Why Are So Many Gays and Lbians Attracted to Same-Sex People Who Look Like the Oppose Sex? - Washgton Cy Paper

Contents:

• WHY ARE PEOPLE GAY? GAY BY CHOICE OR IS BEG GAY GEIC?
• GAY AND STRAIGHT MEN MAY HAVE DIFFERENT FACIAL SHAP, NEW STUDY SUGGTS
• WHY WOULD PEOPLE 'CHOOSE' TO BE GAY?
• WHY ARE SO MANY GAYS AND LBIANS ATTRACTED TO SAME-SEX PEOPLE WHO LOOK LIKE THE OPPOSE SEX?
• WHAT SCIENCE KNOWS ABOUT WHY PEOPLE ARE GAY
• PEOPLE THK I'M GAY... BUT I'M NOT
• GAY PEOPLE LOOK DIFFERENT, WALK DIFFERENT THAN STRAIGHT PEOPLE

WHY ARE PEOPLE GAY? GAY BY CHOICE OR IS BEG GAY GEIC?

Scientists may have fally solved the puzzle of what mak a person gay, and how is passed om parents to their children.A group of scientists suggted Tuday that homosexuals get that tra om their oppose-sex parents: A lbian will almost always get the tra om her father, while a gay man will get the tra om his mother.The heredary lk of homosexualy has long been tablished, but scientists knew was not a strictly geic lk, bee there are many pairs of intil tws who have differg sexuali.

Scientists om the Natnal Instute for Mathematil and Blogil Synthis say homosexualy seems to have an epigeic, not a geic lk.Long thought to have some sort of heredary lk, a group of scientists suggted Tuday that homosexualy is lked to epi-marks — extra layers of rmatn that ntrol how certa gen are exprsed. In homosexuals, the epi-marks aren't erased — they're passed om father-to-dghter or mother-to-son, explas William Rice, an evolutnary blogist at the Universy of California Santa Barbara and lead thor of the study."There is pellg evince that epi-marks ntribute to both the siary and dissiary of fay members, and n therefore feasibly ntribute to the observed faial herance of homosexualy and s low nrdance between [intil] tws," Rice not.Rice and his team created a mathematil mol that explas why homosexualy is passed through epi-marks, not geics. Evolutnarily speakg, if homosexualy was solely a geic tra, scientists would expect the tra to eventually disappear bee homosexuals wouldn't be expected to reproduce.

GAY AND STRAIGHT MEN MAY HAVE DIFFERENT FACIAL SHAP, NEW STUDY SUGGTS

But bee the epi-marks provi an evolutnary advantage for the parents of homosexuals: They protect fathers of homosexuals om unrexposure to ttosterone and mothers of homosexuals om overexposure to ttosterone while they are gtatn."The epi-marks protect fathers and mothers om excs or unrexposure to ttosterone — when they rry over to oppose-sex offsprg, n e the masculizatn of femal or the femizatn of mal," Rice says, which n lead to a child beg gay. Rice not that the markers are "highly variable" and that only strong epi-marks will rult a homosexual offsprg.Though scientists have long spected some sort of geic lk, Rice says studi attemptg to expla why people are gay have been few and far between."Most mastream blogists have shied away om studyg bee of the social stigma," he says.

WHY WOULD PEOPLE 'CHOOSE' TO BE GAY?

Well there are many exampl of homosexualy nature, 's very mon." Homosexual behavr has been observed black swans, pengus, sheep, and other animals, he says.Rice's mol still needs to be tted on real-life parent-offsprg pairs, but he says this epigeic lk mak more sense than any other explanatn, and that his team has mapped out a way for other scientists to tt their work."We've found a story that looks really good," he says. It very much appears that same-sex sexual attractn is not a choice but actg on is; so if you fe gay as the mere prence of same-sex attractn, then om everythg we unrstand, beg gay is not a choice. If, on the other hand, you nsir someone to be gay only if they act on their same-sex attractn then beg gay n be nsired a choice pendg on an dividual's behavr.

Whether science n ultimately prove the blogy of beg gay or not, 's important to support all adults their choic no matter how they intify. Sign up for a full digt of all the bt opns of the week our Voic Dispatch emailSign up to our ee weekly Voic newsletterA new study analysg the facial differenc between homosexual and heterosexual men has found "signifint morphologil differenc". A study nducted by rearchers om the Center for Theoretil Study at Charl Universy Prague and The Amy of Scienc of the Czech Republic examed the possible differenc facial shape between homosexual and heterosexual dividuals and found "signifint" shape differenc fac of heterosexual and homosexual rults found that homosexual men were rated as more stereotypilly 'mascule' than heterosexual men, which they said unrmed stereotypil notns of gay men as more feme the first part of their study, rearchers looked at the morphologil differenc between gay and straight the send part, the team looked at whether an dividual's sexual orientatn n be rrectly termed solely based on facial featur.

