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What do you look for when using your "gaydar"?
We know about hair whorls and finger lengths but there's a LOT more to gaydar than that.
*** Click to Enlarge ***
Gay Men
Straight Men
1. Look at the eyebrow. Angular and pointed. Not flat. High above the eye, not low.
2. Look at the space between the outer brow and the outer corner of the eye. Larger space.
3. Look at the distance between pupils. (aka Hypertelorism*) Wider. If the pupils are not noticibly farther apart, the eyebrows will. Sometimes, this will help when a straight man has slightly pointy looking brows.
Some gaydar recent successes that can be attested to by my partner
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
pangolin - Fright Night - gaydar goes off on the Evil Ed character, sure enough, thanks to some perusing of imdb and wikipedia, after he did Fright Night, he went into porn.
Serpent and the Rainbow - gaydar goes off with some help of my partner. He asks me regarding Paul Winfield, and while I sometime inform him that there's not enough signal, sure enough, this one was correct.
Beetlejuice - the gaydar goes off twice. The first case is obvious (Otho) but the second character (the dad), less so (he seems to like them young from the news readings on him).
I've long known about B52's singer Fred Schneider before anyone told me based only on the album cover I had of him when I first got into them. I don't need the mannerisms or a scent or voice. (although all those things ring signals)
I've consistently been getting 75%, 80% on gaydar test at OkCupid. The photos however do not reveal enough "eye information" sometimes so it's only when there are no sunglasses, no shadows that I am able to attain perfect scores. I've really never missed (this past year) on actors.
These successes led me to study it more to see if I could increase it or if any of them mentioned the eye patterns I've found.
The Science of Gaydar
http://nymag.com/news/features/33520/in
Wikipedia Article on Gaydar
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaydar
Ok Cupid Gaydar Test
http://www.okcupid.com/gaydar
Gaydar secrets
http://hubpages.com/hub/Gaydar_Secrets
While looking for more pictures of Viggo, I instantly saw a gay man (turned out to be someone at the Advocate) and picked this one for a side by side.
It sucks to be hitting up the wrong tree or be cruising for punches. It's quite true that most gay men know gaydar best for perhaps our very survival. While many autistics have prosopagnosia (face-blindness), other studies show that gay men have a penchant for faces and facial recognition. I happen to have this. I don't know that anyone will want to study eyes like I do. It's a lot more reliable than hair whorl anyway. A lot of gay men are extremely subtle but don't think you can fool me too easily. I can usually spot the straight for porn actors a mile away. (yes, Sean Cody is a great resource for that http://www.seancody.com as he has a lot of them)
What keeps me up at night though is if someone will abuse this knowledge or find it out. I thought about a research grant proposal but I'm certain someone will just dismiss this so I just keep it to myself. I'm sure there are no firm and fast rules either. This is just a very common phenotypical expression. I'm not claiming universality or the lack of a spectrum of sexuality. Further, I strongly believe in several, not just this one, phenotypes being a cause which similarity is shares with autism being that there are many genetic conditions that can cause the class of behavioral profiles fitting within autism.
What I'm glad of though is the fact that I was given this birthright genetically. I don't care so much if this is a choice or not. I do feel however that if there is some Higher Power, said Higher Power made me this way, allowed me to be this way and so there's no way in Hell, literally, that I can be condemned based on how I was made. I simply don't believe in that. I am who I am. I'm happy to exist and be who I am....an autistic, gay, left-handed male of the 21st century.
* It's long known that those with genetic anomalies like autism, Cri du Chat Syndrome have a higher than usual percentage of alternative sexuality in their subpopulations. (for the autistic sample, see the rdos autistic quiz site: http://www.rdos.net/eng/Aspie-quiz.php
Here are a few more markups. Keep in mind that some faces are more obvious than others but I can still tell even the random actor.
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Comments
Oddly, a lot of people I know "too well" don't register for me as well either. (I also tend to friend very unique people) I register strangers better. I guess it's too much information interference.
