Gaydar

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For other uses, see Gaydar (disambiguation).

Gaydar is a portmanteau of gay and radar and refers to the intuitive ability to assess someone's sexual orientation as gay, bisexual, or straight. The function of gaydar relies on usually non-verbal sensory information and intuitions. These include the sensitivity to social behaviors and mannerisms; for instance, acknowledging flamboyant mannerisms, overtly rejecting traditional gender roles, a person's occupation and grooming habits.

The idea of gaydar is complicated by gay people not acting in a stereotypically "gay" fashion; also by metrosexual men (regardless of sexuality) who seem to have heightened aesthetic senses and exhibit a lifestyle, spending habits and concern for personal appearance close enough to the stereotype of a fashionable urban gay man.[1][2][3][4] ABC News' 20/20 reported that gaydar does exist but it may work better for gay people and those who pay attention to issues around sexual orientation because they have more invested in knowing if someone was or was not gay.[5]

Contents

[edit] Scientific research

A study by Philadelphia's Monell Chemical Senses Center, published in the Journal of Psychological Science reported that "gay men were found to be particularly good at detecting the musk of other gay men".[6][7]

William Lee Adams, an undergraduate at Harvard, replicated earlier work by his advisor, Nalini Ambady (now at Tufts University). Ambady's original study, published in 1999, showed that homosexuals were better at correctly identifying sexual orientation from silent videos and photographs than heterosexuals were. Adams' research, started in 2004, focused exclusively on the face; the focal point of most social interaction.[8][9] This finding was elaborated by Ron Smyth and colleagues in 2003.[10]

An article dated February 23, 2009 in Scientific American purports to show that gay men have identifying facial characteristics.[11]

[edit] Usage in popular culture

Popular cultural references to having (or lacking) a gaydar skill:

  • In the Ellen episode "The Puppy Episode" (originally broadcast April 1997), Ellen Degeneres' character learns the concept of gaydar as part of her coming-out process. She then explains to her friends: "I must be giving off one of those vibes again. That's what we do...we give off vibrations and then we pick up the vibrations from our gaydar...so I've heard".
  • In the show Gay, Straight or Taken?, a single female contestant dates three guys: one is gay, one is straight and the third has a girlfriend. Her goal is to identify the straight guy who is single, in order to win a vacation with him. To do so, she must use her "gaydar".
  • In the Australian version of Playing It Straight, the dog on the ranch was named "Gaydar".
  • Saturday Night Live had a recurring sketch (1999-2002) about a woman without gaydar, played by Rachel Dratch, initally portrayed by Molly Shannon.
  • In the 2003 debut episode of Dead Like Me the protagonist describes the ability of detecting other grim reapers as "like gaydar only more creepy".[12]
  • The Onion satirized gaydars in "I Can Instantly Tell Whether Someone Is African-American With My Amazing Blackdar".[13]
  • In The L Word season one episode "Let's Do It", Dana acknowledges her lacking gaydar after admitting to Alice and Shane that she is unable to read the signals from people around her.
  • In Buffy the Vampire Slayer, after Kennedy asks her how long she's enjoyed sleeping with women, Willow responds "Hey! And what, you think you have some sort of special lesbidar or something?".
  • Absent gaydar occurred on a November 2008 episode of Top Gear, when Jeremy Clarkson used the word with regard to Will Young.


References to a purported gaydar device
The "Gaydar" given to Dwight on The Office.
  • In the Futurama episode "Love's Labors Lost in Space", Bender has what he claims is a literal gaydar - that is, an electronic device that detects homosexuality. The device characterizes nearly every man (and alien) it evaluates as gay.
  • In The Office (US) episode "Gay Witch Hunt", Jim tells Michael and Dwight that The Sharper Image sells a gaydar device. Jim later sends a modified metal detector to Dwight, who believes it to be a genuine gaydar device. He becomes concerned when his belt buckle sets it off, thinking it is indicating that he is gay.
  • A segment on The Daily Show shows a man from Britain named David Eliot, who created a gaydar pager device to send vibrations to others carrying the same device. Another episode focusing on gay marriage in Massachusetts uses a fictional gay detection device called a "homometer" which provides feedback by loudly emitting gay mannerisms.
  • In the 2006 Queer Duck: The Movie gaydar is shown as a piece of military sonar detecting the influx of LGBT patrons to the fictitious "Happyland" theme park modelled on Disneyland.
  • On an episode of Saturday Night Live in May 2008, then-presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain poked fun at his fiscal conservatism by satirically opposing federal funding for a "gaydar-jamming" device.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ McFedries, Paul (12 December 2003). "Metrosexual". Logophilia Limited. http://www.wordspy.com/words/metrosexual.asp. Retrieved on 2007-12-17. 
  2. ^ Simpson, Mark (15 November 1994). "Here Come The Mirror Men". The Independent. http://www.wordspy.com/words/metrosexual.asp. Retrieved on 2007-12-17. 
  3. ^ Simpson, Mark (22 July 2002). "Meet The Metrosexual". Salon.com. http://www.wordspy.com/words/metrosexual.asp. Retrieved on 2007-12-17. 
  4. ^ Hackbarth, Alexa (17 November 2003). "Vanity, Thy Name Is Metrosexual". The Washington Post. http://www.wordspy.com/words/metrosexual.asp. Retrieved on 2007-12-17. 
  5. ^ Stossel, John (1 November 2005). "Test Your Gaydar: Can You Tell If Someone's Gay?". ABC News 20/20. http://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=207269&page=1. Retrieved on 2007-12-17. 
  6. ^ Yolanda Martin; George Preti (2005-09-09). "Preference for Human Body Odors Is Influenced by Gender and Sexual Orientation". Psychological Science. http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpl/psci/2005/00000016/00000009/art00009. Retrieved on 2007-10-24 2007. 
  7. ^ Randolph E. Schmid (2005-05-10). "Gay Men Respond Differently to Pheromones". Associated Press. http://www.livescience.com/health/ap_050510_pheremones.html. 
  8. ^ Willow Lawson. Nov/Dec 2005. "Queer Eyes: Blips on the Gaydar". Psychology Today Magazine.
  9. ^ Gaudio, Rudolph (1994) “Sounding Gay: Pitch Properties in the Speech of Gay and Straight Men”. American Speech 69: 30-57.
  10. ^ Ron Smyth, Greg Jacobs, Henry Rogers. 2003-10-03. Male voices and perceived sexual orientation: An experimental and theoretical approach. Cambridge University Press.
  11. ^ "There's Something Queer about That Face: Without being aware of it, most people can accurately identify gay men by face alone", by Jesse Bering, Scientific American, February 23, 2009
  12. ^ Dead Like Me premiere episode June 2003.
  13. ^ Shawn Parker (January 12, 2005). "I Can Instantly Tell Whether Someone Is African-American With My Amazing 'Blackdar'". The Onion. http://www.theonion.com/content/node/34052. 

[edit] Further reading

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