It is a power that many individuals feel that they have, the “Gaydar” made famous by Ellen DeGeneres in her sitcom – but is it really possible to guess sexual orientation at a glance?
Certainly the ability to accurately predict another person’s sexual preference simply through visual means is a talent that would be found useful by many men and women in the modern world. Those searching for a partner would be well served by a visual indicator that allow them to separate possible candidates from those who would not be well suited.
Predicting Sexuality From Looks Alone
And now a study printed in the ‘Journal of Experimental Social Psychology’ would seem to indicate that most individuals have at least some powers of perception that allow them to identify sexual orientation. The research, carried out by Nalini Amabady, pioneer of the “thin slicing” theory, which holds that humans are capable of accurately judging strangers in an extremely short timeframe, set out to ascertain whether participants could accurately categorize men according to their sexuality by simply looking at photographs.
Straight or Gay
Participants were shown pictures of men selected from dating sites and Facebook profiles for periods of time ranging from 33 milliseconds to 10 seconds and then asked to determine if the model was straight or gay. The results indicated that 50 milliseconds was sufficient time for an individual to make a judgment on the sexuality of another person.
There is nothing earth shattering in these results, which saw more than four in ten guesses being incorrect; however, the 57 percent accuracy rate for recognizing the gay men in the photographs is certainly higher than would be expected to occur by chance, and the absence of any facial hair, jewelry or accessories such as eye glasses meant that participants were basing their judgments on faces alone.
Features Clue to Sexual Orientation?
Thus while none of the participants demonstrated complete accuracy every time they viewed a photo, it would seem that there are certainly some indicators of sexuality in the passive male face.
It would appear that the focus of future research will be in discovering what factors the correct answers were based upon. While in a real life situation certain social and behavioral factors may lead to an assumption about a person’s sexuality, these pictures were of passive faced men with no additional information supplied. So, is it possible there are recognizable biological differences between gay and straight men that can be perceived at a subconscious level? If the arguments for sexual preference being genetically proscribed are to be believed then certainly it would seem a viable possibility; if sexuality is a characteristic carried in our genes then it is surely plausible that the clues are present in our features. Only further research will reveal the truth.
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