That are often very "flaming" for lack of a better word, speak with a lisp. I mean there is nothing biologically that would casue this, nor is it a femminine trait....so how the hell did the lisp thing for some gay men catch on? This is a serious question, I am not trying to bash gay people, just curious.

12/17/2005 12:25:31 AM

it "softens" their speech....which i'm guess makes them FEEL more feminine

??

12/17/2005 12:27:30 AM

perhaps, i have no fuckin clue

12/17/2005 12:27:54 AM

I have always wondered the same thing.

Also, why do 99% of the gay men I encounter act more feminine that the girls I know?

I swear, 3/4 of the shit is an act.

12/17/2005 12:28:21 AM

Oh thweety, you're tho thilly

12/17/2005 12:30:36 AM

republican I have wondered that myself

12/17/2005 12:39:17 AM

years ago i heard it was not because they want to sound like women (a common misconception), but rather to distinguish themselves from straight men. you may have noticed that gay people look just like you.

12/17/2005 12:40:08 AM

so what about 20 or 30 years ago when being gay wasn't nearly as acceptable? did they still have lisps then?

12/17/2005 12:42:14 AM

i suppose thats possible, but why not do it through clothes and style as opposed to improper speech which thus dumbs the person down. I mean you can be gay and articulate and still stand out. I am also aware that many gay guys dont speak this way, this thread was directed at asking why those that do do

12/17/2005 12:42:28 AM

Why dont you people ever ask them in person?? Or do you not have the balls?? Or if you HAVE, what was his response?? (You probably havent, and if you say you have, you are probably lying)

12/17/2005 12:42:43 AM

my uncle is gay and i talk to him about all sorts of sociology and culture stuff, i just never thought to ask about the lisp thing. And i dont mean this to be offensive, just pure curiosity. i used to be pretty anti-gay but have since changed my views.

12/17/2005 12:45:23 AM

I'm actually pretty sensitive to this, Repub. You know me, and you know that I do not dress, look, or act like a typical bull dyke. I also don't WANT to. I love my skirts and my heels and my long hair.

I don't know why *some* gay men lisp, but who's to say ANYONE should change the way they look to make it more obvious which gender they have relationships with?

12/17/2005 12:45:44 AM

I always thought the lisps were unintentional and unchangeable.

12/17/2005 12:47:47 AM

at no point was i advocating change. i just meant this as a curious question. and when i said not speaking with it, it was a hypothetical question from their point of view saying "why would you want to sound less eloquent and childish by speaking with a lisp" i am not advocating change, i respect peoples right to do what they feel they want to

[Edited on December 17, 2005 at 12:48 AM. Reason : .]

12/17/2005 12:48:15 AM

I only hang out with 2 gay guys and they don't lisp

When 1 announced it, the next time I saw him I said "Its good to see you aren't speaking with a lisp and wearing leather" and he said "Yeah, I'm not gonna get 'queered up'"

12/17/2005 12:49:27 AM

my uncle is a pretty masculine dude, hes more of a cosmopolitan big city type.

12/17/2005 12:51:53 AM

yea i know a gay guy and he acts straight as anyone i know, and he's a huge football fan. the only thing that lets me know he's gay is that he likes to fuck guys

12/17/2005 12:54:44 AM

Quote :

"you may have noticed that gay people look just like you."

hahaha

my ass (no homo)

12/17/2005 1:07:09 AM

one of my best friends in high school was gay and we actually hade this convo. he didnt have a lisp but one of his gay friends suddenly had one one day and neither of us could ever figure out why that was

12/17/2005 1:17:11 AM

There's a hilarious David Cross bit about this (disc 1 track 7 on Shut Up You Fucking Baby).

But yeah, it's just to do with being a part of a culture, I guess. I think it's kind of stupid, but whatever. I've never been a fan of any sort of group divisiveness, be it racial, sexual, or whatever.

