Voice Pitch, Hair Whorl, Ring Finger Length

June 20, 2007 10:27 AM

The Science of Gaydar. "That’s what we mean by gaydar—not the skill of the viewer so much as the telltale signs most gay people project, the set of traits that make us unmistakably one....A small constellation of researchers is specifically analyzing the traits and characteristics that, though more pronounced in some than in others, not only make us gay but also make us appear gay."
posted by jtajta (133 comments total)

I'll help them out.

If you are a man, then having sex with men is definitely a characteristic that makes you appear gay.

Too bad so many fundamentalist christian priests and preachers can't figure this one out.
posted by Ynoxas at 10:32 AM on June 20, 2007 [2 favorites]

I saw a man in a queue at a KFC about six months ago. He was dressed as a sailor in the style of Jean-Paul Gaultier and carrying a tiny little dog and a small lunchbox. He wore nail varnish and eye makeup that would make most women jealous. His little sailor hat was tipped at a "jaunty" angle.

I'm uh, just guessing and all, but he was gay right?
posted by longbaugh at 10:32 AM on June 20, 2007

Gay?

Heavens no.

Thats just standard posh-luncheon-at-the-KFC apparel. Get with the program!
posted by Avenger at 10:39 AM on June 20, 2007

He was dressed as a sailor in the style of Jean-Paul Gaultier and carrying a tiny little dog....I'm uh, just guessing and all, but he was gay right?

Maybe. If the tiny dog was dressed the same way, then definitely.
posted by jonmc at 10:44 AM on June 20, 2007

I find that you can usually tell when a guy says "I'm gay" or "My boyfriend".
posted by gomichild at 10:45 AM on June 20, 2007

"He was there for the hot cock they advertised in the window."

/Bernard Manning (deceased)
posted by longbaugh at 10:45 AM on June 20, 2007

Didn't the Mythbusters do an episode on defeating gaydar? Aluminum foil doesn't work, IIRC.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 10:52 AM on June 20, 2007

Next up: The Science of Icedar, decoding the signals that people who love ice cream project.
posted by DU at 10:53 AM on June 20, 2007

Anyone else actually reading the article?

Perhaps because we've done gay animals already once this week, this jumped out at me:
Little is known about the romantic life of Sapphic sheep because ewes tend to express their sexual interests by standing entirely still, yielding no clues about their partner preferences.
posted by imperium at 10:56 AM on June 20, 2007

Is this viral marketing for the Transformers movie? After all, Bumble Bee was perhaps teh gayest robot evar.
posted by Debaser626 at 10:57 AM on June 20, 2007

After all, Bumble Bee was perhaps teh gayest robot evar.

Yeah, his terminal actuator was totally longer than his primary actuator!
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 10:59 AM on June 20, 2007 [1 favorite]

Oh my god, i was going to post an ask.me about this. I really am enjoying the pre-emptiveness of MeFi lately.
posted by Brainy at 11:01 AM on June 20, 2007

Metafilter is getting farker by the second.
posted by srboisvert at 11:01 AM on June 20, 2007

This is pretty interesting stuff. Of course, like they say in the article, having a "hair whorl" in a certain direction doesn't make you gay, but it's interesting to me how many of the statistically likely characteristics are true for myself or my gay friends.

*strokes chin* Innnnteresting.
posted by Zephyrial at 11:02 AM on June 20, 2007

A typical New York mag article: froth and fluff such as 'gay traits' like counter-clockwise whorls and index finger lengths. Hardly, the 'science' of gaydar ... more the quackery.

What about for those whom sexuality changes over the years? What about those (likely larger) numbers of men and women who are non-heterosexual who are still in the closet or in denial who are never included in the surveys?

The one paragraph that I found compelling:
“Essentialism,” he explains, “is the enemy of a lot of academics,” because it shuts down inquiry into all the possible influences. Perhaps there are a dozen possible routes to homosexuality, any combination of which might produce a number of the traits being catalogued now. It might be that there is no single thing called homosexuality—that there are instead dozens of homosexualities, scores of potential outcomes in terms of personality, and endless potentials for describing them. “For example, do gay men who have older brothers show more or less feminine? Do gay men with counterclockwise hair have more masculine traits? One cause might create a more feminine homosexuality than another.”

There must be multiple routes, just as they are for anything.
posted by Azaadistani at 11:10 AM on June 20, 2007 [1 favorite]

I'm sure this will end up being great fodder for middle school kids picking on each other.
posted by empath at 11:12 AM on June 20, 2007

Empath, if your kid reads New York Mag, he's gay.
posted by hermitosis at 11:16 AM on June 20, 2007

Oh, useful information like this will always filter down.
posted by empath at 11:19 AM on June 20, 2007

I'm very skeptical about the validity of this information. It reads like a lot of early anthropometry to me (cranial capacity/breadth of your nose stuff). If you take two independently defined groups and compare them against each other choosing freely from an essentially infinite set of metrics, of course you'll find things that are statistically significant. I bet you that comparing people from Arkansas against people from Iowa you could do the same (their third toe is wider than their second toe and the Iowans are the other way around!).

This sort of physical anthropology is just weird. If there was some significance to hair whorls and ring fingers, it may be interesting. Instead, it just shows that given the ability to choose any possible metric by which to compare groups, it is possible to construct one that seems significant.
posted by allen.spaulding at 11:25 AM on June 20, 2007 [3 favorites]

I stopped reading when they were collecting their data at a gay pride parade. *Out* gays and lesbians have these traits. Well no wonder they are more left handed--they are the artists and musicians whose open-minded friends and family don't care.
posted by DU at 11:30 AM on June 20, 2007

Anyone else actually reading the article?

I've been reading it. I was particularly interested about the roles of gay men in societies where gayness was/is accepted: more likely to help take care of a large family unit; sisters of gay men likely to have more children (because their brothers can help them out?) etc.

