• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

Gays Can't Whistle?

B

barfing_pumpkin

Gone But Not Forgotten
(ACCOUNT RETIRED)
Joined
Aug 6, 2005
Messages
723
Not so long ago I started reading Ian Fleming's 'The Man with the Golden Gun', and I was surprised to find - in a section dealing with the file held by British Intelligence on Scaramanga - that the titular villain is suspected of having homosexual tendencies on account of the fact that he cannot whistle!

Course, it's a work of fiction, but the context seems to suggest that Fleming saw a least a grain of truth in the 'fact'. Apparently, gays cannot whistle. Which, if true, would lay to rest all the debate about whether or not homosexuality is 'learned' behavior, as it would hint very strongly indeed at a genetic foundation.

It therefore can't be true ... can it? And besides - and more intriguingly - where the hell did such an idea come from? (providing it's not true. Which it isn't. Surely.) It seems an odd association to make.

Not having any gay pals that I know of, I can't test the theory myself, and a look at snopes turned up nothing.

So where on earth did the idea come from?

Edit [Yith]: Source.

Screen Shot 2018-05-28 at 02.12.48.png


(btw - I heard you. Yes, you. Just having a little test, yes? Just to make sure that ... well, you know ... that you're not good with colours, or anything.)
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I believe that this is an extension of the idea that girls cannot whistle, which is false, but derives from the cultural conception that girls should not whistle, whistling being defined as masculine behavior. This folk attitude is capsulized in the old saying "Whistling girls and crowing hens will always come to some bad ends."

I can't whistle, though this may partly be due to poor training - I've never been able to get a clear idea of what's involved in whistling. Good whistlers do it instinctively and appear stymied when asked for instructions. I'm also suboptimal at blowing up balloons and making bubblegum bubbles, though I did finally learn to do both. It's possible that there's some relevant set of muscles which is usually stronger or more flexible or something in males than in females, in which case straight women and gay men whose sexual orientation is related to physical femininity (there's a lot more individual variation in this than is commonly assumed) would be statistically less likely to be able to whistle than straight men and lesbians whose sexual orientation is related to masculinity - but I don't have the kind of references to hand that would let me make a good judgement on the liklihood of this. (Note to self, get some books on gender biology.)
 
"Not having any gay pals that I know of, I can't test the theory myself . . . "

Stride into the local watering-hole and ask if any of the guys want to give a little blow.

Just don't blame me if it's to the side of your head with a two-stone bag! :wince:
 
They talked about this on the quiz show QI. Stephen Fry tried to whistle but wasn´t able to, though I think that was on purpose.
 
I believe that's one of Fry's standard jokes, as I saw him do it on an American talk show once, ages ago (no idea which one, since I don't watch them and would only have seen it when someone else had it on and I was in the room).
 
My youngest sister is an amazing whistler, being able to produce incredibly loud and penetrating whistles whenever she wanted. I have several gay friends who are adept at whistling.
I'd suggest this is an urban legend based, as previously mentioned, on the social strictures that it was considered crude and/or masculine to whistle loudly.
 
The only gay man round here that I knew died some months back, so I can't ask him. (Well, going to see a medium would be so-o-o-o confusing!)

I know of another alleged gay, but not to speak to, and I suspect a pal of mine (not seen frequently) of being a closet gay, but it would be a very tricky topic to bring up in conversation! Especially as this 'rumour' would presumably be well known in the gay community.

Personally, I hate people who whistle anyway. On board ship it's considered bad luck, and most of those who whistle on dry land are annoyingly out of tune anyhow! :evil:
 
As we know, from watching Brass Eye or The Day Today I don't remember which, gays can't whistle, the can't aim and they muck about.
 
liveinabin1 said:
As we know, from watching Brass Eye or The Day Today I don't remember which, gays can't whistle, the can't aim and they muck about.
Click to expand...

They also attract sharks and nudge people when they're trying to shoot.

It was Brass Eye.
 
rynner said:
On board ship it's considered bad luck, and most of those who whistle on dry land are annoyingly out of tune anyhow! :evil:
Click to expand...

This comes not from superstition but from practical memory. In the days of sail, the riggers would use whistles to communicate orders to each other so "careless" whistling would cause dangerous confusion. Same goes for the "superstition" against whistling on stage - many of the riggers while on shore leave would get part-time work as stage hands and scenery riggers in theatres so, again, whistling could be hazardous.
 
liveinabin1 said:
As we know, from watching Brass Eye or The Day Today I don't remember which, gays can't whistle, the can't aim and they muck about.
Click to expand...

