What the Gay Bra Looks Like - TIME

Contents:

• STUDY SAYS BRAS OF GAY MEN AND WOMEN ARE SIAR
• GAY BRAS STCTURED LIKE THOSE OF THE OPPOSE SEX
• BRAS OF GAY PEOPLE REMBLE THOSE OF STRAIGHT PEOPLE OF OPPOSE SEX
• WHAT THE GAY BRA LOOKS LIKE
• A GAY MAN’S BRA LOOKS A LOT LIKE A STRAIGHT WOMAN’S BRA
• GAY MALE BRAS AND HOW THEY ONCE HELPED EVERYONE SURVIVE.

STUDY SAYS BRAS OF GAY MEN AND WOMEN ARE SIAR

Scientists at the Stockholm Bra Instute Swen report the Proceedgs of the Natnal Amy of Scienc USA that gay men and straight women share siar tras—most notably the size of their bras and the activy of the amygdala—an area of the bra tied to emotn, anxiety and aggrsn. Prev studi have examed bra differenc between gay and straight people on the basis of their rpons to var tasks, such as ratg the attractivens of other people.

They found that the straight men and gay women had asymmetril bras; that is, the cerebm (the largt part of the bra, which is rponsible for thought, sensory procsg, movement and planng) was larger on the right hemisphere of the bra than on the left.

They found that gay men and women, the blood flowed to areas volved fear and anxiety, whereas straight men and lbians tend to flow to pockets lked to aggrsn. The imag show the amygdala heterosexual men and women (labeled HeM and HeW) and homosexual and women (labeled HoM and HoW)(Image: Natnal Amy of Scienc, PNAS). The sns reveal that gay people, key stctur of the bra erng emotn, mood, anxiety and aggrsivens remble those straight people of the oppose sex.

GAY BRAS STCTURED LIKE THOSE OF THE OPPOSE SEX

Prev studi have also shown differenc bra archecture and activy between gay and straight people, but most relied on people’s rpons to sexualy driven cu that uld have been learned, such as ratg the attractivens of male or female fac. First they ed MRI sns to fd out the overall volume and shap of bras a group of 90 volunteers nsistg of 25 heterosexuals and 20 homosexuals of each genr.

BRAS OF GAY PEOPLE REMBLE THOSE OF STRAIGHT PEOPLE OF OPPOSE SEX

Gay men have higher rat of prsn too, she says, but ’s difficult to know whether this is down to blogy, homophobia or simply feelgs of beg “different”.

“This study monstrat that homosexuals of both sex show strong cross-sex shifts bra symmetry, ” says Qazi Rahman, a leadg rearcher on sexual orientatn at Queen Mary llege, Universy of London, UK. “Paradoxilly, ’s more rmative to look at thgs that have no direct nnectn wh sexual orientatn, and that’s where this study sr, ” says Simon LeVay, a proment US thor who 1991 reported fdg differenc (pdf) a part of the bra lled the hypothalam between straight and gay men. For at least 20 years, nroscientists have been tryg to disver whether there are specific anatomil differenc between heterosexual and homosexual men and women.

An early post-mortem study found that a small regn of the anterr hypothalam was smaller homosexual men than heterosexual men, and no different om heterosexual women. Overall, the specific bra regns homosexual mal tend to be siar to heterosexual women (more female‐typil), while the same bra regns homosexual women tend to be siar to heterosexual men (more male‐typil). Essentially, the differenc bra anatomy that distguish heterosexual mal and femal were prent, however they were ls pronounced when parg male and female homosexuals.

WHAT THE GAY BRA LOOKS LIKE

Geic factors that are associated wh variatns some rtil stctur showed oppose effects on rtil volume male vers female homosexuals who reported same-sex sexual behavrs. In other words, the bra regns of tert this study beme larger homosexual femal and smaller homosexual mal, as pared to their heterosexual unterparts. For stance, early studi reported an almost two-fold volumetric crease of the suprachiasmatic nucls of the hypothalam16 but twice smaller volum of the third terstial nucls of the anterr hypothalam (INAH-3) homosexual (HoM) relative to heterosexual men (HeM) and no volumetric differenc the INAH-3 between heterosexual women (HeW) and HoM17.

