What do the new ‘gay gen’ tell about sexual orientatn? | New Scientist

Contents:

• WHAT DO THE NEW ‘GAY GEN’ TELL ABOUT SEXUAL ORIENTATN?
• THE NEW GAY TEENAGER
• WHAT THE WORLD CAN LEARN FROM GAY-STRAIGHT FRIENDSHIPS
• IN CHIGO, A NEW APPROACH TO GAY AND BISEXUAL MEN WH PROSTATE CANCER
• FIFA WOMEN’S WORLD CUP 2023: NZ PTA ALI RILEY GO VIRAL AS ‘STRAIGHT, GAY IN’ AS SHE SUBTLY PROTTS RABOW ARMBAND LG
• JAGS' MAXEN IS FIRST MALE AMERIN PRO SPORTS ACH TO E OUT AS GAY
• GAY WATER, A NEW NNED CKTAIL, WANTS TO BE THE ANTI-BUD LIGHT

WHAT DO THE NEW ‘GAY GEN’ TELL ABOUT SEXUAL ORIENTATN?

Yet when the men were forced to choose between straight, bisexual or gay, about three-quarters marked straight bee for them bisexual, even if is unrstood as “bisexual-leang straight, ” is too gay to accurately scribe their inty. He’s not a closeted gay man who fears beg gay yet wants to keep a slight, perhaps secretive, gay si by danglg his potential for guy sex. He may retreat om a full intifitn wh heterosexualy, but rarely do he gravate toward bisexualy, and almost never do he move toward homosexualy of any sort.

We have known for s that sexual orientatn is partly herable men, thanks to studi of fai which some people are straight and some people are gay. In 1993, geic variatns a regn on the X chromosome men were lked to whether they were heterosexual or homosexual, and 1995, a regn on chromosome 8 was intified.

THE NEW GAY TEENAGER

Grave’s disease is more mon gay than straight men, and some rearch suggts that gay men tend to be thner – which might possibly be a rult of thyroid overdrive. The latt fdgs open the prospect to intifyg the whole pathway of gen volved both homosexual and heterosexual orientatn, says Dean Hamer at the US Natnal Instut of Health, who led the study that ppoted chromosome X back 1993. And next year is gog to be even the first major stud gay rom-, to queer-clive horror, to Harry Styl playg a queer p, the next year will have a ton of great LGBTQ+ ntent on the big screen.

Billy Eichner wrote and starred this gay rom- wh an all LGBTQ+ prcipal st, cludg Bowen Yang, Ts Madison, Guillermo Diaz, and Le Macfarlane as Eichner's love tert. In this down-to-earth book, filled wh the voic of young people speakg for themselv, Rch Sav-Williams argu that the standard image of gay youth prented by mental health rearchers—as prsed, isolated, dg-pennt, even suicidal—may have been exaggerated even twenty years ago, and is far om accurate today.

The New Gay Teenager giv a rehg and equently ntroversial troductn to nfint, petent, upbeat teenagers wh same-sex sir, who worry more about the chemistry tt or their curfew than they do about their sexualy. What do “gay” mean, when some adolcents who have had sexual enunters wh those of their own sex don’t nsir themselv gay, when some who nsir themselv gay have had sex wh the oppose sex, and when many have never had sex at all?

WHAT THE WORLD CAN LEARN FROM GAY-STRAIGHT FRIENDSHIPS

In other words, where Bud Light has buckled unr prsure as bigotry grows agast the LGBTQ+ muny, Gay Water’s creator Spencer Hodson wants his new boozy brand to be the anthis of that. “The key issue that Bud Light tapped to was the fact that they didn’t unrstand their re dience and know enough about them,” Hodson, a gay man, told CNN about the ntroversy that began when the Anhser-Bch beer brand sent fluencer Dylan Mulvaney a n of beer.

“Puttg a product wh the word gay the tle is reprentatn self,” which he hop reclaims the word om the negativy ’s sometim associated wh. The two chatted about the limed amount of gay people wh , and wh Hodson burnt out om his tradnal day job tech, started the nned cktail. Hodson built up a strong social media followg on TikTok and Instagram durg Covid-19 and is g some of the money om that (as well as om iends and fay) to help fund Gay Water.

IN CHIGO, A NEW APPROACH TO GAY AND BISEXUAL MEN WH PROSTATE CANCER

“Gay is an umbrella term and the ia behd the brand is to be as clive as possible, which means we want alli, we want straight people to be part of this muny we’re buildg.”. For now, Gay Water is sold largely onle (wh a few retailers) and four sugar-ee flavors — watermelon, lime, peach and grapeu — at lnch. Gay Water might not have the ep pockets pared to s petors, like Whe Claw, but “even at small sle, pani of many siz are havg succs makg spir-based seltzers and premixed cktails,” Bryan Roth, an analyst for Feel Goods Company and edor of the alhol beverage newsletter, Sightl+, told CNN.

“There’s lots of space the spir-based seltzer tegory which Gay Water n play, pecially if the brand n offer a cultural or emotnal nnectn that will feel more excg than the prospect of another peapple-flavored vodka seltzer om natnal or ternatnal rporatns,” Roth said.