It makes me wonder how gayness is or could be beneficial to our society as a whole - in both a biological and environmental sense - and if these benefits are still relevant or if they've been essentially stamped out after thousands of years of castigation.
posted by frobozz at 11:35 AM on June 20, 2007

“It probably comes as no shock to you that on average men say they’re interested in being mechanics, or electrical engineers, or construction workers, whereas on average women are more interested in, say, being an interior decorator or a social worker or an artist,” he tells me. “Similarly, the differences between gay men and straight men are pretty large. On average, gay men are interested more in what you would consider female-typical occupations and hobbies than straight men. Same with women. It’s not universal. Some gay men like football games and like working on cars and are electrical engineers. But a large majority answer this way.”

Throughout this article it speaks of gay people having a gay identity (I think it's fair say straight people have a straight identity). I think that it's pretty well known that people are more likely to do things and hold values which are in line with their self image.

And all that correlative hair whorl/finger length/finger print stuff is just watery nonsense with no predictive value.

"Ahh yes, your finger length complies with the pattern we've already recognized. Excellent! No? Oh."

I won't be happy until we can make rats gay.
posted by Matt Oneiros at 11:37 AM on June 20, 2007 [1 favorite]

This article disappointed me, it had basically nothing to do with 'gaydar'.
posted by Matt Oneiros at 11:40 AM on June 20, 2007

I predicted that your favorite band would suck - and I was right! How do I do it? I use new SuckDar^TM. SuckDar^TM: Now with only half the calories!
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 11:47 AM on June 20, 2007

From the article: Fewer studies have focused specifically on lesbians, perhaps because AIDS didn’t provide the same urgent impetus for studying female sexuality.

No, dumbass: fewer studies focus on women at all because men are treated as the "default" for scientific studies.

That said: my ring finger/index finger ratio makes it clear that I'm a lesbian. Thank heavens!
posted by rtha at 11:51 AM on June 20, 2007

I won't be happy until we can make rats gay.

Will you settle for ferrets?
(3rd para.)

The hypothalamus differences didn't seem as watery as the hair whorls.
posted by frobozz at 11:52 AM on June 20, 2007

Nothing can make a man appear more gay than (1) Ultimate Fighting or (2) watching Ultimate Fighting. For me, it has taken the place of gymnastics and Australian Rules Football in average EMPH (erection-minutes per hour).

I can't imagine that physical attributes would be an effective predictor of my personal tendency to sleep with men and yet permit special sexual dispensation for (albeit unlikely) encounters with Angelina Jolie or Helen Mirren, or both at the same time.
posted by troybob at 12:09 PM on June 20, 2007

Yes - Matt Oneiros has it. Do they even know what gaydar is?
posted by dash_slot- at 12:10 PM on June 20, 2007

I thought the article was actually pretty damn good, though I was initially disappointed that it doesn't actually have anything to do with 'gaydar' in the popular sense.

I'm a male who identifies as straight, but I have the 'female/gay version' of several of the characteristics listed (hair swirl, finger length, handedness, etc.). I wonder if these physiological traits serve as unconscious indicators of sexuality, the blips that gaydar detects. If so, that would help explain why I seem to get hit on by gay men far more than most of my straight male friends.

Simon LeVay, the guy who did the study on the INAH-3 region in the medial preoptic region of the hypothalamus, is awesome, by the way. Anyone who hasn't read The Sexual Brain should definitely give it a look.
posted by solipsophistocracy at 12:13 PM on June 20, 2007

This, question has been asked on Metafilter before, but...Why Do All These Homosexuals Keep Sucking My Cock?
posted by KokuRyu at 12:13 PM on June 20, 2007

Are those hair whorls labeled incorrectly? What they describe as counter-clockwise I see as clockwise, and vice versa.

My ring and index fingers appear to be practically equal in length. Does that mean I can be bi now?

Solipsophistocracy: come out of the closet already. I've got empirical evidence you are queer. Quit living in denial.
posted by Ynoxas at 12:15 PM on June 20, 2007

Ynoxas: Thank god for the combined efforts of science and your shrewd intellect! If only I'd listened in middle school, I could have saved so much time and money chasing the wrong kind of ass.

I gotta go work on my lisp.
posted by solipsophistocracy at 12:19 PM on June 20, 2007

That said: my ring finger/index finger ratio makes it clear that I'm a lesbian. Thank heavens!
posted by rtha at 11:51 AM on June 20

Mine too, which is going to thrill my husband to no end.
posted by padraigin at 12:21 PM on June 20, 2007

Sniffing your fingers will probably tell you more about your sexuality than measuring them.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 12:25 PM on June 20, 2007 [12 favorites]

That said: my ring finger/index finger ratio makes it clear that I'm a lesbian. Thank heavens!

Ratio.... or radius?
posted by Flashman at 12:26 PM on June 20, 2007

srboisvert: "Metafilter is getting farker by the second."

Or slashdotier.
posted by octothorpe at 12:27 PM on June 20, 2007

This, question has been asked on Metafilter before, but...Why Do All These Homosexuals Keep Sucking My Cock?

And by "asked on MetaFilter before," you mean "posted in nine out of ten goddamned threads about homosexuality, despite the fact that it was written almost nine years ago."
posted by the_bone at 12:29 PM on June 20, 2007

Some men want to fag it up, but the whole idea of gaydar is, too me, bigoted.
posted by four panels at 12:31 PM on June 20, 2007

I don't see why it wouldn't be possible to have differences across brains that are merely cosmetic and have no bearing on actual behavior.

Does anyone know more about the ferret gay-making? I can only find this.
posted by Matt Oneiros at 12:34 PM on June 20, 2007

What he said. Only imagine it was said less well.

Think of "gaydar" like a series of tests. Think of "people who I think act/look gay are gay" as a hypothesis about your gayday's accuracy. Now consider: how random is your sampling method? How do you know when you're right, and more importantly, when you're not?

Stereotypes feed into a confirmation bias by filling people's mental datasets with data points that are skewed toward test accuracy (because people who seem rather gay tend to be), while many people remain unaware of the number of not-obviously-gay gay people that they interact with casually whose appearances would count as inaccurate data points-- if it occurred to someone to question their straightness.

Sampling at a pride parade would be ok in some contexts-- but I doubt the researchers were comparing the whorls there to a similar sample from the local population at the straight pride festival down the street.
posted by Tehanu at 12:35 PM on June 20, 2007

I don't see why it wouldn't be possible to have differences across brains that are merely cosmetic and have no bearing on actual behavior.

