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The "Gay" Lisp, Is it real or is it forced?

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Bel Marduk said:
It's just that there's a difference between being who you are and pretending to be something you're not.
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Someone hasn't been keeping up with the DSM-V. Transgender identity isn't a "disorder," regardless of your personal bigoted opinion on the matter.
 
My gay uncle and his partner don't have a lisp, so who knows? I had a friend in high school who had a lisp but he wasn't a homosexual.
 
I'm putting this thread on my ridiculist. This is absurd
1) obviously as stated by many already not every gay person has a lisp. I sure as hell don't
2) Are you guys really generalizing the gay community for putting on an act purposely to be more feminine? As if we are trying to be or mocking women? Granted I don't know everyone in the gay community so maybe a few might but come on I really can't grasp that idea at all. And if we are I guess in the eyes of some of you mocking women by putting on effeminate voices then that insinuates that we gay males tend to be sexist. I don't even think it could be forced. The community is supposed to be diverse hence the rainbow our flag is not black and white.

And to make one last point. Who cares. Yeah even I used to be this moronic but at the end of the day they are being themselves and in this society as a whole gay or straight where people don't want to truly be themselves you should instead of looking down upon them, you should look at them with respect because they are being who they are even though it goes against "societal norms".
P.S.Unless someone did already and I hope this doesn't invalidate my stance on this thread but how can you have a lisp thread and not talk about Chris Angel Mad Tv - Criss Angel Mindfreak
 
I think it is just a character trait for some. Not really forced as it is just part of the culture. Most gays that I know range from either being really feminine to just sort of average guys who you may never guess are gay. More feminine usually have a lisp.
 
badcrumble said:
Someone hasn't been keeping up with the DSM-V. Transgender identity isn't a "disorder," regardless of your personal bigoted opinion on the matter.
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What do we know? He's an expert and everybody acts in the same way. Fuck individuality.
 
I'm not sure this is comparable to ebonics. Often times people who talk with an urban, ebonics pronunciation were raised in homes with parents and siblings who talked the same way. So from a young, developmental age they learned how to speak that way, and in many cases don't meet people who speak "correctly" until middle school or even high school.

The average gay person isn't raised during their developmental stages around people with a lisp. As their innate sexuality comes out and they gravitate towards people like them, they encounter the lisp and other reinforced behavioral patterns, whether it's the lisp or something else. In many ways the lisp can be adopted to further fit in with this group, as with any other social clique (goths for instance).

I know one of the most "manly" black guy who happens to be gay. We became friends early, used the same gym, saw each other naked, played on basketball teams etc. I didn't find out he was gay until college, and I didn't believe him at first. Then I was crushed when I asked him "well, you must at least think I'm a catch right" and he said "eh, not really." But he's into more feminine guys. Still, I was bummed lmao
 
badcrumble said:
Someone hasn't been keeping up with the DSM-V. Transgender identity isn't a "disorder," regardless of your personal bigoted opinion on the matter.
Click to expand...

Wow, it would be great knowing whats in DSM-V when its published next year, but the proposed provision changes the name of gender identity disorder to gender dysphoria.. which is still a disorder. In fact, bi-polar disorder (which used to be called manic depressive disorder) is a dysphoria.

Changing semantics doesn't change what things are.
 
Bel Marduk said:
Yes, yes i am. Victims of gender identity disorder do this all the time. They believe they are a different gender. Of course, these strange folks can never be a different gender.. and are never truly transgendered unless they're hermaphrodites.

Normal gay people don't feel the need to take on affectations like a high voice.
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You know what, I'm normally a pretty cool-headed person. Normally, I'd sit here and attempt to argue with you. I know that what I'm about to say isn't the least bit constructive, and might even be exactly the kind of response you're looking for, but after dealing with the level of anti-trans bigotry that I have in the past 2 weeks, I really only have one thing to say.

Get fucked.
 
For anybody that I've personally know that was openly gay, they always had some sort of telling vocal inflection. It's either a lisp or just a lighter, effeminate tone.

I've always assumed that openly gay men intentionally change their vocal inflection to let everybody else around them know what their sexual orientation is. At some point, they're so used to speaking in that manner that it becomes something of an accent.
 
Bel Marduk said:
Wow, it would be great knowing whats in DSM-V when its published next year, but the proposed provision changes the name of gender identity disorder to gender dysphoria.. which is still a disorder. In fact, bi-polar disorder (which used to be called manic depressive disorder) is a dysphoria.

Changing semantics doesn't change what things are.
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Actually, the changed wording is because the 'disorder' in question is people being born with the wrong set of genitals.
 
Doc Holliday said:
I find this strange. Has there ever been any studies done on this? I mean what happens to a kid of one race that is adopted by a couple from another race. Surely the kid will grow up speaking like the family he was raised by.
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For what it's worth, I'm black but mainly grew up in a white community. Growing up I was always told in ways varying in amounts of subtlety that I talk pretty white.

That's still the case today.
 
People keep saying it's affected, but I know several people who had the lisp and swore they weren't gay for years, only later to come out of the closet. So I'm not sure it's totally voluntary.
 
