Poll: Is there really such a thing as gaydar?

[UniversalRonin]

I think it's more a question of social empathy and recognising social cues. Do I think it matters whether or not someone's gay? Not at all, it's 2013, not the middle ages as such I'm not looking for (or noticing) social cues very often. TD 'Coming out' is a good day for progressive thought in the UK, and for British sport. Just a shame it's got to be such a big story.

 

[Conza]

I think your poll answer for affirmitive is correct "Yes, most of the time". There will be some exceptions, but more often that not I think most people can spot a gay person, either in the way they talk, what they talk about, their hair style, the way they dress, their facial expression, I think to a fair degree of certainty 'most' people should be able to tell if 'most' people are gay, whether they are or not.

 

[IceForce]

Plus I am not the one who has to provide evidence here, you are the one who has to provide evidence that you are not.

Clearly you have no idea what "burden of proof" means.

You made the claim, the burden of proof is on you to back it up with evidence.
There's no burden of proof on anyone else to prove your claim false.

Otherwise, I could make the claim that there's a teapot in orbit around the earth right now, and you must prove my claim false.

So hop to it. Prove my claim false. I'm waiting.

 

[Spiridion]

Bisexuality differs from pansexuality (which is basically synonymous with omnisexuality) in that bi indicates sexual attraction to both men and women, but tends to gravitate towards primarily cisgender* people. Meanwhile, pan/onmi encompasses attraction to transgender, genderqueer**, and intersex folks.

What you haven't mentioned here though is that not everyone uses those definitions. A lot of people who define themselves as bi such as myself wouldn't have any problem with transgender, genderqueer, intersex etc... sexualities are ultimately just terms of convenience and there's no pressing need to differentiate between someone only attracted to cisgender people and someone attracted all types of people when non-cisgender people make up so few of the population.

You make a fair point, I don't necessarily think that bisexuals can't be attracted to non-cisgender people and if that's a part of your personal definition that makes you feel the most comfortable with your identity, then cheers to you. However, at least from the view of those who identify as pansexual, the term bisexual can still feel restrictive. This is primarily because the prefix bi- means two, so defined literally bisexual does indicate a sexual attraction to two sexes/genders. Thus, some people feel it is an insufficient term to express their sexuality. Personally I identify as a lesbian, so I can't say I have much stake in the matter.

The broader point I was trying to make was that all these words for varying sexual/gender identities exist because we live in a society that assumes cisgender heterosexuality and, intentionally or not, tends to disregard or even attack anyone who falls outside of that norm. The most important thing for me is that a person is able to feel comfortable with their own sexuality/gender. If identifying as bisexual does that for you, that's awesome. But, it doesn't work for everyone and I don't think we should try to make anyone identify as something because we feel it's "good enough."

 

[Sir Thomas Sean Connery]

As much as you can deduce anything else about a person.

This is seriously NO different than what Sherlock Holmes does. You look at the person, you observe and then you can make certain reasonable observations about their personality, job, etc.

Sexuality isn't any different. Sometimes there are signs that make it possible to tell, sometimes there are not. Sometimes these signs are intentional, other times unintentional.

Yes, it's called grinder.

Also this. Well played...

 

[EyeReaper]

Funnily enough, here at the college I go to our gay rights group held a little event called "How good is your gaydar?" where they took five people from the group of all flavors of sexuality and had the audiance ask them a bunch of questions, ranging from "What's your favorite sports team to do you like handcuffs and collars, and at the end, the audiance voted on what each of them was. They got like, 3/5 right, so maybe?

Anyways, on topic, I voted "Only if they want you to know" because, well, that's what I think. no other reason why

 

[Someone Depressing]

...No. They have found some "things" than point towards sexuality being genetic, and if you spotted those clues in someone that might be a pointer, but they're very specific, and maybe-not-true. So... ultimately, no.

Unless you know their address. But that'd land you in jail.

 

[hermes]

No, unless they are flamboyant about it.
However, having characteristics of the gay stereotype is not 100% guaranty of somebody being gay; as much as not having them is not a guaranty that it can be ruled out.

 

[MetalMagpie]

If you observe them making out with someone of the same gender, that's probably a clue.

But in general, not really. A massively effeminate man ("Darling!", etc.) is probably more likely to be gay/bi than straight simply because (thanks to cultural stereotypes) a straight man is a bit less likely to feel comfortable acting like that.

I've got a gay friend who claims he can usually tell (with about 80% confidence) providing he gets a chance to talk to the guy for a while, but he bases that on things like how they respond to a bit of jokey flirting. He's also had some hilarious false positives.