12/17/2005 1:18:33 AM

it depends on the person

i mean i have met gay guys who you'd never guess were gay by the way they spoke, and i've also met guys who claimed to be straight but when they opened their mouth a purse fell out

just like i have met lesbians who had high pitched girly voices and straight chicks who sounded like dudes when they talked

wow, ive met a lot of gay people

12/17/2005 2:35:59 AM

'cause they're gay like that

BTW, ask this at UNC and you'll get TONS of real answers

[Edited on December 17, 2005 at 2:41 AM. Reason : .]

12/17/2005 2:41:02 AM

You people.

12/17/2005 2:54:48 AM

a gay friend of mine once speculated that it is a type of attention whoring. makes you distinctive and lets other know you're gay. probably similar to why some guys "talk macho" or some girls who are normally very articulate in class/work revert to middle school "valley girl" speech around their friends. it's also another form of identification with the peer group.

as to why it started, my guess would be someone famous who came out of the closet did it first or it was a trend to "be different" or the like that caught on. Immitation of peers and those we look up to is a pretty well documented social phenomenon. unfortunatly, all of my gay friends were in diapers in the early 80's when the whole "gay thing" started getting press and becomming a mainstream issue so they're probably as clueless as to the origin of the lisp as anyone else our age.

12/17/2005 3:02:09 AM

just in case it doesnt work again...http://www.thewolfweb.com/photo_photo.aspx?user=27054&photo=438576

12/17/2005 3:03:17 AM

it seems to be a bottom phenomenon

12/17/2005 4:17:13 AM

here we go...

12/17/2005 4:23:20 AM

Repub- No, i get what you're asking and such and at least some of us didnt take offense at it (me included). I've also wondered the exact same thing myself! Although I'm not sure if some of them aren't real lisps, I wouldnt know. None of the bi or gay guys I know speak with one (I wont claim to know very many), so nobody to really ask.

I think rougeleaders idea makes the most sense though.

And in reply to someone earlier about girl's clothes n dressing like/not like a dike - you can't judge on that. I know a few girls who you'd never guess weren't straight, and I myself (who is straight) has been accused of not being straight once becuase i'm not "girly" enough apparently for them. F!ing stupid.

Wouldnt it suck if you were a straight guy with a lisp these days? (no rant, just thought of it)

[Edited on December 17, 2005 at 7:11 AM. Reason : .]

12/17/2005 7:10:47 AM

cause they're gay?

12/17/2005 7:44:23 AM

http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a950526.html
Google gave me that.

Note the observation that gay men don't lisp, but rather make long sssssss sounds (observation from a gay mans choir director)

12/19/2005 10:48:04 AM

i dont know any gay guys with a lisp so i cant really help.

12/19/2005 12:02:41 PM

It's just those are the only gay men you NOTICE.

After being in San Francisco for the pride weekend (which was fun as hell, even for a straight guy), I can tell you there is absolutely no fucking way in hell anyone has gaydar. For every flaming, lisp speaking, card carrying gay guy I saw there, I saw 200 kids you would think were macho frat boys, normal businessmen, or just regular dudes.

12/19/2005 12:51:49 PM

Quote :

"Oh thweety, you're tho thilly "

lmao

12/19/2005 1:05:27 PM

Noen is right

there are plenty of gay dudes who look and act just like you, the only difference being that they like dudes

12/19/2005 1:24:52 PM

i mean, are some of you SURPRISED by the fact that there are gay guys who you wouldn't know are gay? I thought that was sort of common knowledge.

oh, people have gaydar, it just doesn't help you spot everyone who's gay. some people (like me) have a pretty good ability to pick out people who are gay, some of whom haven't even admitted it (to anyone, even sometimes themselves). on the other hand, i've been completely shocked by some people who are gay as well. it's not like anyone can pick out every gay guy for miles or anything... unless they're gay themselves. gay men have an uncanny ability to know their own

also, i'm curious, are some of you saying that the speech thing is intentional?

