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[jaydub]

This article summarizes the findings of a study to determine how judgements about sexual orientation are made.  What is remarkable is that the images of faces were cropped to remove cues such as clothing, hairstyles, background etc, and the models were picked to be free of piercings, tattoos, or makeup.  In other words, someone's "gayness" appears to be a fundamental trait of their features - and it kind of suggests that even if a gay person isn't "flaunting it", that the people around them will pick up on their orientation (which goes in the face of the bigot's argument that it is gay behavior that sets off hateful actions).

[Nabubrush]

Um, I don't know what it means in the long run, but no, Gaydar is not a myth.

[jay-ell]

I know it's a real thing, but I don't have it. At all. Even stereotypically gay clothing and behaviors do not cause me to make judgements about someone's sexuality without direct evidence. A lot of people assume everyone is straight until proven otherwise. I just assume that everybody's pansexual until they tell me different. The world looks a lot hotter that way, anyway.

I think not having functional gaydar is because I'm bi, to an extent, but more because I recognize that I tend a bit towards androgyny. I dissociate my typically-feminine and -masculine traits from my own sexuality, so I naturally don't draw conclusions about other peoples' sexuality from those cues, either.

When I came out to an ex as bi, he said, "Yeah, I figured that out years ago, but I didn't say anything because I didn't know if you knew."

Pedro has incredible gaydar. He can even tell with reasonable certainty the difference between a lesbian and a bisexual woman in a relationship with a woman just by having a five minute conversation (not about relationships or sex). He says there are subtle nonverbal cues in the way a person responds to him; if that person is attracted to men in general, s/he will treat him as a potential sex partner even if s/he's in no way attracted to him specifically. He says it's so ingrained that it's impossible to turn off. I've never seen it.

He also has the ability to tell almost instantly when he sees someone on the autism spectrum. His biggest clue is when someone doesn't know what to do with his hands when he's walking, but on occasion he's been accurate from still photographs, too. He's a great reader of people and subtle differences really stand out to him.

I, being probably somewhere on the autism spectrum myself, am a terrible people-reader. So it's good that I have someone else around who is good at that kind of thing to help me in social situations. This is why my social group includes a woman I've known since high school, an exuberantly nerdy guy in his forties, a twentysomething married couple who are new to the area and painfully shy, and a thirtysomething guy with Asperger's. We have two things in common: we all love board games, and we all suck at being social. It really takes the pressure off.

[littlefallsmets]

My girlfriend was known for the best gaydar in college, which is impressive considering SUNY-Purchase is apparently noted in many books about colleges as the gayest state college in the country... insofar as having the most GLBT-identified students when polled on the question.

[jaydub]

The study describes a segment of the population like JL, who have no gaydar.  They hypothesize that in addition to perhaps some people just not being wired to pick up on whatever nonverbal cues are going on, that effective gaydar development relies on you learning to associate those cues with someone's stated (or otherwise known) orientation.  So if you grew up in the 50's, or in Iran, where sexual orientation is not a piece of personal information anyone is likely to publicly state, effective gaydar will be rare as no one will be socially conditioned to associate the facial characteristics with being gay.  Ms sMets is in the opposite situation - she has the social hardware, plus a large selection of finely stratified learning examples.

[Nabubrush]

Remember, don't hate gay people even if they are dicks

[Nabubrush]

Oh noes, you can hate them just dandy. Just for being a dick to a stranger, not other things, y'know. There ain't no free pass.

Yeah, I mean there's no need to put in a descriptor. Just go ahead and hate dicks.

[Nabubrush]

I've very much enjoyed some of the straight white guy dustups I've seen, but they often go directly to punching which seems unimaginative.

[Nabubrush]

"Maybe it goes back to things I don't understand."

Hulk, I'm pretty sure everything goes back to things you don't understand.

I wish Mean Gene Okerlund was involved with more sporting events. I did not realize his kid had played in the NHL.