I know that Cecil explored this question, but he didn’t answer it. To quote, “But for now it’s the best I can do.”
Maybe we can approach this question with a little more open mindedness? It was asked rather badly by InLikeFlynn in Why do gay guys speak with a lisp?? Several gays responded that they didn’t know any gays that speak with a lisp. Okay, gayth don’th nethetharily thalk like thith. Thath’th a lithp. But the whole argument was semantics. The respondents knew what InLikeFlynn meant*. Many gays do talk differently. I think it’s a reasonable question for us heteros to ask why. And I think it’s also fair to say that most men who are “effeminate” are also gay. Though I have known a few effeminate men in my life who were straight, or at least tried to make it clear that they were straight. Is this behaviour genetic, or is it affected, or to be more accurate (pardon the judgement) is it totally fake?
I used to work at Blockbuster video on the corner of Montrose and Westheimer. The area of town surrounding this corner, if you don’t know, is the epicenter of gay culture in Houston. So I worked with quite a few gay men. One such gay man (whom I suspected wasn’t gay at all.) would sometimes talk “normal” without the affectation at all. So I know for him the “gay acting” was completely false. Is this true for most gay men who act this way? Or are they born speaking that way?
When someone comes out of the closet, does he all of a sudden say to himself, “okay, I’m gay. Now I’d better start “acting gay” or I’ll never get any dates?” Or is it a gradual process? Or has he been talking that way since the beginning? Does he find himself in the company of more “gay acting” gays so he starts to pick up similar traits? And why do they do it? Is it to “advertise?” that they are gay? Is there really a sort of gay society that shuns the gays who “act gay,” as Psychopachik_Vampire seemed to make me think?
To the gays on the board, are you a Will or a Jack? Are you saying that most gays are a Will?
Please forgive my ignorance. If you are offended by such phrases that I have used such as “acting gay” just know that I do not mean to generalize. I mean no offense in this thread. I’m not judging. I’m not asking this question to prompt more gay bashing either, and certainly not any hetero-bashing either. So please refrain. I’m merely a straight guy with questions for homosexuals.
*Then they (Shoshana) got him banned. I find it interesting that a self proclaimed homosexual (Psychopachik_Vampire) also called “feminem” (sic) gays fags but wasn’t banned. Sounds like arbitrary special treatment to me. Hey bibliophage, why didn’t you ban him? He showed more hatred to homosexuals than the OP.
My experience has been, for what it’s worth (and it ain’t much, trust me), that some people who are gay happen also to have speech differences. And some people who are straight happen to as well.
The issue is especially exacerbated by the fact that it is now seen as a “gay thing” (and of course I have no cite on this) to speak effeminately/with a lisp/etc., so those who are unafraid of being labeled gay (correctly or not) will make little or no effort to “curb” their lisp, whereas those who do have such an issue (and it can have validity when one’s physical well-being is in danger otherwise, and one does not have escape as an option) with being labeled that way do make effort to curb their lisp. So what happens is that you hear the lisp more from those who are either not straight or straight but not narrow, and you do not hear it as much from those who are either straight and narrow or closeted.
Re: getting dates … well, to me, “acting” gay just means being energetic about a few things. But then I have also gotten to the point where I can tell almost from the way someone peels an orange(;)) if he’s gay or not. There can be a desire to start being so flamey that one sets nearby brush on fire, but that is by no means restricted to newly-out homosexuals (ever seen someone newly engaged/married? Trying to get a newly engaged woman to stop showing off her ring/talking about her fiance is about as easy as keeping a dog away from a bloody steak).
I hope some of this helps and/or makes actual sense.
This is, or should be, separate from your other question, prisoner. Problems or disagreements with moderating decisions belong in The Pit. Or hey, try e-mail.
OK…can’t find the deckchair at the moment, so it seems I am going to have to help you out here.
It seems to me that you are trying to make some assumptions from a skewed ‘sample’. You are saying that homosexuals talk ‘differently’ because the homosexuals you have encountered talk ‘differently’. You have tried to equate being effeminate with homosexuality, which is a bit dodgy IMHO.