Don't go into Neuroscience.
posted by solipsophistocracy at 12:44 PM on June 20, 2007

I have 5 hair whorls, two of which are clockwise, two of which are counterclockwise, and one of which is cultural. My index and ring fingers are around the same length, with the ring finger being every so slightly longer. Every Cosmo-style "which gender is your brain?" quiz that I've ever taken has come out 50-50. The conclusion is inevitable. I'm a gay man trapped in a woman's body.
posted by carmen at 12:50 PM on June 20, 2007

In related news, an equally fluffy Village Voice piece posted this week on whether or not you can identify your toddler as gay.
posted by availablelight at 12:57 PM on June 20, 2007

Why is asking why some people are gay "better" than just getting used to the fact that some people are gay? (You could put that on a T-shirt: "Why ask why? Get used to it!")
posted by davy at 1:07 PM on June 20, 2007

Stereotypes feed into a confirmation bias by filling people's mental datasets with data points that are skewed toward test accuracy (because people who seem rather gay tend to be), while many people remain unaware of the number of not-obviously-gay gay people that they interact with casually whose appearances would count as inaccurate data points-- if it occurred to someone to question their straightness.

You also have the fact that if someone appears gay but is not, few people will take their word for it. So they get lumped under "gay" simply because people think they are.
posted by watsondog at 1:09 PM on June 20, 2007

Sexuality is a continuum, anyway. Everyone's a little gay and a lot straight, or vice versa. So does gaydar only identify people who are 99.9% gay? And what's the point?
posted by KokuRyu at 1:13 PM on June 20, 2007

Do gays in Austrailia and New Zealand have swirls which go the other way?
posted by bonehead at 1:22 PM on June 20, 2007 [7 favorites]

Hypothesis on the origins of Gaydar:

1. Feel different than the other boys/girls, but be unsure why. Try your best to ignore it.

2. Be punished by your peers for not acting quite right and live in daily fear of humiliation.

3. Obsess over your behavior and how "normal" people are supposed to behave so you can "blend."

4. Once step 3 fails, use your Daredevil(TM)* like powers of perception to spot other people who don't quite fit in, who look "a bit queer," if you will.

At least that's my pet hypothesis as to why I've been able to spot other gay people from miles away, sometimes years before they come out.

It's not any one thing like the way someone talks or throws a football or hair whorls. All social animals can read extremely complex and subtle body cues. It's useful for things like detecting aggression, sizing up possible mates, and establishing dominance.

This still leaves the question of what cues am I picking up on?


* - Daredevil is a trademark of Marvel Comics and to the best of my knowledge does not have a counter-clockwise hair whorl or high fingerprint density on his left thumb and pinky. He may or may not actually have gaydar, but it's irrelevant since he can hear you clicking on gay porn sites from 3 streets over.
posted by eisbaer at 1:38 PM on June 20, 2007 [2 favorites]

I thought it was a well-written and interesting article. No one's claiming that there's a 100% correlation between certain physical traits and one's sexual orientation; and it's mainly using recent research into this area as a springboard to explore the current state and implications of the nature/nurture debates.
posted by treepour at 1:44 PM on June 20, 2007

KokuRyu, when dealing with sexuality as a continuum it's important to use beer-dar. Beer-dar is the magical ability to know how many beers it will take before a given person will perform homosexual acts.

Some guys are 0 beer homosexuals, some are six-pack homosexuals, and some guys would die of alcohol poisoning before anything hot happened with another guy.

I find this to be far more useful in the field than that Kinsey pablum.
posted by eisbaer at 1:47 PM on June 20, 2007 [4 favorites]

Good point, watsondog.

Wait. Toddlers have a sexual orientation?

Huh. After reading it, the article's actually pretty good except for the part about the dad trying to figure out who his toddler is attracted to. I'm glad he decided to avoid labels for now. This part early on is funny/sad:

"I sometimes try to pick up clues as to who he's attracted to," he says, "and I have no idea."

Elmo. He's attracted to Elmo. Elmo, milk, and cookies.

Seriously, while it's true that many gay people do realize it quite young, it also seems sad to be trying to figure out your kid's sexual orientation a decade before puberty. Just be supportive about whatever he turns out to be, and let him figure it out in his own time.

On preview: eisbaer, I agree that there are definitely social cues. I just get annoyed when people try to make it sound like a scientific instrument, like radar. It isn't. And it isn't A) Straight (Normal) B) Gay (Abnormal) either, so it's all very complicated.
posted by Tehanu at 1:48 PM on June 20, 2007

I thought the A) Nature vs. B) Nurture question got settled as C) badly worded question, try again, what would you like to know about the contributions of each? For all of biology I mean.
posted by Tehanu at 1:51 PM on June 20, 2007 [2 favorites]

And if your ring finger is longer than your middle finger, you know what that means?

That's right -- you're a werewolf.

Science!
posted by kittens for breakfast at 2:08 PM on June 20, 2007 [3 favorites]

Fascinating read, thanks.

It's interesting how resistant some people are to the idea that there could be seemingly irrelevant physical traits correlative to homosexuality. Most people don't have a problem seeing gayness as innate, and it would make sense that, if it truly is a trait set at birth and not simply a choice, that there would be certain associated characteristics - not necessarily with 100% correlation, but certainly a greater likelihood of certain things happening together.

It's also interesting how it seems to me that there's less complaint over the discovery that female sexuality seems to be different than male sexuality - and a bit more fluid. If you've had enough sexual experience with men and women, this becomes obvious after a while. What this difference and fluidity comprises, and as to how much that is nature versus nurture, I cannot say, but still.

You'll never be able to "test positive for gay" by dint of finger length, and the fears that people might try to prevent gay babies are not unfounded. And blanket statements like "male bisexuality doesn't exist" and "women don't have sexual orientation" sound silly. But still. Interesting research. It'll be interesting to check back in 200 years later and see how many of these early notions we're having will turn out to be complete bullshit.
posted by Sticherbeast at 2:10 PM on June 20, 2007

And if your ring finger is longer than your middle finger, you know what that means?