Quote :

"years ago i heard it was not because they want to sound like women (a common misconception), but rather to distinguish themselves from straight men. you may have noticed that gay people look just like you."

i've never heard anyone suggest that before

[Edited on December 19, 2005 at 1:32 PM. Reason : .]

12/19/2005 1:31:34 PM

Quote :

"unfortunatly, all of my gay friends were in diapers in the early 80's when the whole "gay thing" started getting press and becomming a mainstream issue so they're probably as clueless as to the origin of the lisp as anyone else our age."

because God knows gay people and the whole "gay thing" never got any attention before 1980.

12/19/2005 1:48:36 PM

I dunno where it started, but I think a lot of gay people are confused about their self-identity, so they try to imitate the typical "gay" stereotypes.

Quote :

" oh, people have gaydar, it just doesn't help you spot everyone who's gay. some people (like me) have a pretty good ability to pick out people who are gay, some of whom haven't even admitted it (to anyone, even sometimes themselves)."

You must have a pretty high opinion of yourself if you think you can spot people who are gay who dont even know it yet.

12/19/2005 1:58:06 PM

THERE WERE NO GAY PEOPLE BEFORE 1980 OK. LEONARD GOLDENSTEIN THOUGHT OF THE IDEA OF SUCKING OTHER MEN'S DICKS ON FEBRUARY 13th, 1980.

12/19/2005 1:58:09 PM

^ it's true.


[Edited on December 19, 2005 at 2:02 PM. Reason : ah]

12/19/2005 2:01:56 PM

I always thought it was because the earring thing didn't work out for them. Which ear was it again? Exactly.



[Edited on December 19, 2005 at 2:02 PM. Reason : I forgot.]

12/19/2005 2:01:57 PM

Quote :

" You must have a pretty high opinion of yourself if you think you can spot people who are gay who dont even know it yet."

a.) I don't consider it a talent or something to be proud of, but I can
b.) I could list 3 people right now who swore they weren't gay who I said were gay. When they finally did come out (well, 2 came out, 1 still hasn't "come out" but has hooked up with guys) they swore that they didn't realize it until after I had labelled them

12/19/2005 2:27:28 PM

i thought the lisp was included in the package deal with the gay gene

12/19/2005 2:39:27 PM

why you got to act...

oh, i don't know

so WHITE all the time

dude

12/19/2005 2:41:09 PM

Nobody here can label shit.

stop acting like you can.

12/19/2005 2:50:41 PM

^^ HUH!?!

12/19/2005 2:55:32 PM

Quote :

"also, i'm curious, are some of you saying that the speech thing is intentional?"

that's probably the best guess. I just took a linguistics class with Wolfram (the king of sociolinguistics, apparently), and we talked about intentional or even subconscious speech choices to differentiate yourself from other groups. Mostly this related to African American English (their term) and how it really spiked around the civil rights era and tends to be more prominent among certain generations than others, despite other geographical features.

man that was way too academic, sry.

[Edited on December 19, 2005 at 3:05 PM. Reason : school's out]

12/19/2005 3:04:55 PM

no that's really interesting. intentional or subconscious speech choices eh? any suggestions on articles or books?

12/19/2005 4:15:13 PM

the textbook for the class was "American English: Dialects And Variation (Language in Society)" by Walt Wolfram and
Natalie Schilling-Estes. Really interesting stuff. He's got a couple videos, too, on dialects like those found in Ocracoke
and in the App. Mtns.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1405112662/qid=1135027456/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-4433166-5968749?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

There's probably a bunch of stuff out there in journals, too, but I haven't a clue where to start (other than Infotrac or similar).

[Edited on December 19, 2005 at 4:36 PM. Reason : V - yeah yeah yeah, i know]

12/19/2005 4:26:50 PM

n00b

12/19/2005 4:27:25 PM

maybe people with lisps are already ostracized and its an easy leap into the outsider community of homosexuality?

or maybe the conception is that men with lisps are gay so that is how many men with lisps end up

12/19/2005 8:23:29 PM