Y’see, your line:
might or might not be valid, but I feel you are trying to draw the opposite conclusion as well, that most men who are gay are also effiminate, which is definitely NOT valid IMHO.
Because you are identifying homosexuals by their ‘mannerisms’ it means that those who DON’T display the same do not get included in your sample. Thus your study is flawed, because it might well be that the same percentage of the gay population as the straight population talk in an effimate way…it’s just that it is more noticeable by you because you are on the ‘lookout’ for it.
I am generally wary of doing the “compare gay to other minority” trick, but it is sometimes just so damned handy. Therefore:
Why do some black people talk in ebonics? Is it genetic or is it cultural or is it just put on?
The answers are the exact same. For some people it is the only way they know how to talk, to speak in any other way would be unnatural for them. For others it is affected, be it to fit in with ones friends or to send a clear signal to others of ones status/image/whatever, or just for the plain fun of it, it can be incredibly fun to camp it up sometimes, and I would imagine that the same applies with other sorts of speech-patterns.
As teenagers my little friends would change their way of speaking, their body language etc the moment they stepped out the door of their homes. Suddenly they sounded like inner city hardasses, not anything their mammys would recognise.
I previously ran a gay youth group, and I can say that yep, a certain amount of people did turn “faggy” after coming out. Or more specifically, after coming out onto the scene. That young guys would sound like themselves one week and a month later sounded like Julian Clary* was not unusual. It was also not unusual that young guys turned up sounding like they were the ones who voice trained Mr Clary.
For what it’s worth, I can think of a few different queer-dialects off the top of my head that would all be different from eachother but all of which I would categorise as being gay.
The vast majority of the gay people that I associate with do not speak with a lisp, so by judging the differences in groups of people, I’d say that those who speak with a lisp are doing it to get attention for being gay.
Oh man, that’s funny! I don’t care if Muad’Dib is a serious religous zealot and meant it or if anyone took offense, that’s the best laugh I’ve had all day.
And I don’t know if there’s a whole society or not, but in that other thread someone said that what I have is called ‘internalized homophobia’ so if there’s a name for it, I ain’t the only one.
As for their talking that way, there could be a number of factors: They enjoy being feminine(as I’ve witnessed repeatedly as a Correctional Officer who has worked safe-keeping waaay too many times) and it’s now natural to them, they feel pressured by society’s stereotypes to “act gay” and thus start lisping or acting/talking feminine, they do it for fun, or any other reason.
And it’s ‘feminine’. ‘feminem’ is the name we Juggalos apply to that in-the-closet-needs-to-fuck-off-and-die-or-at-least-take-back-everything-false-and-derogatory-about-ICP-he’s-ever-said-and-then-die-anyway fucker Eminem.
As to any banning, I’m totally ignorant and know not of any special treatment, nor do I encourage any such treatment. No, I’m not criticizing the mods, but prisoner6655321 brought this up and I don’t want any incorrect impressions about myself going around.
Psychopachik Vampire
For the record, I’ve met several straight men who speak with that sort of gay accent you mention.
As for gay men who speak this way, I don’t think it’s a conscious thing. There are several different ways one person can speak and oftentimes it depends on their mood and who they’re talking to. I think they get changed by the people they hang out with. If you spend enough time with one person(or a group of people), you’ll manage to use a few of their mannerisms, slang, and enunciation.
In my mind, the OP was framed by someone who, conciously or not, accepts the notion of male heterosexual supremacy, as in, the normal way of speaking is as a heterosexual men speaks, and any sensible gay man would prefer speaking as a heterosexual man does, and the gay man who does not speak normally or does not want to, is remarkable and odd.
That said, I recognize that the thread-starter was careful about being seen as homophobic, so clearly he’s not gaybashing, but nonetheless, it’s very clear to me that this is what inspired the question.