That's right -- you're a werewolf.

Oh man. THANK YOU. I had completely forgotten about that.
posted by Sticherbeast at 2:11 PM on June 20, 2007

I, too, am attracted by Elmo. You can tell by the reddish hints in my beard.
posted by Sparx at 2:11 PM on June 20, 2007

“I thought the A) Nature vs. B) Nurture question got settled as C) badly worded question, try again, what would you like to know about the contributions of each? For all of biology I mean.”

Unfortunately, no. Within biology of all subfields, there are still extreme naturists. And outside biology, there are quite a few areas where extreme nurturists are quite common.

The extreme, ideologically-driven views have remained influential because there's too many people who have a strong vested interest in them. For historical, and not inherent, reasons, each extreme is strongly (though not absolutely) associated with political affiliation. Thus many people feel they have to buy into an extreme version as part of their political affiliation and to be in accordance with a number of other, usually political, views.

It's pretty depressing to me, actually.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 2:15 PM on June 20, 2007

within biology of all subfields should have been within biology and its subfields.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 2:16 PM on June 20, 2007

I gotta go work on my lisp.

In all seriousness, that (the "lisp") is what I want explained. Speaking style is alluded to in the article as a very strong indicator; I understand that the "accent" can usually be attributed to the subculture, but I've had some friends for whom it seemed to be innate. (Or rather, they developed the speaking style independently.) I'm curious about the linguistic mechanism at work here.
posted by spiderwire at 2:22 PM on June 20, 2007

"You also have the fact that if someone appears gay but is not, few people will take their word for it."

That too. And word gets around. It can get so you might as well have sex with other guys because most girls won't want you.

On the other hand it can be neat to draw fag hags and actually put out for them. They can be so grateful!
posted by davy at 2:25 PM on June 20, 2007

So....who lives close enough to Mann's Chinese Theater to go take some measurements and perform a batch index-to-ring-finger celebrity outing?
posted by zylocomotion at 2:26 PM on June 20, 2007

And by "asked on MetaFilter before," you mean "posted in nine out of ten goddamned threads about homosexuality, despite the fact that it was written almost nine years ago."

I get a little tired of the article, too, but there are a few Onion pieces that just completely capture an entire debate in a humorous way; they tie it up in a tidy package that says, "This whole argument is ridiculous -- have a nice day," and, well, they're just right. The linked piece just happens to be one of those.
posted by spiderwire at 2:29 PM on June 20, 2007

spiderwire: I always had understood that as a product of sexual socialization. Our constructed gender is very much driven by its opposite: the gender we wish to attract. Therefore men seeking men may adopt "feminine" social skills, speech patterns or grooming habits to attract the bearers of masculinity, whether they are gay or not. I believe this as highly variable and innate as my own balance of girliness to non-girliness. Moreover, re-configuration of that gender behavior set on the personal or the cultural scale is effing gender queer and needs more recognition as such.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 2:38 PM on June 20, 2007 [1 favorite]

Gaydar is for advanced gays only. N00bies must use the gayface.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 2:40 PM on June 20, 2007

Gaydar is for advanced gays only. N00bies must use the gayface.

Lordy. I especially like the accompanying expression on the guy in the sidebar ad.
posted by Sticherbeast at 2:43 PM on June 20, 2007

I have a friend who favors male musicians and movie stars that are of an non-threatening nature. Nice boys, polite boys. She gushes over them like a twelve-year-old. Her brother, my wife and I have kept a careful list, and darn near every one she gets a crush on sooner or later either comes out of the closet (George Michael) or ends up swamped with rumors of living in the closet (Tom "Tammy" Cruise). And in all cases she has been totally clueless about them being gay. Her lack of gaydar has become a barometer for the rest of us and it has rarely failed us.
posted by Ber at 2:51 PM on June 20, 2007

It was an interesting article, but there's so much bias among biologists--that language they use.
posted by amberglow at 3:25 PM on June 20, 2007

Little Britain - The Daffyd Thomas Gay Test.
posted by ericb at 3:41 PM on June 20, 2007 [1 favorite]

Very interesting article. But now, I am wondering about:

(a) as has been mentioned above, people who set off your gaydar but aren't actually wanting to suck the cock. For example, my hairdresser is someone that you could check off a whole lot on the gay stereotypes list about, but...he keeps dating chicks. What do they make of this?

(b) Does this mean that there's a LOT of Catholic, Mormon, and Duggar boys that are coming out as gay?
posted by jenfullmoon at 3:44 PM on June 20, 2007

"One study, involving tape-recordings of gay and straight men, found that 75 percent of gay men sounded gay to a general audience."

Ludicrous.

To which stereotype is the "general audience" responding? Effeminate vocalizations? Not an indication, though social abreaction may affect how some men think of themselves.

The number of men who've successfully stayed in the closet for years, or a lifetime -- in some cases fooling even themselves -- reveals that the "general public" (and many gay men) remain mystified. Quite possibly because there simply are no universal salient (sailoriant?) indicators.

Apart from rhubarb, of course.
posted by Twang at 3:52 PM on June 20, 2007

(a) as has been mentioned above, people who set off your gaydar but aren't actually wanting to suck the cock. For example, my hairdresser is someone that you could check off a whole lot on the gay stereotypes list about, but...he keeps dating chicks. What do they make of this?

There's a weird and not-quite-helpful-to-understanding mix of societal biases/stereotypes being confirmed or denied by studies, and of scientific studies of innate differences, in the article.
posted by amberglow at 4:04 PM on June 20, 2007

For a biologist's take on variation in animal sexual behavior, I recommend Joan Roughgarden's book, Evolution's Rainbow. It is biology-heavy, but also written with a more general audience in mind. It's the best treatment of the subject that I've seen to date. I won't say I agree with her conclusions entirely, but it's a good read. It was actually helpful to understanding.
posted by Tehanu at 4:10 PM on June 20, 2007

There's a weird and not-quite-helpful-to-understanding mix of societal biases/stereotypes being confirmed or denied by studies, and of scientific studies of innate differences, in the article.

