The gay lisp

[El Diablo]

NT locked goodsamaritan's post in OOT about the gay lisp. Probably because of the tone of good's post as well as OOT maybe not really being the right venue for serious discussion of this sort of thing.

But this is something I've always found strange and have thought about in the past. I did a search and found some interesting links.

http://joeclark.org/soundinggay.html - economist article
http://www.speech-language-therapy.com/codemix.htm - code switching and gay speech
http://www.newsandevents.utoronto.ca/bin2/020218c.asp - Researchers examine patterns

Lounge Linguists, thoughts?

[goodsamaritan]

I of course have no evidence to back this up, but I think the gay lisp evolved as a socially acceptable way for gay men to continuously advertise that they are gay. If a gay man wants to attract as many other gay men as possible, he'll optimize his search if every guy he meets can tell that he's gay. Otherwise, he risks meeting the man of his dreams, but missing the opportunity because the other guy didn't know that he was gay and potentially interested. The lisp accomplishes the goal of constant advertisement without requiring the gay guy to do anything too outlandish.

The more difficult questions, though, are how this tendency got started and exactly how people can recognize it.

[NT!]

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I think the gay lisp evolved as a socially acceptable way for gay men to continuously advertise that they are gay.

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Throughout history, there has very rarely been an 'acceptable' way for gay men to advertise that they are gay. There are very few places even today where it is really 'acceptable'. This is a terrible, terrible theory.

[goodsamaritan]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I think the gay lisp evolved as a socially acceptable way for gay men to continuously advertise that they are gay.

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Throughout history, there has very rarely been an 'acceptable' way for gay men to advertise that they are gay. There are very few places even today where it is really 'acceptable'. This is a terrible, terrible theory.

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Maybe socially acceptable isnt the right term. But it is good way for a man to subtly advertise that he is gay at all times.

[NT!]

I think a 'subtle' advertisement would be something like matching your socks with your belt. thaying you jutht looooove the new prada thtore on fthifthhtht avenue is not what i would call subtle

[Dominic]

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I think a 'subtle' advertisement would be something like matching your socks with your belt. thaying you jutht looooove the new prada thtore on fthifthhtht avenue is not what i would call subtle

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isn't this the kind of crass response for which you locked the other thread? El D put some effort into this post, and all you're doing is making "gays talk funny" posts. Bravo.

[El Diablo]

Dom,

I guess the most interesting thing to me here is how much of this speech pattern is learned behavior and how much of it is that people who are inclined to speak like this due to some physical reason are highly correlated with a likelihood to be gay.

Hmmm, not sure if that really made sense.

Things I'm wondering....

How much of his is directly linked to gay identity? Take someone who grew up in Hicksville and pushed all gayness to the far corners of his being. Then this person goes to college, moves to a big city, etc. and becomes more comfortable with his sexuality and acknowledges it. Is someone like that likely to NOW pick up this speech pattern?

What about straight guys who speak in this very affected manner. I know some who I was positive were gay after meeting them, but apparently they are not. How much of a physical thing is this?

I would say about half of the gay guys I know speak with some degree of this speech pattern, maybe a little less. I'm curious as to how much of that is due to learning/adapting to a culture vs. how much is due to some physical predisposition towards speaking that way.

I guess I could answer some of these questions by asking "gay sounding" gay friends when they started to talk like that and when they identified as being gay.

[Dominic]

it does seem to be a mix between "nurture vs. nature." I, too, know straight men who talk like this, as well as plenty of gay men who don't.

It does seem to me to be a way of "belonging" to a community of some sort for some of the more flamboyantly lisping gay men. Obviously then, it's an affectation for these people.

but what about the straight or gay men in middle America who talk like this, without having access to a socially acceptable "gay" community/bar/whatever? Where does this speech patter come from?

I think it's pretty perplexing, but those article you linked were interesting.

[NT!]

[ QUOTE ]
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I think a 'subtle' advertisement would be something like matching your socks with your belt. thaying you jutht looooove the new prada thtore on fthifthhtht avenue is not what i would call subtle

[/ QUOTE ]

isn't this the kind of crass response for which you locked the other thread? El D put some effort into this post, and all you're doing is making "gays talk funny" posts. Bravo.

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not at all

you'll notice i made the same type of 'crass' post in the thread in OOT

do you disagree? i think that the 'lisp' is much more complex a phenomenon than either solution samaritan gave, involving elements of both subconscious and conscious reinforcement. there's really not much sophisticated research on it at this point.

[FortunaMaximus]

I'm not much of a verbal linguist, but there are emergent patterns in different cultures where English is concerned.

To say English is one static language that they merely speak differently is inaccurate.

It's best to think of that as a cultural accent rather than a behavorial effect.

NT, do you realize there are better ways to bring your point across here? Even my girlfriend would knee you in the jewels for making that remark, sir.