Comment by MisterTea
6 years ago
Hmmmm, I think there is more to gendered speech than pitch or frequency. It's about subject and delivery. Anyone a fan of The Venture Bros.? Dr Girlfriend is a female character voiced by a male actor (Doc Hammer) Although the given voice is that of a woman with an incredibly exaggerated smokers voice; think patty and selma from Simpsons multiplied by each other. The characters voice is obviously male but the delivery is effeminate which is why it works so well. At least I always heard it as a very exaggerated voice of a woman who smoked heavily.
My take on the voice? Sorry, to me it's an effeminate male voice. I hear a british woman overlaid with Fez from that seventies show. In fact I was on a flight yesterday with a very obvious gay male flight attendant who sounded very similar to this. Think man's voice with a little helium in the air.
> … a very obvious gay male flight attendant
I’m not a fan of these kind of characterizations. I can think of two things that make someone obviously gay: (1) they tell you, or (2) you see that person engaging in homosexual conduct.
Nearly anything else is probably a prejudicial stereotype.
This is indeed a complex theme, in part because how it is linked to negative stereotypes and in part because people might not realize they are sometimes reinforcing the negativity in them.
It is not controversial to say that an obvious metalhead is indeed a metalhead.
Also I would like to point out that "(2) you see that person engaging in homosexual conduct" is not that much of a silver bullet here, as bisexual and trans people exist too :)
Also sometime it is not hard to know more someone that they know themselves, I had a couple friends that were known to be gay before they knew themselves. And also "a very obvious gay male" does not mean homosexual to many people, in the last years society and the internet became much more mature in distinguishing masculine/effeminate stereotypes from actual sexual orientations. I have no idea of what went through GP minds, but I believe that being able to separate the "very obvious gay" from a description of a sexual orientation into a personality trait can be very beneficial for society in the long term.
If I can say it another, simpler way: I decide when and what I do with my body and what that makes me. No stranger’s perception nor insistence can change that. However, repeatedly being subjected to such judgements over subconscious or natural expressions of behavior, whether voice, gait, etc., is a vehicle for psychological harm, much like gas lighting.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay_male_speech
Whether you are a fan of those characterizations or not. It's real.
I know what’s real and I know people both gay and not gay (both adult and children) that have to deal with prejudicial treatment simply because of how they “sound”. But please, continue to defend yourself judging people or putting them in a box over something so superficial if you like—just don’t expect anyone to find it endearing.
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Sexuality is not just about intercourse. It is also a form of culture, identity, and expression.