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
• STRAIGHT TALK ABOUT GAY BRAS
• GAY MALE BRAS AND HOW THEY ONCE HELPED EVERYONE SURVIVE.
• A GAY MAN’S BRA LOOKS A LOT LIKE A STRAIGHT WOMAN’S BRA

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.

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. 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.

“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.

GAY BRAS STCTURED LIKE THOSE OF THE OPPOSE SEX

“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.

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

But attractive fac and enticg pheromon are both related to sex, and rpons to them uld be learned over Savic’s and Ldstrom’s new study shows that the differenc extend to fundamental aspects of the bra that aren’t directly lked to sex or behavur, and that are probably fixed om ia that straight men have more asymmetril bras than gay men fs wh prev rearch. From prev studi, we know that the nnectns ually lk to different areas the bras of men and women, and sprout om different hemispher -the right men, and the left was the pattern that Savic and Ldstrom saw the straight volunteers om their study, but the homosexuals showed the reverse pattern. For example, the amygdalas of gay men had more mon wh those of straight women – the two halv were well-nnected, they had more nrons projectg om the left half (as opposed to the right straight men) and the nrons nnected to the same parts of the bra that those of straight women nnectns provi some tantalisg hts about how gay and straight people differ their behavur.

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.

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.

WHAT THE GAY BRA LOOKS LIKE

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. 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. 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.

STRAIGHT TALK ABOUT GAY BRAS

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.

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.

GAY MALE BRAS AND HOW THEY ONCE HELPED EVERYONE SURVIVE.

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. Breakg the rults down by blogil sex, highlighted that hetero- vers homosexual women (HeW > HoW) showed larger GMV the precentral gys, while the reverse ntrast (HoW > HeW) revealed larger GMV the putamen. In heterosexual and homosexual dividuals, the meddorsal thalam was more activated by fac of the preferred sex relative to fac of a ls sired sex, pennt of the observers’ blogil sex or sexual orientatn45.

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

While ngently suggtg that hypothalamic activatn has downstream effects on visual perceptn likely impactg the selectn of sexual partners46, prev fdgs also support a role of the thalam signalg sexual reward47 and aroal among homosexual and heterosexual thalam has numero reciprol rti-thalamic nnectns wh reward and sensory-motor regns49.

Neverthels, our rults preclu the possibily that the morphologil differenc between homo- and heterosexual dividuals reflect atypil cerebral sex studi showed that the precentral gys is implited the regulatn of emotn and self-evaluatn51, cludg the perceptn of body image52.

Homosexual men showed creased actnal amplu of low-equency fluctuatn (fALFF) the left postcentral gys54 pared to heterosexual men, whereas both heterosexual and homosexual dividuals exhibed higher activy of the post-central gys durg subjective aroal55. Sports engagement) or are at least partially ntgent on how much effort dividuals vt to obta putamen emerged as the only regn wh creased gray matter volume homosexual vers heterosexual dividuals but the difference was driven by homosexual women.