Gould's The Mismeasure Of Man, while centering on a different topic, goes into this fairly well. Scientists have plenty of biases and they come through frequently in research. Even something as basic as measuring the volume of skulls can be tainted by plenty of bias.

I say this not to discredit the notion that there could be physical traits associated with homosexuality - I take that as a given, frankly, unless gayness truly was just a choice one made on a whim - but to simply put out there that, so early in the game, a lot of this is probably going to be regarded as nonsense, or at least woefully incomplete at some point down the line. So goes the pursuit of knowledge through science.
posted by Sticherbeast at 4:12 PM on June 20, 2007

The number of men who've successfully stayed in the closet for years, or a lifetime -- in some cases fooling even themselves -- reveals that the "general public" (and many gay men) remain mystified. Quite possibly because there simply are no universal salient (sailoriant?) indicators.

I don't think the article (or anyone in it) is arguing for universal indicators.

But I think you touch on something interesting -- all of these studies will have been done on men who self-identify as gay. This is a just a subset (how small no one really knows) of the total population of men who are primarily sexually attracted to other men.
posted by treepour at 4:20 PM on June 20, 2007

Ber: "Her lack of gaydar has become a barometer for the rest of us and it has rarely failed us."

Sounds like her gaydar is dead on target to me! :)
posted by zoogleplex at 4:25 PM on June 20, 2007

I'm an American. When I visit London, I am immediately pegged as an American by the locals. It's the clothes, the hair, the choice of backpack, etc, they say.

I submit that what most people term "gaydar" is nothing more than garden-variety intuition based on these and other similar visual cues, most of them beyond the perception of the individuals in question.

Whorls and ring finger lengths may have validity, but I think common sense "gaydar" is nothing more than "reptile brain pattern recognition based on previous experience."
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 4:25 PM on June 20, 2007

most of them beyond the perception of the individuals in question

Beyond the conscious perception, that is.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 4:26 PM on June 20, 2007

Oh, and another thing about some of the seemingly prejudicial language of the biologists - for example, talking about something going "wrong" in the womb - a lot of this is coming from a place where we're putting an intentionalist spin on how genes and development work. The thinking is that humans "want" to make more humans who want to mate with members of the opposite gender, thereby making more humans. This is not a baseless view, but it is woefully incomplete to the extent that genes, sperms, eggs, wombs, and so forth don't really "want" anything - they just do. There isn't really much of a plan in the sense that a small business has a marketing plan.

Humans exist because we do, in fact, make more little humans, and our reproductive system exists for the simple reason that it facilitates reproduction. To the extent that a gay person doesn't feel much of a sexual rush to hump members of the opposite sex, you might see that as "wrong," because humping members of the same sex is not behavior immediately conducive to making more babies - but the world is a very complex place indeed with many roles to fill and many ways to exist, so to say that being gay is "wrong" from the point of view is not only a small-minded moral judgment, but it's also making a judgment on the functioning of genes, sperms, eggs, wombs, and so forth. And even as I speak of roles - it's not as if evolution is so teleological that some Evolution Wizard decided that we needed gay men to take care of their mums or something, or that it would be really funny to make fluid the sexuality of women. Things sort of just...are. There may very well be reasons why things just...are, but there's no guarantee that it's going to be anything so intentional.

Furthermore, when we go back to why gayness is so prevalent in the animal kingdom, and how society works to promote the creation of babies, and to such things as the battle for adoption and marriage rites for gays - we see that reproductive instincts are a bit more complicated than simply how you wish to stimulate your genitalia and maybe even fall in love. It's a big, wide world out there, so I'm more than a little leery of anyone trying to "explain" gayness to that extent.

And, in its own way, talking about something "wrong" happening in the development of the baby is not necessarily anti-homosexual in intent - it just speaks to a certain model of explaining biology which comes loaded with its own value judgments.

After all, for all my dismissal of saying whether things are going "right" or "wrong" with regard to pieces of a human body, none of us would be so wishy-washy when it comes to, say, a heart having a heart attack. A heart ought to pump blood well - when it does not, call the ambulance. Likewise, as insensitive as it might be to say, it's fair to say that something goes "wrong" when a child is born with severe mental retardation - at least to the extent that the child is obviously handicapped to a certain degree. Children are better off when they're born with fully functioning brains. We don't need to apologize for this.

But...does something go "wrong" when, in the development of a human, a person is created who does not wish to have sex with a member of the opposite sex? It may be possible to think so, even without a drop of rancor against gay people, if one is limiting themselves to such a strict idea of what people ought to do.

So then you wind up with prejudicial language from someone who is not being homophobic.
posted by Sticherbeast at 4:34 PM on June 20, 2007

it's not as if evolution is so teleological that some Evolution Wizard decided that we needed gay men to take care of their mums or something

Actually, there is the "good uncle" theory that stated essentially that (without the wizard part). That a gene pool that made X percent of the population gay was healthier than one that didn't, because it blunted reproductive competition by just the right degree to stave off intratribal struggle, and that the gay males/females passed on their genes indirectly in this manner -- the tribe as a whole is more likely to survive when X percentage of gay members are present.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 4:41 PM on June 20, 2007 [1 favorite]

All of which begs the more important question of whether or not gaydar is biological or environmental. Was I born with this incredible gift of prejudicial prophecy - or did I aquire it subliminally in the Boy Scouts?
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 4:42 PM on June 20, 2007

@treepour: This is a just a subset (how small no one really knows) of the total population of men who are primarily sexually attracted to other men.

Also interesting is the size of the population of men who'd gladly go either way (rather than *primary* attraction) ... were it not for abundantly-clear social signals. I 'spect that number would be astonishing; and I 'spect one day it will ... once more people realize how little it matters.
posted by Twang at 4:43 PM on June 20, 2007

And by "in the Boy Scouts," I mean "as a member." Wait... that sounds dirty, too. DAMN YOU BOY SCOUTS! IS THERE NO AFFILIATION YOU CAN'T TARNISH?!
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 4:52 PM on June 20, 2007 [1 favorite]

Forget gaydar, I'm working on perfecting my Blackdar.
posted by Rangeboy at 5:02 PM on June 20, 2007

Actually, there is the "good uncle" theory that stated essentially that (without the wizard part).

