Deeper voices are considered more attractive - unless you're a straight man

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2026-02-25 11:01

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Everyone except straight men consider deeper, more 'masculine' voices to be more attractive, according to a study testing the preferences of both straight and gay men and women. The researchers say most studies into vocal preference have been done with straight people only, finding men prefer more feminine voices while women prefer more masculine ones. In two experiments testing how different these preferences were for gay people, international researchers recruited two sets of 180 adults with equal numbers of gay women, gay men, straight women and straight men. They asked the first group to rate the attractiveness of a series of voice recordings digitally altered to sound more masculine or feminine, while the second group rated recordings of people altering their own voices to sound more masculine or feminine. Gay men, gay women and straight women were all more likely to prefer masculinised voices, the researchers say, while straight men preferred feminised voices.

News release

From: The Royal Society

Vocal attractiveness in homosexual and heterosexual listeners

The human voice conveys information about what we say and about personal characteristics such as sex and identity. Previous research on voice attractiveness has focused almost entirely on heterosexual listeners, assuming their preferences best reflect theories of sexual selection. This study broadened that focus by including both heterosexual and homosexual men and women. Participants rated voices that were altered to sound more masculine or feminine. Only heterosexual males preferred feminised voices, while all other groups preferred masculinised voices. Sampling a broader cross section of the population revealed a richer understanding of human vocal communication.

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Journal/
conference: Royal Society Open Science

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: Edge Hill University, UK, University College London, UK

Funder: The study was funded by a Research Grant (ES/L01257X/1) from the Economic and Social Research Council. C.M. is currently funded by a Research Leadership Award (RL-2016-013) from the Leverhulme Trust.

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