Why are gay mens voices different

After three years of research, linguistics professors Henry Rogers and Ron Smyth may be on the verge of answering that question. After identifying phonetic characteristics that seem to make a man’s voice sound gay, their best hunch is that some gay men may subconsciously adopt certain female speech patterns.

Gay male speech has been the focus of numerous modern stereotypes, as well as sociolinguistic studies, particularly within North American English. The "gay voice" is usually a result of men adapting their speech patterns to be more socially compatible with women. It's a stereotype because only some gay men have the "gay voice". As most people are accustomed to believe, gay men have a very “gay” sound when they speak.

They might speak in higher pitches and a more melodious groove to their speech. But is the gay accent even real? And if it is, why does it even exist?. Results showed that homosexual men displayed significantly higher pitch modulation patterns and less breathy voices compared to heterosexual men, with values shifted toward those of heterosexual women.

Lastly, testosterone levels did not influence any of the investigated acoustic features. This is the opposite pattern to the one observed previously in French male speakers Suire et al.

I was a gay guy until I was 20, at which point I transitioned to female. I had male and female peers as friends so it's not as if I acquired a feminized speech pattern from an exclusive exposure to one gender in my social groups. I'm an old geezer and this has taught me something brand new. Unless otherwise stated, all variables were averaged across every utterance a participant gave prior to analysis.

No such difference was found in men either here or in a recent study Suire et al. Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. In comparison with overall mean pitch F0 , there is more evidence of an effect of sexual orientation on formants in both men and women, especially with regards to specific vowel sounds.

Deep neural networks are more accurate than humans at detecting sexual orientation from facial images. As a gay man, I know my speech patterns vary depending on the situation. And here she is teaching David to sound less gay. Voice pitch properties in males.

No Pride, Only Prejudice: The Science Behind The 'Gay Voice' – The Thought Co.

Shimmer will be significantly higher and HNR significantly lower in homosexual men than heterosexual men. Breathiness as a feminine voice characteristic: a perceptual approach. Cao, H. Additionally, there is a possible sexual orientation difference in rate of speech: a homosexual male participant was reported to have a slower rate of speech than the heterosexual male participant Podesva et al.

Participants were compensated monetarily for their time. Gruff North Indian tones for male colleagues. Gender nonconformity of identical twins with discordant sexual orientations: evidence from video recordings. Do, for instance, people who speak Spanish or Chinese also use the same type of higher pitch and slower cadence? So basically, I feel "gay male speech" is cultural, just like dialect think Southern drawl , accents e.

For this sexual orientation average, a score of 0 represented exclusive heterosexuality, a score of 3 bisexuality with equal attractions, and 6 represented exclusive homosexuality. Full details on both the sample sizes and nature of the stimuli in reviewed studies can be found in Table 1. In my case, I wouldn't know how to change my voice to sound more "straight. All of this voice-shaming reminds me of an episode in musical history.

But what does that really mean? Recordings were extracted from the camera in their raw MTS file format. Association between sexual orientation and speech properties across 10 studies. Your email address will not be published. Where did it come from? Consistent with our predictions, this indicates that homosexual women had a less breathy voice than heterosexual women, on average.