Bisexual men are perceived as more masculine than heterosexual men, according to a study
- The University of Sydney asked 70 participants to rank the masculinity of voices
- Bisexual men were perceived to have more “dominant” voices than all other men
Bisexual men sound more masculine than straight and gay men, a new study has claimed.
Researchers at the University of Sydney asked 70 Australians to guess the sexuality and rank the “femininity” of 60 men reciting lines from the national anthem.
While the participants could distinguish between the voices of gay and straight men with 62 percent accuracy, they often had trouble identifying bisexual men.
“Naive listeners can distinguish the voices of gay and heterosexual men at rates greater than probability rates, although this was not the case for bisexual men,” the authors wrote.
“Along with the finding that bisexual men were judged to be the most exclusively attracted to women, they were also judged to be the most masculine.
Bisexual men sound more masculine than straight and gay men, according to a new survey (file image)
“These findings provide further support that perceptions of male vocal masculinity and heterosexuality go hand in hand, regardless of the speaker’s sexual orientation.”
Differences between the way straight and gay men speak have been previously identified in previous studies.
In Italy, Germany and the US, analysis shows that gay men tend to speak in a higher pitch and often pronounce words more accurately than straight men.
This was often considered more “girly” because it deviates from the rigidly enforced “masculine” norms of a deep, low-pitched voice.
It’s not clear what exactly causes this, but many suggest that biological processes in the brain and even internalized stereotypes could be at play.
In the latest research, experts initially thought that bisexual men would fit somewhere between these perceptions: being seen as “more feminine” than straight men but “less masculine” than gay men.
Although the bisexual men created a “unique impression” in the study, the researchers say it was an impression that listeners did not associate with bisexuality.
Bisexual men were perceived to have more “dominant” voices than gay and straight men
Scientists believe this phenomenon may cause bisexual men to be more commonly misidentified as heterosexual, contributing to “bisexual erasure.”
First coined in 2000, this refers to the failure to acknowledge that bisexuals exist despite clear scientific evidence that they do.
Many believe this stems from a general tendency to view sexual orientation on a very black and white basis where people can be either gay or straight.
This norm turns any other sexuality, including bisexuality and pansexuality, into an illegitimate phase or feelings.
“Deletion represents a pressing dilemma for bisexuals on a day-to-day basis, as bisexuals report less connection with other sexual minority people than their gay and lesbian peers, and also greater concealment of their sexual identity,” the researchers said.
“Future studies should strive to understand the complex relationship between sexual identity and speech patterns.”
READ MORE: Scientists find homosexuality is likely caused by a combination of environmental and genetic factors
Preference for same-sex relationships is determined by genetic and environmental factors, a large-scale study has confirmed.
This means that there is no single ‘gay gene’ that determines your sexual preferences, like many other human traits.
Instead, thousands of genetic regions are involved, which together account for 8 to 25 percent of the variation in sexual preferences between people.
The researchers confirmed this after studying genetic and survey data from more than 470,000 volunteers taken from the UK Biobank and 23andMe.com.
Preference for same-sex relationships is determined by a variety of environmental and genetic factors, a large-scale study has confirmed (file image)
