:dubious: My hubby is both a mechanic and a farm hand. His speech is quite clear. You’re drawing on stereotypes again.
Ok, before this thread turns ugly. What is the actual geographical distribution of “gay lisping”? I have only seen it on TV and I thought it was a NY thing. Is it really widespread enough or are we just picking it up from popular sitcoms?
:smack: Right you are. Silly me.
And the Indigo Girls happen to be from DeKalb County, Georgia, the Yankee trash.
I can’t begin to tell you what’s wrong with that statement.
I might even agree with it if we changed some of the certainty and made it into a hypothetical instead of a conclusion:
Anecdote and stereotype make it easy to wonder if a man who behaves like a woman in his choice of sexual partners might behave like a woman in other ways as well. Perhaps as a first step, statistical study might be warranted to discover if there is a higher rate of typical female verbal patterns and mannerisms in the homosexual population. (Of course, that’s assuming there is such a thing as “typical female verbal patterns and mannerisms” and that they can be quantified.) If such a thing can be found to be true, how would we design a study to determine if it is biological or cultural in origin?
Sapo, it’s true of some of the gay men I know and not others. I’m in Chicago, grew up in the south suburbs of Chicago, for what it’s worth. It’s not just a New York thing or a movie convention. I’m not trying to dismiss it as a phenomenon, but pointing out that it’s hardly guaranteed gaydar, and I do find it odd that some gay men exhibit the trait before any interaction with gay culture, or indeed, before self-identification as homosexual. I do, in my heart of hearts, suspect that there may be some biological agent here - I just think we need to be very cautious and careful in embracing any stereotype as truth, and I’m more than willing to be proven wrong in my wholly unscientific hunch.
One can be right about the ultimate fact but very, very wrong in the reasoning used to get there. I’d rather be right about both.
I suggest you (a) look into “confirmation bias” and (b) meet some actual gay people.
Most of my friends in the area are from the local college’s theater club. Say what you will, but I have no shortage of gay friends and acquaintances. And I know all about confirmation bias, but so far there doesn’t seem to be much evidence against the point that I’m trying to make. If there is, please enlighten me.
I’ll admit though, that I was somewhat blunt about my ideas regarding a subject that is very personal and spiritual to many people, so if I need to be more careful in what I say, I guess I can try doing that.
Here is a more concise layout of what I’m trying to say:
Facts:
- Many gay men speak in a similar manner; this often begins before exposure to gay culture
- Some straight men speak this way too, but not as many
- Often, gay men do not speak this way until exposure to gay culture
- Gay men on average act more feminine than straight men
- Being gay is something you are born with, not a learned behavior
- If something is a 100% learned behavior, it must be learned from somewhere
My conclusions:
- Some behaviors associated with gay men appear to be biological, as homosexuality itself is
- Some gay men assume these behaviors in order to appear more gay
- Many behaviors associated with homosexuality could be explained as a result of men behaving in a more feminine manner
- This phenomenon cannot be 100% cultural, because it is not always learned; this would seem to indicate a biological factor
- There appear to be both biological and cultural factors involved
As a quite thoroughly straight male who just happens to be both a semipro opera singer and an active member of the Int’l Wizard of Oz Club, I have far more “out” gay friends than most other straights, and I can’t say that I’ve ever noticed the “lisp”, although there certainly are such things as “camp” speech styles. The thing that I’ve always wondered about is why so many gay men stand with their
lower arms and hands like t
h
i
s.
To me, it looks like an uncomfortable position to maintain for more than a few seconds, but for those who do it, it’s obviously habitual.
cite? How many is “many”? Is this a larger or smaller percentage than the heterosexual or asexual population?
cite?
cite?
cite? How do you “average” actions? What actions are you tabulating as feminine?
Big mo-fo of a CITE?! here. I wasn’t aware that this was proven scientific fact. Just because I believe it to be so and you believe it to be so doesn’t mean it is so.
So? You haven’t shown that any of this behavior, if it even exists, is learned at any percentage.
Sorry, I don’t see how you can make conclusions before you have some data to work with.
Shoshana
By “direct”, I guess I do mean more assertive. That’s not an insult. I read others in this thread mention that they didn’t know how a woman “talked like a lesbian”. I tried to describe what I have noticed in my usual fumbly way.