The team, led by Jarka Valentova, reced 40 gay and 40 straight whe, Czech men for the first study and 33 gay and 33 straight men aged their early 20s for the pictur were taken of the men the first study g a Canon mera. Homosexual men showed relatively wir and shorter fac, smaller and shorter nos, and rather massive and more round jaws, "rultg a mosaic of both feme and mascule featur", the thors of the study female and 40 male stunts om Charl Universy were then asked to rate the sexual orientatn of the 66 participants the send study by rankg their masculy or femy on a sle on one to seven. One dited very mascule and seven dited very face shap of homosexual men were emed more mascule on this sle, and raters were unable to rrectly intify each participants sexual orientatn jt om lookg at their face.

WHY ARE SO MANY GAYS AND LBIANS ATTRACTED TO SAME-SEX PEOPLE WHO LOOK LIKE THE OPPOSE SEX?

The fact that we have found some signifint morphologil differenc between homosexual and heterosexual men do not mean that any of the groups is easily regnizable on the street (and our Study 2 actually shows that 's not that easy to gus anyone's sexual orientatn whout knowg ), or that anythg like that should be done (like potg on people wh our illtratns and gusg who is who). ”She add that the study would need be replited wh different ethnic groups and bigger sample siz orr to strengthen s thors nclud: "Our rults showed that differenc facial morphology of homosexual and heterosexual men do not simply mirror variatn femy, and the stereotypic associatn of feme lookg men as homosexual may nfound judgments of sexual orientatn. There are doubtls many reasons for this, but one recurrg paranoia among many I’ve met (all of whom were men, out of tert) is that I’m gog to tell them that they’re gay.

Bis, even if I did thk they were gay, ’s certaly not somethg I’m gog to brg up when first meetg someone, given how ’s a) irrelevant, and b) none of my damn don’t feel the same though. Homosexual members of society n unfortunately expect to regularly be challenged, sctised and nmned by belligerent type who are seemgly nvced that homosexualy is a “liftyle choice” issue has e up aga (for what is possibly the 12, 456, 987, 332nd time) for several reasons. Also, UK prime mister David Cameron recently ma ments that suggt he nsirs homosexualy the aforementned “liftyle choice” (although this uld easily have been poorly chosen wordg).

A high-profile homosexual person dog this (or pretty much anythg) is certa to get objectns om those who “don’t approve” around the thgs is evable, and so is the whole “beg gay is a choice” accatn. Most ce relig beliefs, although the notn that relign is flat-out opposed to homosexualy is far om accurate, and gettg more uncerta as time progrs.

WHAT SCIENCE KNOWS ABOUT WHY PEOPLE ARE GAY

The mastream media has always been somewhat blunt or ham-fisted s portrayal of even heterosexual relatnships (for evince of this, see pretty much any married uple an advert), so was a long shot that they’d show homosexuals accurately. Normally heterosexual characters sudnly displayg homosexual leangs when a boost viewg figur are need is a mon trope the days, so you n sort of see how this might make some people thk ’s a “choice”, if they lack more realistic sayg that sexualy is set stone om birth is also not que right, the ma emphasis of those g the choice argument is that homosexuals have weighed up their optns and nscly cid “I am gog to be gay om now on”. This seems, to put dly,, as many have poted out, if sexual orientatn is a choice, then you should feasibly be able to choose to be straight aga if beg gay isn’t “workg out”.

Comedian Todd Glass mak a brilliant pot his book (which is great, I got for Christmas), which is that if you genuely believe sexualy is a choice, then you’re not actually straight, you jt haven’t met anyone persuasive enough those who argue that homosexualy is a choice variably assert that is a wrong choice. So people who opt for homosexualy are nscly pursug anythg om timate relatnships to random sexual enunters wh people they are not physilly attracted to. Overall, if homosexualy is chosen, the most logil reason people would make such a choice is that they’re attracted to people of the same genr.

PEOPLE THK I'M GAY... BUT I'M NOT

LGBT is still a popular term ed to discs genr and sexual mori, but all GSRM are wele beyond lbian, gay, bisexual, and transgenr people who nsent to participate a safe space. 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. 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.

GAY PEOPLE LOOK DIFFERENT, WALK DIFFERENT THAN STRAIGHT PEOPLE

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.

"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.