In my mind, I don’t see calling things “normal” and “different” as ways of innately making a statement about anything being superior or inferior, or even odd, except odd in the sense of a curiousity. I find the mystery of the sometimes “gay accent” as interesting as ebonics or any other language quirk. I have noticed with generic tv- and radio english, even my faint southern accent is almost gone. The OP is asking a loaded question, but it’s one I often wondered. Not all gay men talk like that, but it isn’t deniable that a larger proportion of them do than straight men. And I don’t think it should be wrong or perceived as subconcious homophobia or having any ulterior motive simply for wondering why. Whether on purpose, as an environmental influence, affecting other people’s perceptions – I’ve always wondered the how and why of it. Simply as a matter of intellectual curiosity. When I see guys with this perceived “accent” draping curtains practically every time I flip on the home decorating channel on cable, it kind of makes you wonder, you know?
Where did it come from? Who started it? At what age do gay men who would not otherwise speak that way, begin? Do they turn it on and off or do they always talk that way?
I assure you I am not homophobic – for one, I’m female, second, I tend to not even pay attention to things like that about people (I’m more apt to discriminate based on political views I don’t like), and third, I smooched my friend’s girlfriend at my Giftmas party, after her and I made both of our boyfriends (who have been friends a long time) kiss each other.
So, is it possible to speculate on the reasons for this phenomenon without offending anyone or having all kinds of ulterior motives read in? I really honestly have been curious about this for awhile, but I haven’t known anyone that actually speaks that way well enough to bring up the topic with them.
Can you also explain/expand this question as to asking why some gay guys speak differently but not others and not gay females? If its just a lisp or speech impediment then wouldnt it be affect females as well?
I certainly realize that there are many homosexuals that act as normal as everybody else. But this discussion is about the gays that don’t act the same way as most everybody else.
I’m not really identifying homosexuals by their mannerisms. I’m trying to figure out WHY some homosexuals have these mannerisms. I don’t see how this as a flawed study. If the ratio of effeminate homosexuals is the same as the ratio of effeminate heterosexuals, then that answers my question now doesn’t it: the mannerisms would be genetic if the ratio is the same. However, since I know that some homosexuals “fake it”, it stands to reason that there are more gays that act effeminate than straight men. I’m just wondering if I’m wrong here.
I think ebonics is more like an accent similar to a Brooklyn or Southern accent. Witness the white kids that go to inner-city schools. They talk the same way. That’s not to say that the effeminate speech that some gay men use isn’t similar. Maybe ebonics is a closer comparison because they do seem to be able to turn it off, just like my gay friend at Blockbuster. I don’t know of many Texans that can turn their accents off. I have a couple of cameleon friends. They tend to adopt the behavior of those around them. If they are around Black kids, they act that way. If they are around Latinos, then they act that way. I’ve never seen them around gays though.
Nonononono! I’m sorry if my post sounded that way to you nisosbar. As I said, I am making no judgments about gays. Notice that I put the word “normal” in quotes. I’m just trying to understand.
jinwicked, you said my question is loaded. How is my question “loaded”. Please, I just want honest answers. Thanks for so clearly clarifying what I am trying to ask jinwicked.
I’d also like to point out that 3 of the “Fab 5” act effeminate, IMHO anyway. Carson and Jai especially. If I ran into Thom on the street (and didn’t know him from the show) I would think he was gay. The other two I would probably think are gay after talking to them for an hour or so. They have some (pardon the generalization) tendencies that are stereotypically gay. Though these 5 are the poster gays right now, aren’t they?
Thanks for the answers so far. Nothing definate so far. Maybe there can’t be. But there are some confirmations. Psychopachik Vampire’s for example.
Oh, and I’m sorry about that out of place mod complaint. Especially to Psychopachik Vampire. I’m really not trying to get you banned. I was just making an observation. I’ll put it in the pit next time. Not that I anticipate or look forward to ever pitting a mod. [shudder]
“Loaded” because it’s one of those questions that tends to result in a train wreck of some kind regardless of how it’s worded or asked. Kind of like threads about tailgaters and SUVs. It’s not loaded because of anything you did.
Oh. Okay. I always thought “loaded” meant that the person asking the question is setting a trap, waiting for someone to spring the trap with a typical response. Then they’ll let the respondee have it. Definately not my intention. I’m absolutely trying to keep this discussion as respecatble as possible.
