Poll: Is there really such a thing as gaydar?

[Flatfrog]

In the news today, British Olympic medal-winning diver Tom Daley has come out as being in a same-sex relationship, although he also says he is attracted to women as well.

In the comments, many people claim to have known all along, and there has been speculation that he might be gay for years, but I've always found that kind of thing incredibly annoying because mostly it seems to just be a standard bit of gossip around any softly-spoken muscular man, especially one with boyish features.

Personally I don't think much of the whole gay-straight dichotomy anyway and think the world would be much better if we got rid of the labels altogether and allowed people to have relationships with whomever they fancy without having to create a whole sexual identity around it. But anyway - my question is: is it really possible to 'tell' if someone is gay by observing them? Obviously you might actually see them flirting with someone and that would give things away to some extent. But mostly I mean the sense in which people claim to 'just know'.

 

[Thaluikhain]

No.

It's possible to observe behaviour which is stereotyped as being gay, but that's another issue.

 

[Spambot 3000]

I don't think so - perhaps if someone said ' that effeminate male/masculine female over there is probs gay' and they turned out to be right, then sure you can give them a gold star and a pat on the back for being skilled in the art of pointing out the obvious, but it really is never a guarantee that they are. The best way to find out is by asking.

 

[JoJo]

I think you often can tell, I'm pretty crap at reading other people and even I can make educated guesses a lot of the time. There are certain traits which seem to match up to being gay or lesbian a lot of the time, such as a woman being fairly 'butch' or man being effeminate, although of course straight people can have these traits too sometimes. Bisexuals seem harder to spot, funnily enough I'm bi myself but people don't seem to pick up on it, probably because I have a very masculine personality.

 

[J Tyran]

I dont know if I would use exactly that term but people are more sensitive to different traits and aspects of other people than we would give credit for, there are subtle things about each other we pick up all the time without realising it. I do not see why sexuality would be any different, thats not say every gay person would instantly "detect" every other gay person they met even if they kept that knowledge hidden. Like any social skill some people are better at using them and other people vary in how well they can keep things to themselves, I would guess there are hundreds of little tells in how a person expresses or hides their sexuality even if they keep it deeply closeted.

Even the effort of hiding it would be a tell all by itself and some people could pick up on that.

 

[Albino Boo]

Of course there is. If you are even vaguely interested in someone you pay more attention to body language than average. Most people, gay or straight, when reasonably sober find approaching people difficult, awkward and potentially embarrassing. Nobody wants to be barking up the wrong tree and suffer rejection and extreme embarrassment. Determining sexual orientation is pretty important part knowing if you are likely to be successful.

 

[piinyouri]

Kinda.

If the person wants to be noticed in that way, then if you know what to look for (and no I don't mean limp wrists, and a floaty walk) it's pretty easy to spot.

However if someone is gay and doesn't want the world to know it, usually you wont.

 

[sanquin]

There has been a study into this. A group of people were shown pictures of men, both straight and gay. And there was a high success rate in picking the gay men out of the group. I don't remember what they did exactly in the entire study, but apparently it has something to do with your facial features. Gay men seem to have certain facial features are slightly different from straight men. And gay women seem to be even easier to pick out. It's not nearly a 100% accurate thing, but it was definitely higher than chance alone.

 

[Flatfrog]

No.

It's possible to observe behaviour which is stereotyped as being gay, but that's another issue.

I guess part of the question is to what extent behaviour which is stereotyped as being gay is correlated with people genuinely being gay.

 

[Flatfrog]

There has been a study into this. A group of people were shown pictures of men, both straight and gay. And there was a high success rate in picking the gay men out of the group. I don't remember what they did exactly in the entire study, but apparently it has something to do with your facial features. Gay men seem to have certain facial features are slightly different from straight men. And gay women seem to be even easier to pick out. It's not nearly a 100% accurate thing, but it was definitely higher than chance alone.

Interesting - I'd like to see the study.

It wouldn't entirely surprise me, of course - I'd imagine that at least some of the time sexual orientation would be tied in with hormone levels, which in turn would affect growth. But I'd still have supposed the effect to be relatively small.

 

[Thaluikhain]

No.

It's possible to observe behaviour which is stereotyped as being gay, but that's another issue.

I guess part of the question is to what extent behaviour which is stereotyped as being gay is correlated with people genuinely being gay.

Hmmm...stereotypical behaviour changes across cultures and across time, however, gay people adopt the stereotypes of their own current culture (to an extent).

Not sure how you'd go about answering that question.

 

[Queen Michael]

Of course there is such a thing as a gaydar. I've had it patented and everything.

 

[kurupt87]

Yes, it's called grinder.

As for the example in the OP, which popped up when I logged out of my hotmail (that's my excuse for knowing gossip and I'm sticking to it damnit!), my response was to snort and say "no shit".

 

[lacktheknack]

Nope.

Popular figures are called gay all the time (I work right next to a rack of gossip rags, and they think literally everyone is gay), so when one comes out of the closet, everyone can jump on board yelling "I CALLED IT", despite the fact that many called it on a whole lot of straight people as well.

For a gaydar to be useful, it would have to work on non-celebrities as well.

My gay friend gets hit on by girls and never guys, and I (straight) get hit on by the occasional dude (and never girls). So if they're using the mythical gaydar to rate our sexualities on the Kinsey scale, it does a REALLY shoddy job of it.

 

[Clowndoe]

Isn't it just as good if you can figure it out through "gay" behavior? It's not 100% obviously, but most of the time you just know. Or at least, I think I know. Call it confirmation bias but I'm pretty sure I usually get a hint by the time I find out someone is gay.

Here's something interesting though: One of the key differences between men and women, morphologically-speaking, is seen in the hands. Men typically have their ring-finger longer than their index-finger, and vice-versa for women. However, studies have shown a tendency for gay men to have a "woman's hand" in that sense. I'd like to disclaimer that according to the article I read (pardon the lack of a link or source, I read it at the dentist's office) it's not 100% true. My fingers are actually about the same, and I'm a straight male (AFAIK).

Source: Looking around Google it's actually not that hard to find.

 

[FalloutJack]

No, not 'just by observing them'. You can't 'just tell'. You would have to do what everyone else does to find things out, which is watch and wait for evidence, certain signs that lead to conclusions. Nobody just 'knows' unless teh gayz make it obvious.

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

OT: Of course not. I mean you can look for stereotypical indicators if you really care to go down that road but I've always figured sexuality was a quality that doesn't always dictate how you act in public. *shrug*

Even if it was developed, I wouldn't use it. I just don't care about what adult humans you bonk.

 

[Silvanus]

There is no such thing.

There are a few behavioural characteristics, but not every gay person will have them, and some straight people may have them, too. Down in part to the media, some people seem to believe those characteristics are universal, and that's where the idea of gaydar comes from. They will still pass numerous gay people who lack those characteristics in the street, and they'll never realise.

I find the idea faintly insulting, to be honest.