Why do no gay people look like me? Jamal Jordan, a black digal edor at The Tim, lamented growg up. So as an adult, he cid to give a gift to his younger self: the imagery of queer love.
Contents:
- HOW TO LOOK GREAT AS A GAY MAN
- WHAT DO GAY LOOK LIKE? SCIENCE IS WORKG ON
- THIS IS WHAT GAY MEN AMERI REALLY LOOK LIKE
- A HANDY GUI TO ALL GAY MEN
- HOW TO KNOW IF YOU ARE GAY
- ROW OVER AI THAT 'INTIFI GAY FAC'
- WHAT DO GAY LOOK LIKE? SCIENCE KEEPS TRYG TO FIGURE THAT OUT
- GAY STEREOTYP: ARE THEY TE?
HOW TO LOOK GREAT AS A GAY MAN
Men general are more visually-oriented than women. Partly bee of this, gay men often put more effort to their appearanc pared to their straight unterparts. Dpe stereotyp, however, there is no narrowly-fed way of... * gay look like *
Partly bee of this, gay men often put more effort to their appearanc pared to their straight unterparts. 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.
WHAT DO GAY LOOK LIKE? SCIENCE IS WORKG ON
The stereotype of gay men is that they all live urban environments and prance around signer clothg sayg "fierce" and givg straight women make-overs. We all know that realy gay men are much more diverse and mundane. Here is a real picture of what today's gay world is like. * gay look like *
Fdgs om a recent study published the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, however, suggt I may be unrtimatg my gaydar abili.
THIS IS WHAT GAY MEN AMERI REALLY LOOK LIKE
The gay world is often reprented as some sort of monolhic whole that has the same culture. That is a lie. It is actually broken down to a handful of substrata to which each gay belongs. Here they are. * gay look like *
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.
A HANDY GUI TO ALL GAY MEN
Rearchers and LGBT groups clash over facial regnn tech that supposedly spots gay people. * gay look like *
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. Surprisgly, all participants (both men and women) sred above chance on this gaydar task, rrectly intifyg the gay fac.
Then, they did a send search to fd other Facebook ers who had posted photos of the gay men their own profile. "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.
HOW TO KNOW IF YOU ARE GAY
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.
ROW OVER AI THAT 'INTIFI GAY FAC'
But they also acknowledge that 's impossible to know om the fdgs what exactly is about the facial featur that give gays away. 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.
WHAT DO GAY LOOK LIKE? SCIENCE KEEPS TRYG TO FIGURE THAT OUT
"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.
GAY STEREOTYP: ARE THEY TE?
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. Sce effemate gay men utilize siar facial exprsns as women, they velop female agg and mcle ntractn patterns their face. 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.
Also, gay men are more emotnally exprsive, leadg to a general 'tightns' and mcular activatn throughout the entire face.
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. In addn, ntrary to this urban fn, there may ed be subtle, yet prently unknown, differenc between gay and straight fac. (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.