The Science of “Gaydar”: How Well Can We Detect Other People’s Sexual Orientatn?" name="scriptn
Contents:
IS ‘GAYDAR’ REALLY A THG?
The Science of “Gaydar”:. Gaydar has been the subject of a fair amount of scientific ntroversy as of late. Is gaydar really a thg and, if so, how accurate is ?
People talk about ‘gaydar’ as the abily to terme whether someone is gay based on their tun about the person. Most scientific studi of gaydar suggt that there’s somethg to this ia. The wi-rangg fdgs suggt that gaydar n potentially pick up on everythg om one’s looks to movements to speech patterns.
In fact, when people are asked to thk refully before makg a sexualy judgment, gaydar actually be ls accurate. In other words, the more people thk about , the worse their gaydar is! Some people seem to have more accurate gaydar than others.
THE TTH ABOUT ‘GAYDAR’
For stance, people who hold anti-gay views typilly perform worse gaydar studi; by ntrast, sexual mori and people who have more faiary. In a particularly fascatg study, rearchers found that women’s gaydar was more accurate when they were ovulatg than when they weren’t. Put another way, when women are at peak fertily, their abily to distguish men who are gay om those who are straight appears to improve.
Most studi of gaydar volve askg people to make eher/or judgments: is this person gay or is this person straight? So what happens when bisexual people are clud gaydar rearch?
Also, when people are given the opportuny to gus a target’s sexualy on a spectm—a la the classic Ksey Sle—rather than makg eher/or cisns, gay and bisexual persons tend to be given pretty siar ratgs. This suggts that gaydar really only distguish heterosexual om non-heterosexual, meang don’t necsarily help when to makg more fe-graed termatns. Overall, gaydar helps people make sexual orientatn ferenc that are better than chance gusg; however, they are far om perfect.
GAYDAR: DO YOU HAVE IT?
Most gaydar studi are set up so that participants would be rrect 50% of the time were they to rely on chance gusg.
Bottom le: The rearch nducted to date suggts that there is somethg to the ia of gaydar that people appear able to tuively terme others’ sexualy at levels greater than chance rponse to a variety of cu. At the same time, though, gaydar is clearly an imperfect tool, and one that don’t necsarily appear sensive to the wi spectm of sexuali that exist.
When they disver that he died of AIDS, Philomena says she always knew he was gay. This kd of tun is often lled “gaydar” (a batn of “gay” and “radar.