Skip to main content

Lisping and Male Homosexuality

Archives of Sexual Behavior volume 43, pages 1159–1163 (2014)Cite this article

Abstract

The present study examined the popular stereotype that gay men lisp by evaluating to what extent listeners associated dental or frontal articulation/lisping with gayness. Fifteen heterosexual males and 15 heterosexual females listened to 275 samples of read speech and judged the sexual orientation of the speakers. A total of 175 of the samples were of homosexual men, 74 (42.3 %) of which had been identified with lisping in a previous study; 100 were of heterosexual men, 18 (18 %) of which had been identified with lisping previously. Based on the ratings of the listeners of the present study, lisping speakers were significantly more often judged to be homosexual. This was true for the group as a whole as well as for the subgroup of homosexual and heterosexual men separately. Furthermore, there was no significant gender difference with respect to associating lisping with gayness. Male and female judges associated lisping with gayness to a similar degree. Additional analysis showed that overall 56.2 % of the time the judges were correct in their judgment of the speakers’ sexual orientation. The results of this study confirmed previous preliminary findings that suggested that frontal or dental articulation/lisping is a feature that listeners associate with gayness. The reason for this association remains to be clarified.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution.

Access options

Buy single article

Instant access to the full article PDF.

USD 39.95

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

References

  • Bleile, K. M. (2004). Manual of articulation and phonological disorders: Infancy through adulthood (2nd ed.). Clifton Park, NY: Thomson Delmar Learning.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bowen, C. (2002). Beyond lisping: Code switching and gay speech styles. http://www.speech-language-therapy.com/codemix.htm.

  • Crist, S. (1997). Duration of onset consonants in gay male stereotyped speech. University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics, 4, 53–70.

  • Fiske, S. T. (1998). Stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination. In D. T. Gilbert, S. T. Fiske, & G. Lindzey (Eds.), The handbook of social psychology (Vol. 2, 4th ed., pp. 357–411). Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill.

  • Gaudio, R. (1994). Sounding gay: Pitch properties in the speech of gay and straight men. American Speech, 69, 30–57.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • International Phonetic Association. (1974). The principles of the International Phonetic Association. London: University College.

    Google Scholar 

  • Linville, S. (1998). Acoustic correlates of perceived versus actual sexual orientation in men’s speech. Pholia Phoniatrica et Logopaedica, 50, 35–48.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mack, S., & Munson, B. (2012). The influence of /s/ quality on ratings of men’s sexual orientation: Explicit and implicit measures of the “gay lisp” stereotype. Journal of Phonetics, 40, 198–212.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mower, D. E., Wahl, P., & Doolan, S. J. (1978). Effect of lisping on audience evaluation of male speakers. Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders, 43, 140–148.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Munson, B., & Babel, M. (2007). Loose lips and silver tongues, or, projecting sexual orientation through speech. Language and Linguistics Compass, 1, 416–449.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Munson, B., Jefferson, S. V., & McDonald, E. C. (2006a). The influence of perceived sexual orientation on fricative identification. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 119, 2427–2437.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Munson, B., McDonald, E. C., DeBoe, N. L., & White, A. R. (2006b). The acoustic and perceptual bases of judgments of women and men’s sexual orientation from read speech. Journal of Phonetics, 34, 202–240.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Munson, B., et al. (2010). Variation, implied pathology, social meaning, and the “gay lisp”: A response to Van Borsel et al. (2009). Journal of Communication Disorders, 43, 1–5.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Pierrehumbert, J. B., Bent, T., Munson, B., Bradlow, A. R., & Bailey, J. M. (2004). The influence of sexual orientation on vowel production. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 116, 1905–1908.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Rendall, D., Vasey, P. L., & McKenzie, J. (2008). The queen’s English: An alternative, biosocial hypothesis for the distinctive features of “gay speech”. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 37, 188–204.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Rieger, G., Linsenmeier, J. A. W., Gygax, L., Garcia, S., & Baily, J. M. (2010). Dissecting “gaydar”: Accuracy and the role of masculinity-femininity. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 39, 124–140.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Taywaditep, K. J. (2001). Marginalization among the marginalized: Gay men’s anti-effeminacy attitudes. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL.

  • Van Borsel, J., De Bruyn, E., Lefebvre, E., Sokoloff, A., De Ley, S., & Baudonck, N. (2009). The prevalence of lisping in gay men. Journal of Communication Disorders, 42, 100–106.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Van Borsel, J., Van Rentergem, S., & Verhaeghe, L. (2007). The prevalence of lisping in young adults. Journal of Communication Disorders, 40, 493–502.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Logopaedic and Audiological Sciences, Gent University, Ghent, Belgium

    John Van Borsel

  2. Mestrado Fonoaudiologia, Veiga de Almeida University Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

    John Van Borsel

  3. UZ Gent 2P1, De Pintelaan 185, 9000, Ghent, Belgium

    John Van Borsel

  4. UZ Gent, COS, Ghent, Belgium

    Anneleen Van de Putte

Authors
  1. John Van Borsel
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Anneleen Van de Putte
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to John Van Borsel.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Van Borsel, J., Van de Putte, A. Lisping and Male Homosexuality. Arch Sex Behav 43, 1159–1163 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-014-0262-x

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Revised:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-014-0262-x

Keywords

  • Lisping
  • Gay
  • Homosexuality
  • Stereotypes
  • Sexual orientation