Edited at 2008-10-21 03:33 pm (UTC)
Lesbians are much easier. They have a certain look about them, and in today's society, there is much less stigma placed on a woman who dresses and acts somewhat masculine than the other way around, and lesbians often go that way, at least with their hairstyles.
I haven't picked out any physical characteristics, but short hair and a certain type of dress seems to indicate that she is more likely a butch lesbian. Gothy/alternative style dress probably means that she self-identifies as bi or poly.
http://www.blairmag.com/blair3/gaydar/g
One good thing though is that dress often helps indicates "acceptance" and "tolerance" too so there's less chance someone who is European is going to be terribly offended if I "inquire" if they happen to have any particular "alternative" preferences or lifestyle background. It's a difficult subject to broach compared to how straights do it. (here at least).
I can totally appreciate the problems of boxing. I'm stuck between my rational scientific interests and my desire to do the best thing for all. I thought long and hard before posting this. I wanted this to be a howto for other guys and not a research proposal. I currently don't need this skill too much as I have a wonderful partner...it does however help me find allies at work though. There however, I'm more able to get a full load of secondary signals including dress though. (I still rely some on physiological aspects and so it helps)
I think you're right here. I've noticed that if a woman dresses more traditionally "male" (like, say, wearing a type of collared shirt semi-frequently) then even if she's not a lesbian, she probably is less afraid of conforming to gender pressures/values. The guys I've met with longer hair tend to cop shit because of it, and while most of them have been straight, they also seem to be more tolerant. Of course all of this stuff is corollary, rather than causal or even directly related...people are pretty complex.
Choice is a complicated topic for me. A lot of the time I'm not even sure what it really means. I think that "Is it a choice?" has been and sometimes still is an important question for the gay rights movement, but in some ways it's a very simplistic, bottom-line way of looking at things. I think it provides an answer to religious extremists, but not necessarily to a broader variety of people in discussing these things. So much of the arguments that the religious right get into seem to turn conflationary and over-simplified as a result of ideas like free will and marriage as a religious thing rather than a civil thing.
Also, I think that the answer to "Is it a choice?" is of course "No," in the sense that we can't really make choices about our own desires. And I'm coming at this as a female bisexual who prefers women; I think that the research out there does suggest that female sexuality is much more fluid than male sexuality. I've known a lot of straight guys and a lot of gay guys, and tons of bisexual women, or lesbians who admit to occasionally being attracted to men, but only a few male bisexuals, and they preferred guys when they rated themselves on the Kinsey scale. I don't know, though, even this makes me wonder. I once theorized with a friend that men will be less-likely to admit to same sex attractions if they're not predominant because the stigma against male homosexuality is so strong.
Personally I am terrible at gaydar, I can't tell a joke from a poke so to speak...and I am usually wrong. What about the "bi" sexual men? Call me an asshole but I don't believe to strongly in male bisexuality. Any thoughts on how to detect the bi's?
Sometimes, a man transitions his orientation due to a transition in social pressures in his life. But regardless of identifications, the inner fantasies have usually been the same. Male plumbing works regardless of orientation either way. (straight on gay, gay on straight) but attraction is a different matter based on these other studies (some are linked from my links above if not outright mentioned there).
Yes, I could tell you by traits but then I already knew. In fact, after a while, I had a hard time going based on looks and instead, I shortcutted it with my knowledge which interferes a bit. Knowing someone in person causes all sorts of other signals to trump over the physical ones but they're still there. I got the brows of course too I think. I think I have a good hundred or so picture samples of the phenomenon just on hard drive and I can find them by the millions perhaps the world over.
Yes, eugenic abuse of this knowledge would be downright awful. You can't be an asshole for saying that now. Thanks for your thoughts and ideas.
Edited at 2008-10-21 09:26 pm (UTC)
who were huge...so I'm just curious as to what the motives are of such scientists. Is it a homophobic pissing contest? Just curious...