Fearless Friday: "Gay Accent"?

[wordsrmylife]

(Icon via garwlban)

Today's post is a quickie, because BD is commencing this weekend. Right  now she's at a mandatory rehearsal, but soon we'll be off to spend time with her.

This recent article from South Africa gave me pause for thought this morning. You can read the whole thing here: http://www.queerlife.co.za/test/news/may2011/6518-the-gay-accent

Comments

[patesden]

It is interest idea, but I'm with you. I haven't noticed an accent particularly with gay women. I always figure gaydar had more to do with subtle body language.

[wordsrmylife]

And even when it comes to body language, gaydar doesn't always get it right. One of the lovely things about human beings is our almost infinite variety.

[robinellen]

Hm...I find this hard to believe ;) But then, like you, I don't spend much time listening for sexual orientation based on vowels.

[kellyrfineman]

Is there really and truly such a thing? *wonders*

Some of my friends who happen to be gay do have a slightly swishy way of speaking (for want of a better adjective - sorry for having to use it, though), but most of them do not. Or at least I don't hear it. I wonder if the researchers are hearing it because they WANT to hear it, and/or are basing their determinations on something other than mere vowel sounds?

[kellyrfineman]

Egad, but I'm just commenting all over your blog today. However, it occurred to me that I know at least three people who self-identify and live their lives as straight that speak in the same "swish" manner as I referenced earlier. (Rather like the old SNL skit about "Leonard, the Effeminate Heterosexual".)

[wordsrmylife]

I, too, know several self-identified & so-living straight people who have a more traditionally effeminate way of speaking. But would an acoustic analysis reveal a difference, which implies a biological difference, which would underscore the idea that sexual orientation is biologically based.

[wordsrmylife]

According to a quote in the blog, the researchers were basing it on acoustic analysis. They asked the test subjects to listen to initial sounds, the first two letters, and the whole word, from three letter words pronounced by 7 gay men and 7 straight men. (Really small test sample.)

[kellyrfineman]

Oh - and may I say that I quoted your icon to M two days ago? (Like you and her mother, she's a big Eddie Izzard fan.) She said her friends asked her if C was her boyfriend, and I said "Did you tell them 'yes - in my mind?'" and we both laughed.

[wordsrmylife]

:-}

[philia_fan]

Studies like this make me wonder why researchers aren't studying something more useful, and who is funding this stuff, anyway? Just what we need, reinforcement of stereotypes.

[wordsrmylife]

I hear you. But on the other hand, if an acoustic analysis reveals differences that can be ascribed to biology, it furthers the point that, as Lady Gaga puts it, "baby you were born this way."

It's a bit of a conundrum. I'd really want to see a much wider sample, and the same sample done in a different country, and...in short, a whole lot more information.