the absolute numbers are close. And that therefore speaking of a 'gay voice' doesn't therefore imply arguing in favour of gaydar. If you still don't get this, sociology and linguistics should be considered out of bounds for you.
How could being wrong 50% of the time be better than random guessing? It's starting to dawn on me that you think being wrong 90% of the time is identical to being right 50% of the time. I don't suppose you like poker do you? I have a hankering to play with you.
You are the one jumping all over me. I am criticizing your arguments: that's what we do here, remember?
The point I have been trying to point out is that "gay voice" is a stereotype. Do you agree? Stereotypes, even seemingly innocuous ones, are harmful and degrading. Do you agree? We've already covered this ground, feel free to respond to my previous answers on this.
You seem to want make it into some sort of attack on gays or that you are some sort of "gay" expert. Yeah, it's me that's jumping all over you for pointing out that personal experience is insufficient to make universally applicable empirical statements of such a large group.
If you feel the need to perpetuate stereotypes that is your choice but I am going to call them out. A wise man once said: 'Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts'
The most masculine seeming man I know is gay. I know seeming effeminate gay and straight men. I know extremely feminine lesbians and masculine lesbians. I know a whole mixture of straight and gay people that have different tastes and perceptions of feminine and masculine. I know a gay man that is completely and totally disgusted with the idea of anal sex. I know a straight guy that enjoys quite a bit of anal pleasure. Different people are different. 1) You only know one gay guy that hates anal and one straight guy that enjoys receiving anal? You either don't know many people, or they don't talk to you about sex much. 2) So frickin' what? Nobody is arguing that the gay voice is exclusive to gays. 3) I've already called you out on equating campness with effeminacy.
There is no overarching gay type or straight type. As there is no overarching type of hispanic or black person or albanian. People are individuals and stereotyping them is to dehumanize them and make them a caricature. But that's not what is happening. What is happening is that we are discussing an element of gay culture. White people can like Gospel and Rap but I think we can all agree that they are basically part of black culture. Not all black people like Gospel or Rap music. You are either denying its existence or claiming that pointing it out is bigoted. The evidence you presented in this thread seems to confirm its existence so where does this leave us? Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.
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