Got Gaydar?

Got Gaydar? I do. At least I think I do. And here's something...you might also. In fact, it looks like many of us have the ability to tell gay from straight; it's an evolution thing. You'll have to admit the neurological benefits to NOT having to think too hard about whether someone is a potential sex partner or not, right? I mean...it's just biology.

Well, a recent study gives evidence that humans not only have a pretty good capability of telling another's sexual orientation, but there may even be phenotypic markers that give it all away. Whoa! In other words, genetics may play an even bigger part than some of us have thought: How you look, and what you see, can get you laid...in the right way.

A study coming out of the University of Washington, Seattle sought to find out how we read faces to determine sexual orientation. Previous studies have shown that we possess the ability greater than what would be expected by sheer chance, so the UW team wanted to understand the mechanism.

What we know: People can pick out with relatively high accuracy both men's and women's sexual orientation relying on no more than grossly impoverished facial photographs (i.e., grayscale, hair-removed) presented for as few as 40–50 ms.

What we don't know: Do people use featural face processing--relying on individual facial features, like eye and mouth cues--or do they use configural face processing, the relationship among facial features, like distance between eyes and such, or some combination of the two?

To study this, researchers took profile pictures of self-reported hetero- and homosexual men and women off Facebook, and doctored them with Photoshop, removing hair and ears, and essentially just leaving the face. They then showed the photos to 129 college students, some right side up, and others upside down. Previous studies have shown that an above-chance accuracy exists for determining sexual orientation through individual facial cues, and these cues are accurately assessed when viewed either right side up or upside down. In men, for instance, cues around the eyes alone or mouth alone led to high sex orientation accuracy.


But for configural processing--which include a) ordinal spatial relationships among individual features (e.g., eyes appear above noses), b) cardinal spatial relationships among individual features (e.g., the amount of space between the eyes), or processing the face in a holistic or gestalt manner (i.e., the general shape of the face)--things get a bit tougher. While people are able to determine categorical features, like gender or race, from primarily individual cues, and thus whether the view is right side up or upside down, other identity-based features, like familiarity or celebrity, which rely more on configural cues, are lost when the image is viewed upside down (called the Thatcher effect).

The researchers found that although participants were able to read men's sex preference with above-chance accuracy, they were much better at reading women's. And "false alarms" were less common in women, too--so with the gals, it appears...when we know, we know. But most surprisingly was that sexual orientation was picked out with above-chance accuracy in the upside down position, albeit not as precisely as when right-side up, thus the scientist concluded that both featural and configural processes are at work when assessing sexual orientation.

So we have facial features that conform to our sexual orientation individually and in their relation to one another, spatially and holistically. No doubt, these features tell our potential mates which way we swing. Some things we still don't know is do the facial features and sexual orientation express together, or do our sexual orientation experiences shape phenotype (our looks)? Either way, you've got to admit this is an interesting study. I mean, most everybody thinks they're equipped with gaydar. Truth is, we probably all are to a degree.

Same-Sex Adoptive Parents Give Good Love

When it comes to child development for adopted children, whether they are raised by hetero or homosexual parents matters not.  All that matters is parenting style, not sexual orientation.  So says a recent study to be published in the August issue of the journal Applied Developmental Science.

The study looked at 106 adoptive preschool-age children living in different parts of the United States and found that they were all developing well regardless of whether their parents were gay, lesbian or heterosexual.

I want to say "no sh*t!" considering all that matters anyway is love.  But I guess some people need proof.  Case in point: some states like Florida, Mississippi and Utah have laws prohibiting same-sex couples from adopting children, and the issue remains controversial throughout the country. 

All I can say is "What?!?!"  Are you freakin' kidding me?  With the thousands of children in need of loving homes, we are still actually debating this?  Holy hieroglyphics!  That's cave-person morality.  You mean to tell me that there are children praying to be adopted and loved, and we need proof that sexual orientation has no effect on child development?  And what precisely are we afraid of?  Certainly not that they might be raised in a primitive culture, as this antiquated dilemma of whether or not same-sex couples can provide a child with love and a good home knocks us back into the Pleistocene.

I didn't need this study, but I know some people do.  So I really hope we can get past this nonsense and allow all types of people to raise beautiful, healthy families without having to prove their worth--sexually--as parents or people.

Have We Met? Gay Men Know Better

Another piece of evidence showing how genetics plays a instrumental role in shaping sexual orientation.  A recent study out of York University in Toronto showed that the ability to recognize faces, both in speed and accuracy, is a skill sharpened in women and homosexual men.  And to add an interesting twist--left-handed heterosexual men have quicker and more accurate face recognition than do right-handers.


The ability to recognize faces has been shown through imaging techniques to be a purely right-sided brain function in men, while women use both hemispheres.  This "doubling-up" of brain power allows women to scan their memories much more rapidly than men, making it easier for them to recognize people at cocktail parties.  Researchers believe that the same holds true for homosexual men--their brains likely use both left and right hemispheres when evaluating faces, accounting for their mirroring women's abilities in this function. 

Face recognition is complex.  It takes a number of brain regions, visual processes, and memory for recognition to take place.  Researchers studied this phenomenon by recruiting a sample group of homosexual men, heterosexual men and heterosexual women, of both left-handed and right-handed variety.  The volunteers were shown pictures of 10 faces and given time to try to memorize them. The photos were black and white, and digitally altered to remove ears, hair and blemishes, so as to eliminate the physical landmarks people often use to remember faces.  The 10 faces were then mixed with similarly altered images of 50 other people and flashed on a screen for just milliseconds apiece. The subjects' job was to press a key when they saw a face they'd seen before.  The results were that women and homosexual men scored nearly the same, and both groups fared better than heterosexual men.  Homosexual women were not studied.

Genetics determines symmetry and asymmetry in body and brain.  For instance, previous studies have shown that gay men have a 39% greater chance of being left-handed than heteros (southpaw heteros performed better on face recognition than did righties, remember?).  Gay men also have a greater chance (~80%) of having a counter-clockwise hair whorl. 

When it comes to brain morphology (shape), both women and homosexual men have two symmetrical halves, whereas heterosexual men and homosexual women have asymmetrical brain regions, with the right side being larger than the left.

What is unknown is if homosexual men are, in fact, using both brain regions when attempting to recognize faces.  The only way to know for sure would be to image the brain as it goes through the same experiment, but this would bring up some serious ethical considerations. 

Either way, I find this research absolutely fascinating.  Despite some still believing it to be a lifestyle choice and not genetic, evidence points to homosexuality being a multi-factorial phenomenon.  Genetics, hormones, and environment all play a part in developing sexual orientation, many of them early in embryonic development.  Some have even proposed an evolutionary advantage to homosexuality being maintained in the population, despite its lowering reproductive success.  

If genetics are involved, then there must be phenotypic differences that go beyond sexual preferences.  What are these differences?  How are they expressed?  Politically speaking, if we could recognize that sexual orientation is biologically determined, then it could lead to an advancement in equal protection rights for homosexuals and same-sex couples.

I also find this study interesting because, well, it explains my total lameness in not remembering people whom I've met in the past, some just days earlier.  Duh...I'm a little slow, um...er, uh...what's your name?  Forgive me, I'm hetero--half brain, you know?