I'm not entirely disagreeing with you or saying that the theory is necessarily invalid, but that's still more intentionalism to say that gayness exists because they make for "good uncles." There isn't necessarily a "because" for gayness in existence! However, there are undoubtedly a number of very good reasons why behavior not immediately conducive to making babies thrives, and thrives in so many different animals.

I'm just saying that there may never come a day where we'll be able to confidently state that gays exist "for" any particular reason, anymore than there being a reason for anything happening ever. And even if there's no specific intent behind gayness, that doesn't mean they can't also be good uncles, as well as wonderful fathers, lovers, friends, sea captains, and so on, and that those qualities allow them to continue to exist and reproduce.

I'm just extremely wary of any simple, logical explanation behind very complex behavior. What seems like common sense or a satisfying conclusion may very well be a Just-So Story and not actually a theory.

Again, I'm neither saying you're wrong, nor making any judgments whatsoever on the "good uncle" theory.

Also, if your theory lacks wizards, then I don't care. :)
posted by Sticherbeast at 5:05 PM on June 20, 2007

My gaydar is typically slightly better on women than it is on men, with the caveat that it becomes much more obvious when men hit on me (not ... very ... smooth). I think the variety of clothing and hairstyle options available to women, as compared to with what men can get away with, allow women more freedom of expression, and therefore more communication about their personalities, which is probably what I sense.

I believe the accent to be a complex cultural phenomenon. A friend of mine who didn't merely exit the closet, he hopped the fence, and in a big way, began to speak differently, in a manner that could have only been generated by a visit to Rex Rainbow's School of Homosexual Elocution. My working hypothesis is that a lot of the traits of expression, clothing, and accent serve as plumage for identification. "Are you like me?"

Consider yourself as a gay man possessed of a typically normal male libido; you would like to find someone with whom you could mate. However, you have an added risk that straight men don't typically have to worry about: girls might slap straight men, but sexually insecure boys might succumb to "gay panic" and, say, beat you to death. It would then be of some utility to develop some subtle signal; yes, you have exposed yourself to increased risk from bashers, but you're not "in their face" as you might be when hitting on them by accident, and you have someone with whom you may go home because you have recognized one another. The expectation value gives this a big win. Throw in the increased peer pressure for conforming behavior that arise from most minorities, and you have yourself a lock.

Of the traits listed in the article, I have only used voice and handedness, but I have a variety of other details weigh into my estimation. One of the going hypotheses I've heard on The Lisp is that it was a holdover from when it was fashionable for young women to affect one. Tradition and the potential utility mentioned above would keep it going.
posted by adipocere at 5:05 PM on June 20, 2007 [1 favorite]

Whorls and ring finger lengths may have validity, but I think common sense "gaydar" is nothing more than "reptile brain pattern recognition based on previous experience."

Sometimes, it's an even more practical branch of common sense. Lesbians, for example, never choose to have long fingernails. By the same token, a guy with long fingernails is reasonably unlikely to have a girlfriend.
posted by UbuRoivas at 5:12 PM on June 20, 2007

Ah, the fingernails.

"The blonde one's queer. Look at her. Those fingernails are a dead giveaway. Cut all nice and short. Clean cuticle beds. Lesbians always trim their nails like that. You know why ... ?"

I miss me some Wonderfalls.
posted by adipocere at 5:31 PM on June 20, 2007

Lesbian with pretty, pretty nails here. Manicured, sparkly... and short.

Anyway, I have mixed feelings about articles like this. As a lesbian, one who came out rather later than usual (27-ish), I'm sick of trying to answer the, "Why are you like this?" question, both to myself and others. I'm 34 and back in college. I also have a child; I got married, to a man, when I was 21. The topic came up in a psych class last semester, and someone asked, "So, were you BORN gay or did you DECIDE to be gay or what?" I was grumpy that nite and answered, "Well, I got up one day and felt sort of bored. I thought, 'Should I get a haircut today? Or should I become a big dyke?' " I just don't care anymore why I'm gay. I just want to get on with life.

But as a student just now exploring the sciences, I LOVE the big questions of Why. Learning formulas and doing all the math and memorizing all the thises and thats is tedious. I do it all because I love getting to Why. So I do care why people, animals, plants, minerals, and electrons are why they are. I just don't want to explain myself all the time, I guess.

Also, is it just me or does this article contain at least three different excuses for why so little research is done on women? Even the field of gay analysis seems sexist. Geesh.
posted by houseofdanie at 5:44 PM on June 20, 2007

I'm not entirely disagreeing with you or saying that the theory is necessarily invalid, but that's still more intentionalism to say that gayness exists because they make for "good uncles." There isn't necessarily a "because" for gayness in existence!

There's no "intentionalism" at all. Evolution selects for the tribes that displays these behaviors (and the associated genetic underpinnings), as the behaviors make it more likely to pass on genes. The theory goes that gayness exists because gayness makes for better tribes, if not individuals within those tribes, that are more likely to pass on genes than tribes that don't.

The "because" is "because tribes that don't have it die earlier and more frequently."
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 6:02 PM on June 20, 2007

I'm just extremely wary of any simple, logical explanation behind very complex behavior.

Well, unfortunately, evolution is quite simple and pretty damn ruthlessly simple at that. The trap people fall into is not respecting the enormous amount of time involved. Modern humans have been around for about 10,000 years, but mammals have been around for millions of years. The "simple, logical explanation" may sound trite to you right now, but it has played out over an enormous amount of time, over an enormous number of individuals. With Big Numbers, even simple variations can have enormously complex results.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 6:08 PM on June 20, 2007 [1 favorite]

“And even as I speak of roles - it's not as if evolution is so teleological that ”

It's not even in the least teleological. It's not teleological at all. There's not a single, tiny, infinitesimal bit in evolution that is teleological. Teleology in evolution is pushing up the daises. That, in evolution, is a dead teleology.

