There’s an old expression in the gay community about a macho-looking man who opens his mouth and “a purse falls out”. This sort of “looks Tarzan, sounds Jane” is particular to the gay male community where a high-pitched, lisping voice has been a huge part of the stereotype of what gay men were like ever since Charles Nelson Riley delivered saucy double entendres on The Match Game (or his UK equivalent Larry Grayson exclaimed “Shut that door!” on The Generation Game).  Usually this “gay voice” isn’t regarded as a positive, either by homophobes making fun of the lisp (usually accompanied by a wrist limper than day-old pasta) or the gay men who notice effeminate tones coming from the mouth of a potential suitor. David Thorpe, a journalist and film-maker, has become an expert on the vocal registers of gay men. His new movie Do I Sound Gay? is out on Friday and looks at the roots of where this particular intonation might have originated and why gay men feel so badly about it. It also charts Thorpe’s own journey to make his voice sound “less gay” through elocution lessons and voice exercises.  Thorpe’s confrontation with the gay voice came in 2010 when riding the ferry to Fire Island Pines, an almost exclusively gay summer enclave popular with New Yorkers. As the men (and it is mainly men) embark for a weekend of sun, sea and sex, the boat can often sound like a flock of seagulls getting ready for a Robyn concert. “I love being gay and flamboyant sometimes but I can get overwhelmed sometimes when I’m in a tizzy,” Thorpe says. “I think that’s what a group of overexcited gay men should be called: a tizzy.”  That ferry ride planted the seed for the project. “I wanted to look at all the thought processes of how a voice could be a symbol for what is wrong with me,” Thorpe says. “So it was looking back at childhood and Paul Lynde and Liberace and having no other role models, and how that affected me when I came out. It was getting to the bottom of misogyny in gay culture – and in culture in general. It’s like an essay or an argument. Here is why I wouldn’t like my voice and here is what I learned when I tried to get the full story.”  Thorpe’s quest also took in issues in his personal life. He had just gone through a tough breakup and was wondering whether his voice was partly to blame. “At the beginning of this project when I was single and alone, that feeling of confidence in who I was just eroded and I was almost under water,” Thorpe says. “I feel like doing this project has restored my sense that it’s OK to be who I am.”  Just as Thorpe came to accept himself, gay people are increasingly being welcomed into the mainstream – so much so that being gay might soon seem incidental to many people’s identities. Does that mean that the gay voice will start to disappear too? “I don’t think the gay voice is going anywhere but I think people will embrace it and themselves and our voices will become part of mainstream culture,” Thorpe says.  If anything the gay voice might become even more prevalent. He points to YouTube stars like Lohanthony and Tyler Oakley who have stereotypically gay voices. Rather than repelling the kids on the school playground, they’re regarded as stars, partly for being authentically themselves – crucially important for millennials.  In fact, Thorpe thinks that sometimes they might even be too gay. “The seventh-grade part of me when I see Lohanthony is like, ‘You can’t be like that,’” he says. “I want to ask my 13-year-old niece, ‘Isn’t he too gay for you?’ And that’s me and my own issues. Gay people can benefit from Lohanthony too.”  And it’s still the Lohanthonys of the world who have the most at risk for being too effeminate in public spaces, especially when they speak. “It takes a long time for the progress that’s happening now to filter down to the schoolyard,” Thorpe says. “I think [total acceptance] is a great fantasy for people my age but for the young people on the ground it’s very different. It’s getting better but there is probably quite a long way to go.”  As for Thorpe himself, he’s given up on all the vocal exercises he learned in order to make his voice more “masculine”. He says that now, after all his training, he is confident in his voice and confident in himself. But on a recent trip to Fire Island, he still got a little bit annoyed at all those voices on the ferry. “Maybe the reason why I am so intolerant of those younger gay men as they queen out is because I’m an old fart,” he says. “But we can queen out at any age, so that’s something we’d have to talk more about.”
Lisping, camp and effeminate … do gay men really talk in a certain way? One film-maker investigated the phenomenon – and came to terms with his own voice