Count Dookkake said:
I know black people who grew up with whites, yet they still managed to end up sounding "black." It can be an affectation, just like the gay voice. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
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you don't know what you're talking about. african-american vernacular english is a distinct dialect with its own grammar and usage patterns, and you couldn't properly "affect" it unless you went about it in a very studious manner - the vast majority of people who speak it learnt it in the exact same way you learnt to use whatever dialect of english you do, which is to say that it's pretty much imprinted on their brains as the way to speak and is unlikely to change significantly without some major social upheaval. the reason black people "sound black" is the same as the reason i sound white.

the "gay voice", however, is not a dialect of english, and really is nothing more than an affectation - conscious or unconscious. so, to answer the question in the OP, it might not be forced, but it's certainly not something inextricably linked to sexuality.
 
I think it's a cultural phenomenon within gay culture. If most of your friends have a lisp then it seems only natural that your own accent would begin to reflect theirs.

It's like when you go to England and come back with a British accent.
 
The question everybody should be asking is "what's wrong with having a lisp?"

If if "pisses you off" then it probably says more about you than the person with the lips. Who cares if it's forced or not.
 
The amount of internalized homophobia coming from some of the gays in this thread (I mean, I don't know what else to call it when you cheerlead the idea that effeminate gays are just attention whores) is really disgusting. :(
 
I know two different guys who both have a flamboyant, "gay" lisp/accent, and they're straight as arrows. One of them always gets all the girls 8(
 
It's not in the speech, it's in the walk.

Homosexuals have a part missing from their hip bone so they walk with a jaunt and have to raise their arm, at the elbow, to the side to balance themselves, or the "gay walk" as it is known in medical circles. Due to this infliction, you will inadvertently see the other medical condition of homosexuals. In technical terms it is called the "limp wrist", similar to the "gay walk" it is due to homosexuals having a small part of bone missing, part of their wrist bone is missing meaning their wrist "limps" as they "gay walk" down the high street.
 
Yeah, I'm pretty much straight and occasionally I find myself slipping into something similar to "the lisp" I usually find it happens when I'm the center of attention or when I feel like I'm being particularly witty. Its just an added inflection that signifies awareness people are paying more attention to you than someone else maybe?
 
chronos4590 said:
I'm putting this thread on my ridiculist. This is absurd
1) obviously as stated by many already not every gay person has a lisp. I sure as hell don't
2) Are you guys really generalizing the gay community for putting on an act purposely to be more feminine? As if we are trying to be or mocking women? Granted I don't know everyone in the gay community so maybe a few might but come on I really can't grasp that idea at all. And if we are I guess in the eyes of some of you mocking women by putting on effeminate voices then that insinuates that we gay males tend to be sexist. I don't even think it could be forced. The community is supposed to be diverse hence the rainbow our flag is not black and white.

And to make one last point. Who cares. Yeah even I used to be this moronic but at the end of the day they are being themselves and in this society as a whole gay or straight where people don't want to truly be themselves you should instead of looking down upon them, you should look at them with respect because they are being who they are even though it goes against "societal norms".
P.S.Unless someone did already and I hope this doesn't invalidate my stance on this thread but how can you have a lisp thread and not talk about Chris Angel Mad Tv - Criss Angel Mindfreak
Click to expand...

I think the main purpose of this thread is to figure out where it comes from. It's be one thing if some people had lisps and they happened to be gay. You know, just a coincidence. However, the lisp is so prevalent and associated with gays that one can't help but wonder why so many of them have it. As you said, a lot don't. I know multiple gay people. One has a lisp the other doesn't. Both are open about it so it's not that either is hiding it or anything like that. So it's just odd. I'm just pulling this out of my ass but it seems like a higher proportion of gay guys have a lisp than there is just guys with lisps with regards to the entire male population
 
Mike Tyson

BTW the "gay" lisp thing even exists in French, and I'm guessing other languages too.
 
It's not forced, but it's not something one is born with either.

It's a semi-subconscious learned behavior. And most guys learn it from other gay men. When you're a teenager or a young adult, you're VERY susseptible to social conditioning to fit into your environment. The ones who have a stereotype lisp learned it from the group of people they were introduced to gay "culture" by who also had it.
This is why you see less and less of it with every generation... because the younger generation considers it a terrible bullshit throwback and prefers to integrate with gay men who share similar behavioral patterns to who they are before they enter gay "culture" in the first place.

Hope that helps.
 
Mr_Brit said:
So I just watched a program. Someone asks some guy if the girl he was with was his girlfriend, he says obviously not and lets out a little 'Oh you're so stupid, isn't it obvious dummy?' scoff. What the gay man was alluding to was the lisp he had and the expectation that expected the guy who asked him to classify anyone with it as clearly gay. Personally, I don't think it's found in a higher proportion in gay men over any other group just like pretty much any other characteristic but I made the thread to find out what the rest of you think.

So my question to you GAF is: Is the gay lisp real or is it just a forced thing that some gay men put on to somehow signify that they're gay? Essentially, is it a real phenomenon or is it forced?

Edit: I put gay in quotation marks as I don't think it should necessarily be associated solely with gay men.
Click to expand...

Are you joking? Literally EVERYONE I've heard talk with it is gay or has come out of the closet later.

I personally think that it's almost a subconcious way to let people know you're gay without having to tell everyone all the time. It works really well, if that's what it's designed for.

EDIT: I hope my post doesn't give the impression that I think every gay has a lisp. I just think the incidence of people talking like that in the hetero population is so low that you might as well say 'no straight people talk like that'
 
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