"Good uncle" theories and similar have to be very carefully evaluated for the plausibility of the actual mechanisms described to produce such an outcome. Gould's Mismeasure of Man was very good, but on contemporary evolution theory, he wasn't that reliable. Specifically, he advances several group selection theories that are nearly universally considered wrong. Group selection theories are those which talk about species being selected for against others, or other groupings being selected for as a group. You see this sort of group theory popping up in lay discussion with statements of the form "blah blah blah for the sake of the species". Group theories were very popular prior to the fifties. Today, there are only a few which are valid and thinking of this sort is automatically suspected of getting evolution wrong in some respects. Not really in trained evolutionists, who are aware of all this now, but in other scientists and laypeople who are still keen on thinking about evolution in group selection terms. Anyway, the "good uncle" theory is respectable, though controversial.

There's various evidence for the biological cause of most homosexuality. "Biological cause" includes genetically determined things, but also endocrinological stuff during gestation that is not genetically determined. And we know that inherent predilections can be culturally influenced, sometimes to the extreme of an opposite outcome. The last point is intended to allow for the almost certain possibility that at least a minority of homosexual orientation is cultural or personal and not biological. All of this is even more true with regard to sexual differentiation of behavior and the construction of gender. A non-ideological view will be, based upon evidence, that is is largely biological in origin which is greatly complicated by cultural factors.

Until very recently, the gay rights movement had wholly endorsed the naturist theory of the origin of homosexuality as being beneficial to the cause. A lot of people, particularly homosexuals and their families, take comfort in a strong biological explanation for the origin of homosexuality. There's a great deal of evidence for the biological origin of homosexuality, though preliminary, and a reasonable and unbiased judgment would be that it explains the origins of homosexuality in large part, though incompletely and certainly not every aspect of homosexuality and all its nuances. As far as the politics of this is concerned, I think that the downside to a biological origin and the accompanying explanation of behavior are similar to those in gender identity.

A lot of sexism has been justified on the basis of inherent difference between the sexes, and there's a bunch of biased and sexist research recently that attempts to place certain sex differences within the biology sphere. From this example, it should be clear that a biological basis for homosexuality is not a haven where homosexuals will be shielded from discrimination. It's only an accident of our particular religious and cultural history that anti-homosexual bigotry found its rationale centered upon a choice theory rather than a biology theory. Because of this, many see proof of a biology theory to be a refutation of the anti-homosexuality bigotry. But it's only a refutation to their theory and some specific beliefs that result from it. It's not a refutation of their underlying bigotry anymore than that people are born black is any sort of refutation of racism for racists. The bigotry can live comfortably within the context of a biological origin and it will, do not doubt it. This is why I've long argued that those of us who fight for gay rights are making a mistake hyping up the biological origin of it. Because, after all, the real argument here is whether or not there's something wrong with gay sex and gay love. And of course there is not. That should be our strongest message, over and over and over. This message also accommodates all other non-majority of sexuality in a way that a biological defense does not. Indeed, the biological defense for homosexuality weakens other non-majority sexuality's defenses of their acceptability.

Meanwhile on the gender side, we need to be cautious in the other direction because the status quo and the bigotry comes from the other direction. Specifically, while there may be a lot of evidence indicating that differences in behavior of the sexes have a genetic/biological basis, we need to be careful to discern when certain arguments are just bigoted arguments looking for respectability. And where strong research makes for strong arguments that are difficult for those of us fighting for women's rights, we need to find a way to work with them or around them. After all, we see from the gay example that biological origin thinking can be a weapon for equality. This was the tack taken by some essentialist feminists, too.

And, finally, I think these two examples taken together show that the nature-versus-nurture arguments are in many cases red herrings. It's not demonstrated anywhere that one or the other is either absolutely a friend or an enemy to those seeking civil rights and fairness and elimination of bigotry. It's clear that we can have a fair society that allows differences without regard to their origin—we should concentrate on defending people's rights to being different from one another without regard to the origin of those differences.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 6:11 PM on June 20, 2007 [4 favorites]

“The theory goes that gayness exists because gayness makes for better tribes, if not individuals within those tribes, that are more likely to pass on genes than tribes that don't.”

That's group selection exemplified and it's false. The good uncle theory I'm acquainted with says that, like brothers and sisters, gay close relative share a large number of genes with their reproducing near relatives and in protecting those near relatives, they are protecting the genes both share. Thus an incidence of homosexuality is a survival trait for those genes. The "niece" or "nephew" that does reproduce is passing along the genes that the "uncle" carried. Those genes produced behavior that gave the "niece" or "nephews" copies a greater chance of success. It is all about the genes of the indivudal who is reproducing, not a tribe or a species.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 6:16 PM on June 20, 2007

It's clear that we can have a fair society that allows differences without regard to their origin—we should concentrate on defending people's rights to being different from one another without regard to the origin of those differences.

KILL THE WISE ONE!
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 6:20 PM on June 20, 2007

Thus an incidence of homosexuality is a survival trait for those genes.

Uhh, this is exactly what I'm saying. You're refuting my point by restating my point.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 6:21 PM on June 20, 2007

You're refuting my point by restating my point.

And I find it funny, by the way.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 6:23 PM on June 20, 2007

You have a cool user name, sir.
posted by jonmc at 6:29 PM on June 20, 2007

“Uhh, this is exactly what I'm saying. You're refuting my point by restating my point.”

Well, you insufficiently presented it, then. And it's not the case that a tribe is what is being selected for—and you implied that strongly, if not explicitly said that. And it's not the family sharing those genes that's being selected for, either. It's the individual who passes them along. And it's really just those specific genes, not even the individual.

If you really understand this, then I apologize for implying that you didn't. But, if so, you presented your argument incompletely or misleadingly. No offense. But thinking in group selection terms is misleading, especially for people who don't really understand evolution in the first place. It is not a family or a tribe or a species that is being selected for or against in evolution, at most it's an individual and its even better to think on the level of specific genes. That is where the selection pressure matters. When you think in group selection terms you're tempted to think about all sorts of supposed selection pressures which don't or can't have an effect at the level of genes and thus aren't involved in evolution.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 6:38 PM on June 20, 2007

Ethereal Bligh, I mostly agree with you. The issue is about rights and freedom, and not origin. And it's dangerous to forget that. But on the other hand, many people fundamentally misunderstand gayness as a "lifestyle choice," and while changing that perception won't end homophobia, I think it does increase many people's understanding of the issue. You're right, it won't change very homophobic people's opinions, because they're not really based on how sexual orientation is determined at all. But those aren't the critical people to convince that people of different sexual orientations and gender expression should have equal rights-- the moderates are. I do agree that the message should be mostly about equality as a right.
posted by Tehanu at 6:56 PM on June 20, 2007

Note this thread down as further evidence for the MetaFilter Bean Theorem.

