Two suggestions, even taking into account what you’re using your voice for…
Thanks Scarlett… and Wyatt, I HAVE considered taking voice lesson (to help lower my voice), but no I didn’t realize that I could actually be “using” it wrong.
Funny because I sang in elementary, church and HS choir, but I hadn’t even thought about. I’ll definitely check into the “Alexanders Technique” practitioner (wonder if there are any in Texas?)
I only have to finish out this semester before I leave in Dec., but I’ll be looking into it for any new dance/aerobics jobs I might start in the states.
Also, in a bit of contrast to those who find that they tend to allow a bit more of a childlike voice when in need of help, I tend to be more cognizant of how I sound and work HARDER to sound “grownup” at those times.
Weird huh?
I think it’s incredibly obnoxious to “diagnose” that someone was molested just based on how their voice sounds. I have a squeaky shy little-girl voice on the phone and with people I just met, because that’s just how I sound when I’m nervous. I also giggle. As soon as I’m less nervous around the person, my voice is deeper, though still relatively high-pitched (5 feet tall, short neck). If I stuttered, sweated, or had weird facial tics when meeting new people, what would you all decide my childhood had been like then?
Reading this thread has just made me angrier and angrier, especially when someone said that even if a woman with a childlike voice said her childhood was perfectly normal, that just meant she wasn’t admitting that she’d been abused, but she eventually would. The arrogance of that attitude is astounding. I hope that nobody I’ve ever met has been rude enough to make assumptions about my family based on my voice, but after reading all the posts I worry that someone has and hasn’t even bothered to mention their obnoxious assumption so that I could correct them.
There you go, you’ve made a smurf angry.
Ariadne you GO girl!
We are taught not to be judgemental or prejudice about people who are different. In most peoples eyes it would be wrong to make assumptions about someone who is black, fat, disabled, a dwarf or even has big ears.
I am in my 30’s but have a childs voice. If I could change it I would. I expect my voice will never change. It is exhausting to put on a fake voice all day, I think I would also feel stupid. Why should I have to be fake anyway. For some reason my voice has not changed in tone since I was little (maybe 5 or 6). Maybe there is something wrong with me? 
I am not offended when people ring up and ask to speak to my mummy or daddy. To be fair I do sound like a child.
However it makes me very angry when stupid people ask me if this is my real voice, laugh at me or decide my voice is put on. Why the hell would anyone put on a fake cartoon voice?
I am also offended when people make strange assumptions. No …I was not abused or babied or the youngest in my family. I am not small, weird, bitchy or stupid. This is actually my real voice, like it or lump it. Please don’t expect me to change :mad:
Welcome to the boards Helena-Jo.
Just so you know this is an old thread so some of the people may not be around aanymore to respond.
But please stick around and check out some of other fine threads.
Just a heads up though. We like to keep it somewhat civil so no name-calling or cursing out (you may of course still curse in general if you fucking feel like it.) other posters except in one forum called “The BBQ Pit”. That’s what it’s there for.
A woman I work with has a speaking voice on the phone, as though she constantly has a mouth fulll of spittle, impossible to understand a voice mail from her. I suspect she thinks it’s cute.
I usually tend to read that as intentional cutesy affectation.
I know this is a zombie thread but I’d like to chip in as somebody who sounds childlike but was not abused. In my case I have a speech defect. I have trouble pronouncing the letter “R”, especially when it’s combined with an “L” as in “girl” or “curl”. I think they started speech therapy at school when I was about seven and I know I went both in elementary school and in high school. (I was taking two languages and I still remember the day when my French teacher told me I was using American "R"s, my Spanish teacher-who knew I was in AP French-told me I was using French "R"s, and the speech therapist told me I wasn’t saying them at all). My voice isn’t particularly high-pitched but I do get asked if my mommy is home. Other people insist on asking what country I’m from, or if I’m from New York or Boston. If I stop and think about it I can speak fairly slowly and clearly and enunciate well but when I’m talking at my usual speed the "R"s just disappear. I don’t think I’m a “pwincess pwecious” type, and I would definitely have a better voice if I could but apparently I have a lazy tongue-sort of like the rest of me. I know it took multiple tries to record an answering machine message I could tolerate. So not everybody who sounds like that actually wants to; some of work very hard not to but sound like a child anyway.
ETA: Now you’ve got me doing vocal exercises-“Around the rock the ragged rascal ran” 
Someday I even aspire to try to sing Beyonce’s song Run the World (Girls) which is about the most difficult song for me to sing ever.
bolding mine
I know this is a decade-old thread but who the hell tells a guy, “I want to have sex with you.” ?? :dubious: Did she follow that up with, “by that I mean I would like to have your penis inserted into my vagina.” ?
Shrug, I’ve had a guy tell me “I want to have sex with you”. Actually, the whole sentence that didn’t get him hit with an alabaster vase because I didn’t have one handy was “I can’t wait to try that bed of yours… I want to have sex with you soooo bad” - this from a guy who jumped away when I tried to take his hand or to give him a kiss on the cheek.
I imagine if he ever wanted to have sex with a guy, he might say that same line. So might someone with a background similar to his.
The size of the larynx and structure of the vocal cords (vocal folds, if you prefer), along with the layout of the sinus’ will pretty much determine the average pitch and timbre of a voice, male or female. Body size doesn’t influence this as much as we’d think, but testosterone plays a role, I believe.
You’ve met great big guys with tiny voices, surely. Wayne Newton is a tall guy who talks like a gerbil, for instance
As for a childish affectation, I’ll bet that’s an acquired mannerism, whether held over from childhood or cultivated later in life, to portray a “sexy” or even “fragile” demeanor.
I’ve met a woman who has a little-girl voice who turned it into a career as a voice actress, mostly dubbing anime into English. She said that they are always looking for adults with child-like voices, because so many characters are children. (If you listen to the original Japanese, even the adult female characters will have high-pitched speaking voices).
I have no idea if she had been abused as a child. I certainly hope not.
My voice is very young sounding, as late as my 30s, I’d get the “is your mom home” thing occasionally. I certainly was not actively trying to sound “cutesy” or pwecious pwincess, but I do try hard to remember to lower the pitch of my voice and I never use baby-talk type vocabulary. When I’m tired, or rushed, I probably forget to lower my voice pitch, so I still get the “you sound way too young to be 50something” thing on occasion.
ARGH! A zombie little girl voice thread.
Sigh…
I wonder how you people would describe Bernadette from The Big Bang Theory’s voice? Is that the little girl voice you’re talking about?
Kristen Chenoweth is the first one who comes to mind, but I think she is gorgeous and fabulous.
There’s a difference between having a naturally high pitched voice, and the little girl voice affect…I have a high pitched voice (and I’m 5’10" so I don’t think it’s related to height). I wish it was deeper, because I get the “is your mom home” on the phone all the time, but it’s just the voice I was born with!
There was a girl I knew casually from “around” when I was a kid (we went to different schools) who has such a speech defect. I ran into her the other day and didn’t recognize her but as soon as she opened her mouth I was like “Holy cow that’s that girl!” Anyway she looked absolutely gorgeous and is now a higher-up at a bank and has a husband and kids, and still talks a mile a minute - speech defect be damned!
I have to believe there is absolutely some truth to this. If you’ve ever listened to Love Lines; every time Drew Pinsky hears the “molested voice” and ask them how old they were when they were molsted. I’d guess 90% of the time they claim they molested as a child.