By “obvious” I mean “I know they are lesbians because they are my friends”.
I apologize if I have offended you Shoshana. I don’t see anything at all wrong with “masculine” or “non-feminine” women, or “feminine” or “non-masculine” men.
Of course what I said was generalizing, because with most things dealing with the human mind at this stage–all we can do is speculate. We are talking about stereotypes and why they exist…so it is to be expected that other stereotypes will be thrown out and examined as well.
I haven’t noticed any homophobia in this thread (I am somewhat surprised by this). Have you?
I kind of look at this the opposite way. Young males tend to imitate that which they see as “how men act.” My guess is that young gay males are typically more interested in things other than sports, action movies, and other stereotypes of male aggression. I’ve set off gaydar false alarms just by being polite and soft spoken. So, sometimes men come across as effeminate just by being “not a brute.”
Still, I think some guys just enjoy the expressiveness of being “flaming.” I once spent an hour or so talking with a friend entirely in valley girl speak and it was a blast. So, it may simply be a case of not wanting to be ashamed of sharing one’s emotions.
Seriously, why is it necessary to make it a “gay thing?” Occam’s Razor, anyone?
People learn accents and dialects and speech patterns after others in their social group. Move to a foreign country, and after a while, you may pick up a bit of the local accent.
People also speak differently to their spouses and friends than they do to strangers. I speak differently at work than I do at home on the phone. If you’ve ever overheard a man calling his wife, who suddenly sounds meek and mild and “Yes, honey,” then you’ll know what I mean.
Many of us pick up communication habits from our peers. Some of us don’t. One might as well make a stereotype of “barfly slur” and “construction workers’ wolf whistle” or “the secret policeman’s drawl.”
There was an article in Scientific American Mind in February 2006 where they examined the brains of gay men, straight men, and straight women, and found that certain parts of gay men’s brains more closely resembled the brains of straight women than straight men. As for the incidence of certain mannerisms among gays, I’d be surprised if anyone has done a study on it. It’s not exactly top-priority research.
Okay, and was this caused by in utero factors, genetics, and/or learned environment or did they even try to hypothesize that? How large was the sample size? Who funded the study and why? How were the subjects recruited? How did they define “gay” and “straight” for the purposes of the study? How much of male and female behavior is correlated to the appearance of these certain brain areas?
For whatever it’s worth, in the first studies that got everyone all excited about the hippocampus (it was among fish, about a decade ago), it was demonstrably the sexual role that affected the hippocampus, rather than the other way around.
I’m not even sure there is a single homosexual etiology among males (I don’t know enough lesbians to have any opinion at all). I’ve known gay men who are friendly with women, gay men who are as hostile to women as the worst gangsta rapper, and gay men who get crushes on women (and we all know about the “diva” thing). I’m not convinced that these are all necessarily a single psychological phenomenon.
Anyway, with all the political baggage, it doesn’t even seem possible to study the business rationally.
I always thought Lisping was stereotypically associated with software programmers. 
They didn’t hypothesize the causes, other than to point out that genetics plays only a minor role. The sample size was not very large (less than 50 total people), due to the fact that they were doing these tests on people who were undergoing PET scans for various unrelated reasons. A PET scan is not something you would subject a perfectly healthy person to for research purposes, as it exposes them to significant radiation. They were recruited because they were undergoing PET scans. I believe the subjects filled out questionnaires to determine what group they were in. The rest, you would have to read the article for.
Another article I read in Psychology Today did a study on rats, and determined that male rats who were in utero while their mothers were subjected to large amounts of stress were more likely to exhibit female sexual behaviors upon puberty. The article hypothesized that homosexuality was an evolutionary advantage that would reduce populations during times of stress.
I understand that it is fiction, but its from a guy that ought to know. I’m reading Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris. In the first chapter he “recalls” being sent to a speach therapist for his lisp long before he discovered his sexuality. Quite a funny read by the way.
Total hijack here…I thought his stories related his real life experiences. (I have read 3 of his books and if it’s all fiction I will be very sad.) 
Well, I’ve always assumed they were highly exagerated versions of things he experienced. So maybe some cross between fiction and autobiography. Why would the stories being fiction have any bearing on whether you liked them or not. These stories are hillarious and well told. I don’t care if they never happened.