Top Gun: Is There Really A Gay Subtext? We Asked The Wrer

Contents:

• KEN HAS ALWAYS BEEN BARBIE’S GAY BT FRIEND—NOT HER BOYIEND
• UNRSTANDG GAY & LBIAN INTI
• TOP GUN: IS THERE REALLY A GAY SUBTEXT? WE ASKED THE WRER
• GAY

KEN HAS ALWAYS BEEN BARBIE’S GAY BT FRIEND—NOT HER BOYIEND

We currently have a survey vtigatn unrway that explor some of the posive out of “bromosexual” iendships, cludg our theory that gay men and straight men n be optimal wg men for one another. Gay men – particularly those nservative and ral environments – rema wary about tryg to beiend straight men, fearg prejudice-fueled rejectn.

At the same time, many straight men still doubt that they’ll be able to relate to gay men any meangful way and, for this reason, may not try to iate a iendship. If they’re open-md about beiendg gay men and make the effort to try to fe iendships based upon mon terts, gay men should feel more fortable reciprotg.

Gay men who disclose their sexual orientatn to their straight male iends earlier life may be able to build more open and hont iendships wh them to adulthood.

UNRSTANDG GAY & LBIAN INTI

Send, recent rearch has argued that genr and sexual orientatn might not be as black and whe as prevly thought, which opens up new avenu for explorg how gay and straight men n relate to one another. If a straight guy and his gay male iend are ls rigid about their masculy and sexualy, they’ll probably be more likely to discs tails about their sexual and romantic liv openly wh one another. In short, women are able to tst the datg advice om gay male iends bee they know their gay iends don’t have any ulterr motiv: They’re not tryg to hook up wh them or pete wh them for guys.

Jt as a gay man might be able to pass on advice about women to his straight iend, a straight man uld nnect his gay male iend wh another sirable gay man, sce neher the gay man nor his straight iend are petg for the same person. We believe that havg a tstworthy nfidant to help wh romantic pursus is one of the major reasons straight and gay men are leavg the fort of their same-sex, same-orientatn iend groups to form “bromosexual” iendships.

Whout beg aware of , most people n accurately intify gay men by face aloneAlthough I've always wanted this particular superhuman power, I've never been very good at tectg other men's sexual orientatn. Fdgs om a recent study published the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, however, suggt I may be unrtimatg my gaydar abili. In an ial experiment, rearchers Nicholas Rule and Nali Ambady om Tufts Universy pesed onle datg s and refully selected 45 straight male fac and 45 gay male fac.

TOP GUN: IS THERE REALLY A GAY SUBTEXT? WE ASKED THE WRER

The 90 fac were then shown to 90 participants random orr, who were asked simply to judge the target's "probable sexual orientatn" (gay or straight) by prsg a button.

"Th, " the thors wrote, "by g photos of gay and straight dividuals that they themselv did not post, we were able to remove the fluence of self-prentatn and much of the potential selectn bias that may be prent photos om personal advertisements. And even wh the more strgent ntrols, the participants were able to intify the gay fac at levels greater than chance—aga even on those trials where the fac were flickered on the screen for a mere 50 lisends. For example, when shown only the eye regn ("whout brows and cropped to the outer nthi so that not even "crow's-feet" were visible"), perceivers were amazgly still able to accurately intify a man as beg gay.

I was cur enough about Rule's fdgs to look up "gay face" the Urban Dictnary, a popular Web se that offers rmal, er-ntributed fns of everyday (often crass) saygs.

GAY

"A man, ually homosexual, wh a distctly effete facial stcture wh some very specific featur; a strong jawle [sic] that lacks promence, space between the ey that rell people wh down syndrome [sic], and a slopg, long forehead. Now, that one's rather silly and sensatnalized—even polilly spect—and there's certaly no scientific evince support of the claims about the "mongoloid" featur of homosexual men's fac. For example, gay face clus tightns around the mouth om pursg the lips, a facial exprsn mon to gay men and women—but not to heterosexual men.

For example, the send experiment, participants uld still ferret out the gay face when shown the eye regn sans eyebrows and cropped to the outer nthi. (For example, one of my PhD stunts, David Harnn-Warwick, has a sual hunch that gay men may have sharper, clearer iris than straight men. It was only a few years ago that rearchers disvered that, unlike straight men, gay men tend to have hair whorl patterns that n a unterclockwise directn.