How gay does that sound..?

What is it that makes some men sound camp? Delving beyond the stereotypical weak R, lisp or high pitched squeal, what exactly is it that denotes a somewhat less than butch voice?

Compare the voices of the following gay men: Kenneth Williams, Frankie Howard, John Inman, Julian Clary, Graham Norton, Dale Winton and Boy George. Although they're all very different voices, there's no mistaking them as anything other than camp sounding. Of course all the above mentioned are performers and their voices are manufactured to a certain degree. Nevertheless, they portray a truth, albeit an amplified and distorted truth, refracted rather than reflected.

What makes a voice sound camp? Is it an over enunciation, an elongation of certain vowel sounds, a pervading sibilance or a languid louchness in pronounciation? Could it be where the voice is produced from? I think that certain voices which originate at the back of the throat as opposed to the gut sound more camp. This is a technique that Julian Clary employs and was also used by (for those of you who remember) Danny La Rue. Could it be a musicality of tone that's the distinguishing factor? Frankie Howard and John Inman displayed this trait; their voices soared and swooped through octaves from one pitch to another. Graham Norton emphasises the musicality of his vocal delivery in a similar fashion.

Accent and dialect play a part. In themselves they are neither camp nor butch but in conjunction with other vocal effects they can accentuate campness. Paul O'Grady used this to great effect in his creation of Lily Savage. Sometimes campness can be found in someone trying to change their accent. In Peter Nichols play, Privates On Parade, he describes Terri's accent as, "Shaftsbury Avenue pasted over Lancashire". Similarly Boy George's voice betrays his aspirations to a more refined image, likewise Dale Winton.

Kenneth Williams was the master of all these techniques; accent manipulation, monumental pitch bending shifts and grotesque vowel elongation to the point of completely distorting everything he said. Yet he kept his homosexuality under wraps. Or so he thought. How could he be anything other than queer with a voice like that?

Of course, not all gay men speak with camp voices. And equally, not all straight men enjoy a furniture rumbling, bass, butch timbre. Listen to Little Britain creators, Matt Lucas and David Walliams in interview and it is heterosexual Walliams who sounds camp and not homosexual Lucas.

Could it be that these subtle vocal clues are some of the elements our subconscience tunes into when we first meet someone? When we talk about gaydar we usually refer to visual clues but surely the aural clues should not be underestimated?