:D
 
Working through people I /know/ can whistle (an oddly small number) I can offer

2 male and gay
1 female and gay
1 mtof and gay

which I think covers quite a lot of bases.

Kath

edited for gibberish :roll:
 
PeniG said:
I believe that this is an extension of the idea that girls cannot whistle, which is false....
Click to expand...

I understand that the rather intricate two-toned whistling which opened the 1940s American radio program THE WHISTLER was performed by a woman (although the Whistler himself was a male character). Moreover, she was the only person ever found who could handle it.

P. S. I can't whistle and I am totally straight. When I attempt to whistle I merely sound like a guy wearing new false teeth.
 
Sometimes I can whistle and sometimes I can't and I can never whistle in tune...
 
Snow White off of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs could whistle. She made a virtue of it.
 
Come to think of it, Julie Andrews whistled in Mary Poppins, didn't she? Or was it Sound of Music?

And there was one of The Bangles. But maybe she was lesbian.
 
Wouldn't Marni Nixon who dubbed Deborah Kerr's singing voice in The King and I, been able to whistle since there's the song Whenever I feel afraid I whistle a happy tune...and I guess every other actress whose played the role...

And, yes, I think Julie Andrews whistles in Mary Poppins.
 
So we've established that whistling is not a sex-related trait in any form, and also that cultural definition of whistling as masculine is so old-fashioned even the conservative Disney Corporation hasn't regarded it since at least the 30s.

So does anyone have any evidence either as to how, when, or why whistling was defined as masculine or when this definition changed? I know that I generally encounter the "whistling girls and crowing hens" rhyme in the context of 19th-century tomboys (in fiction and in memoir) being chided for masculine behavior. I wonder if this means that whistling came in on the same rising tide of liberation that carried corsets and floor-length skirts out. The first I heard the "gays can't whistle" canard was when Fry made his joke about it.

Hmm...I may actually have some relevant sources here for the literary aspect...
 
it sounds like a homophobic, macho-ist UL ('they're not like us... they can't even whistle')
 
it sounds like a homophobic, macho-ist UL ('they're not like us... they can't even whistle')
Click to expand...

The 'not like us...they can't even whistle' bit is probably as close to the truth as anything, I reckon. Considering Fleming's book was written in the early sixties, when homosexuality was not only much more feared and despised amongst hetero folk a lot more than it is now, but highly misunderstood as well, I can imagine that a good number of people must have thought that there should also be a fairly obvious physical 'symptom' of the condition (this might also be related to the phobic aspect as well - like the 'reds under the bed' scenario, anyone could be gay: your brother, your buddy, your boss ... so perhaps the idea of an easy way to tell who was gay would have been seen as handy at the time, especially to those chaps who couldn't go to a public urinal without fear of being pounced upon by some lurking 'woofter')

How the association between sexuality and one's ability to whistle came about is anyone's guess, though. I can only suppose some greybeard happened upon a small number of gays who, by sheer coincidence, could not whistle, and lazily decided to apply it as a universal rule.
 
I'm pretty sure gay men can whistle, it just depend which way the wind hits them.
;)
 
I could whistle fairly well until a car crash left me with a permanent fat lip, after which I took up singing. ;)

Dunno what that says about my sexuality. :lol:

Or if whistling is macho, does it work the opposite way for women? So that a woman's sexuality is suspect if she can whistle?
 
ted_bloody_maul said:
liveinabin1 said:
As we know, from watching Brass Eye or The Day Today I don't remember which, gays can't whistle, the can't aim and they muck about.
Click to expand...

They also attract sharks and nudge people when they're trying to shoot.

It was Brass Eye.
Click to expand...

Not to forget attracting enemy radar.
 
In D.J. West's seminal tome Homosexuality, published in 1955, I read tonight that men are suspected to be homosexual if they display certain physical characteristics, including a feminine distribution of pubic hair. Another is an inability to whistle.

I looked up 'whistle' in the index and found 'Whistle, inability to' listed on the page where I'd found it.

So in 1955 at least, it was taken seriously enough to merit not only a mention but an index entry. :lol:
 
escargot1 said:
I looked up 'whistle' in the index and found 'Whistle, inability to' listed on the page where I'd found it.

So in 1955 at least, it was taken seriously enough to merit not only a mention but an index entry. :lol:
Click to expand...
This must earn you the 'Nerd of the Week' award! 8)

(I hope to get the next one, for my researches into Fletcher Christian...
http://www.forteantimes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=32975 :D )
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top