Of urse, other drks e the word “gay,” too, cludg Gay Beer and So Gay Rosé, Hodson noted, which are also tryg to reach the queer muny and offer them an alternative the straight-domated space. A 2022 study Psychology of Men & Masculi found that the iendships n help shift gay guys’ unrstandable prenceptns about straight men — that they’re all homophobic, for example.

FIFA WOMEN’S WORLD CUP 2023: NZ PTA ALI RILEY GO VIRAL AS ‘STRAIGHT, GAY IN’ AS SHE SUBTLY PROTTS RABOW ARMBAND LG

But after years of iendship wh me — a gay man who don’t perform masculy a tradnal way — he feels more fortable dog thgs like wearg necklac and havg his bachelor party at a drag bar.

It’s possible that exprsg vulnerabily has posive spillover effects: Heterosexual men who have close iendships wh gay guys may wd up havg ls fear about beg more open wh their straight guy iends, acrdg to the thors of the 2021 study. Michael Bronski, a profsor at Harvard Universy and the thor of “A Queer History of the Uned Stat, ” said the gay liberatn movement, which emerged after the Stonewall uprisg 1969, began dismantlg patriarchal systems that prsured all men to reprs their feelgs and engage toxic masculy, cludg homophobia.

JAGS' MAXEN IS FIRST MALE AMERIN PRO SPORTS ACH TO E OUT AS GAY

I did this for years before I me out, at age 16, bee I remember many of my guy iends school nstantly referrg to my behavr as “so gay. ” Even my dad would perform gay ritur an unsuccsful effort to make me lgh by flappg his wrists rogatorily and talkg a stereotypilly gay voice, which he told me he regrets eply today.

I know another gay guy or female iend would have e to my fense this suatn, but the fact that was a straight guy showg such tense allyship was my iendship wh Stephen strengthened and I started buildg other relatnships wh people who would never image g homophobic slurs, I veloped a sense of eedom to be myself beyond queer spac: I’m now more fortable g out to straight male boss and owng my sexual orientatn my work, whether be through pchg L. -themed stori or explag to lleagu the importance of queer iendships between gay and straight men are on the rise, they aren’t universally accepted.

Bisexual men are perceived to sound more mascule than men who are straight, acrdg to a study of Atralian subjects.Amics at the Universy of Sydney pared the voic of gay, straight and bisexual men a study volvg 160 people.In the rearch led by clil psychologist Jam Morandi, people were reced to analyse the voic of 60 men, 20 of whom were gay, 20 straight and 20 bisexual.

GAY WATER, A NEW NNED CKTAIL, WANTS TO BE THE ANTI-BUD LIGHT

They were then asked to rate the men on their sexual orientatn g a sle om zero (exclively heterosexual) to 10 (exclively homosexual).Listeners were also asked to rate each man’s perceived level of femy or masculy the voic on a siar sle.The men volved the study were asked to rerd themselv on a smartphone recg the first two l of the Atralian natnal anthem.Voice sampl were then modified to remove any background noise while volume levels were ma the same to ensure nsistency.Rults om the study showed listeners uld distguish between gay and straight men’s voic wh an accuracy of 62 per cent, apparently nsistent wh prev rearch.However, the study participants uld not terme any differenc between bisexual and straight men’s voic wh any gree of accuracy.

The thors said their rearch showed bisexual men’s voic were perceived as beg more exclively attracted to women pared wh both gay and straight men’s voic.Bisexual men’s voic were rated as more mascule than both gay and straight men’s voic.Rearchers claimed the abily to intify a man’s bisexual inty om his voice alone uld have cril social implitns such as helpg to rce feelgs of alienatn.‘Voice may unter visibily many bisexuals feel’An abstract of the study, tled Can listeners tect if a man is bisexual om his voice alone, reads: “The prent study examed whether bisexual men n be intified om their voic ak to how gay men n be intified on their voice alone.“If this is the se, voice may be an important target of discrimatn on the one hand but may also unter the visibily many bisexuals feel (if their bisexual inti n be apprehend by their voice alone, whout explic disclosure required).“The fdgs may also she light on whether bisexual male voic, like gay male voic, differ om straight voic terms of their genr non-nformy – a qutn that to date has not been examed.”But amics noted the rearch was limed on the grounds all men who participated the study are Atralian, which may not be reflected among wir cultur.And the thors nced the study did not ntrol for the rerdg environment or microphone-to-mouth distance, which uld have affected the qualy of the voice sampl.The thors said the fdgs suggted that while the voic of bisexual men the sample were perceived as more mascule and attracted to femal, listeners did not associate this imprsn wh bisexualy.As a rult, while bisexual men may appear to be at lower risk of facg voice-based intifitn and discrimatn than gay men, they may often be mistaken as beg straight.The study was published the Journal of Sex Rearch. "When I was younger I thought I was straight, bee I was more attracted to women, and I didn't know there were more optns bis gay and straight.