Gay? Straight? It's All the Ey - Philalphia Magaze

Contents:

• THK YOU ARE GAY? IT SHOWS YOUR EY, ACRDG TO STUDY
• STRAIGHT GUYS FOR GAY EY
• STRAIGHT EYE FOR THE GAY GUY: POSG QUEERNS
• GAY? STRAIGHT? IT’S ALL THE EY
• STRAIGHT GUYS FOR GAY EY
• STRAIGHT GUYS FOR GAY EY CLOTHG

THK YOU ARE GAY? IT SHOWS YOUR EY, ACRDG TO STUDY

Straight Guys for Gay Ey. 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.

The January 2008 study vtigated people's abily to intify homosexual men om pictur of their fac alone. 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.

STRAIGHT GUYS FOR GAY EY

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.

Aga, the thors superimposed the male fac (this time 80 gay and 80 straight) onto a whe background. 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.

Curly, most of the participants unrtimated their abily to intify gay fac om the featur alone. That is to say, people seem to have honed and librated their gaydar whout knowg they've done so.

STRAIGHT EYE FOR THE GAY GUY: POSG QUEERNS

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. There were several fns of "gay face, " cludg this rogatory doozy:. "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? STRAIGHT? IT’S ALL THE EY

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.

But perhaps there is a kernel of tth to another fn of "gay face" the Urban Dictnary:.

STRAIGHT GUYS FOR GAY EY

"Gay men do not differ om straight men the size and shape of any facial feature. 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.

STRAIGHT GUYS FOR GAY EY CLOTHG

Also, gay men are more emotnally exprsive, leadg to a general 'tightns' and mcular activatn throughout the entire face. Gay face clus an eye exprsn that is both surprised-lookg and predatory.

There is often a slightly tan and/or leathery look to the sk, pecially among olr gay men. Lbians also have a versn of gay face that emulat the facial mcular age patterns of straight men.