Comparg the regnal rtil thickns and subrtil volum of heterosexual and homosexual mal revealed smaller thalam volum and thner right orboontal and right visual rtic HoM20. In another voxel-based morphometry (VBM) study on sexual orientatn, ls gray matter nsy was observed the ventral cerebellum, the left ventral premotor rtex, and the temporo-basal rtex homosexual relative to heterosexual women22.

Furthermore, homosexualy seems to be associated wh ls distct cerebral sexual together, although extant fdgs suggt that human sexual orientatn is associated wh bra morphology, the heterogeneo and limed number of studi preclus a thorough unrstandg of the shared and distct nral signatur of sexual orientatn men and women. MethodsParticipantsMRI data of 37 men (21 homosexual men = HoM; 16 heterosexual men = HeM) and 37 women (19 homosexual women = HoW; 18 heterosexual women = HeW) entered the analys (see Supplementary Table 1 for sample mographics; N = 74). Participants were reced through universy bullet boards, Lbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgenr, and Queer or Qutng + (LGBTQ +) anizatns Aachen, Cologne and surroundg areas, and by word-of-mouth remendatn.

A GAY MAN’S BRA LOOKS A LOT LIKE A STRAIGHT WOMAN’S BRA

All participants were asked to dite their sexual orientatn at the time of measurement g a 1 to 4 sle rangg om (1) exclively homosexual, (2) predomantly homosexual, (3) bisexual, or (4) heterosexual. Altogether, 19 homosexual men and 15 homosexual women intified as exclively homosexual, while two homosexual men and four homosexual women intified as predomantly homosexual. 3D T1-weighted MRI sns were reoriented to the termissural plane, rrected for field tensy homogenei, and spatially normalized onto MNI standard space.

A homogeney check intified no outliers, th the GM volum of all 74 participants (21 HoM, 16 HeM, 19 HoW, 18 HeW) were clud subsequent analys: sexual orientatnFirst, whole-bra analys were performed g full factorial signs to pare GMV wh rpect to sexual orientatn (whole sample and per blogil sex, i. VBM ROI gray matter analys were performed on clters emergg om the heterosexual > homosexual and the reverse ntrast and masculy and femy sr om the BSRI qutnnaire. The rults suggt that HoM and HoW have a signifintly more externally oriented thkg style than HeM and HeW, rultg overall higher alexhymia levels for homosexual vs.

05 FWE-rrected at voxel level) revealed creased GMV the thalam, postcentral gys, middle occipal gys, precentral gys, middle temporal gys, and the cerebellum heterosexual pared to homosexual participants (see Fig. 1B, Table 2) 1Whole-bra v-FWE rrected VBM analys for the entire size imageTable 1 Clter list for ntrast heterosexual > homosexual all group (thrhold p < 0. HeM heterosexual men; HoM homosexual men; HeW heterosexual women; HoW homosexual size imageTable 3 Clter list for ntrast heterosexual mal > homosexual mal (thrhold p < 0.

GAY MALE BRAS AND HOW THEY ONCE HELPED EVERYONE SURVIVE.

05, FDR-rrected for multiple parisons) were intified for each clter for hetero- vers homosexual dividuals across the whole sample (irrpective of blogil sex) and men and women separately (sex-specific).

Clter 1: Thalam (MNI 9, − 21, 9)The heterosexual > homosexual orientatn analysis (irrpective of blogil sex; whole sample) related this thalam seed to actn executn, perceptn, somthis, pa, and to fger tappg, pa monorg and discrimatn paradigms. Clter 2: Pre- and postcentral gys (MNI − 41, − 18, 66)Heterosexualy > homosexualy (whole-sample) analys related the pre-/post-central gys to actn executn, speech, perceptn, and somthis functnal domas, and to paradigms cludg fger tappg, drawg, flexn/extensn, and reward.

DiscsnIn this study we vtigated rti-subrtil gray matter volume differenc homosexual and heterosexual dividuals to addrs the sparse and heterogeneo fdgs on morphologil bra differenc associated wh sexual orientatn. In le wh our hypoth, we found that, relative to homosexual participants, heterosexual dividuals had signifintly higher GMV the thalam and precentral gys.