Ralph dreaming of Vikings ends up as a discussion of the linguistic theory of metaphor as the basis for all language.

A photo of a pole-vaulter ends up as a discussion of heteroskedasticity, and the significance of various peer-reviewed studies to the beauty myth.

A chatty article on the gaydar ends up as discussion of teleologism, collaboration & competition in evolutionary theories, biological determinism of sexuality, and the framing of homosexual & feminist arguments in light of contemporary sexual politics.

I'm hungry, and there's a Japanese cafe down the road that does a mean azuki bean dish, but I'm slightly afraid to go near it.
posted by UbuRoivas at 7:34 PM on June 20, 2007

Note this thread down as further evidence for the MetaFilter Bean Theorem.

Yeah - ain't it grand? *sighs dreamily*
posted by rtha at 7:48 PM on June 20, 2007

If there was nothing "wrong" with homosex there'd be no need to discuss what "causes" it and how you can tell who "has" it, right? I long for the day when mature adults treat sexual preferences like they do taste in ice cream.
posted by davy at 7:55 PM on June 20, 2007

When you think in group selection terms you're tempted to think about all sorts of supposed selection pressures which don't or can't have an effect at the level of genes and thus aren't involved in evolution.

To which I suggest: sardines.
posted by five fresh fish at 7:57 PM on June 20, 2007

A chatty article on the gaydar ends up as discussion of teleologism, collaboration & competition in evolutionary theories, biological determinism of sexuality, and the framing of homosexual & feminist arguments in light of contemporary sexual politics.

Is this your way of asking for more lolcats?

Personally the discussion about kin selection warmed my bionerd heart. Me loves beanoverthinking + SCIENCE!
posted by Tehanu at 8:34 PM on June 20, 2007

Just like how no one needs to discuss the sex lives of stupidstars, right, davy?

Humans love thinking about, talking about, and fucking about sex. That ain't ever gonna change.
posted by five fresh fish at 8:34 PM on June 20, 2007

Ethereal Bligh:

A lot of sexism has been justified on the basis of inherent difference between the sexes, and there's a bunch of biased and sexist research recently that attempts to place certain sex differences within the biology sphere. From this example, it should be clear that a biological basis for homosexuality is not a haven where homosexuals will be shielded from discrimination. It's only an accident of our particular religious and cultural history that anti-homosexual bigotry found its rationale centered upon a choice theory rather than a biology theory. Because of this, many see proof of a biology theory to be a refutation of the anti-homosexuality bigotry. But it's only a refutation to their theory and some specific beliefs that result from it. It's not a refutation of their underlying bigotry anymore than that people are born black is any sort of refutation of racism for racists. The bigotry can live comfortably within the context of a biological origin and it will, do not doubt it. This is why I've long argued that those of us who fight for gay rights are making a mistake hyping up the biological origin of it. Because, after all, the real argument here is whether or not there's something wrong with gay sex and gay love. And of course there is not. That should be our strongest message, over and over and over. This message also accommodates all other non-majority of sexuality in a way that a biological defense does not.

Oh, nonsense. EB, your argument is simply that "bigotry is irrational, and will attach regardless of the reason for a person's sexuality." I expect less self-evident analysis from you.

Specifically, your analogy between sexuality and gender/race discrimination is simply wrong. The crucial difference is at least threefold:

1. There's personal moral culpability attached to the "choice" version that simply doesn't exist in the "innate," biological account. That, in turn, makes it more psychologically justifiable to demonize, attack, or otherwise punish people for their sexuality.

2. The "choice" version leads to a lot of the sort of "reeducation" behavior that I'm sure you've heard about -- rather than accepting the fact of a friend or (especially) a family member's sexuality, there will be a concerted effort to "convince" the person to become straight again, and, again, a displacement of blame of that person doesn't attempt to "fix" their condition.

3. The "choice" account also makes it harder to come out or justify one's sexuality personally, which is difficult enough already, given the above -- that means a great deal of repression, self-loathing, and so forth.

None of those problems exist when operating under the biological or partially-biological account (the latter being, as you correctly point out, almost certainly the correct one). If your argument is only that bigotry attaches in either case, then, ipso facto, there's no reason to prefer one account over the other on that basis. Indeed, I'm sure you'd agree that making decisions based on the preference of bigots is itself morally objectionable.

The only vaguely substantive argument you seem to be making is that the biological defense is somehow perceived as a panacea by gay-right advocates, and I really don't see you citing any specific evidence to back up that claim. Am I misunderstanding you?

The fact that the biological account engages the problems above is an argument in its favor, not against it. As you say, weakening the psychological basis for bigotry is the most crucual part of the struggle, and kicking out the intellectual supports that allow people to rationally "justify" their beliefs and their hatred is critical. Under the "choice" theory, it becomes all too easy for bigots to convince themselves that it's not their intolerance that's at fault, it's their son/daughter/spouse/friend's decision to "be gay." That cognitive dissonance is a critical foundation of discrimination.

Why do you think that religious fundamentalists put so much effort into hyping the nonsensical "scientific" justifications for "Intelligent Design" if not for the psychological benefit of being able to tell themselves, "I'm not a fundamentalist wackjob, I just have a different theory"?

Indeed, the biological defense for homosexuality weakens other non-majority sexuality's defenses of their acceptability.

That's a pretty weak argument. The binary division between "straight" and "gay" is problematic, sure, but if we could get to the point where we were able to politically acknowledge multiple sexualities, we'd be in pretty good shape.

Unfortunately, we have to advance the ball quite a bit before that discussion is possible. Right now, it's hard enough to explain anything to crazy fundies at all, even without having to make the sort of qualifications you're discussing, accurate though they may be. Until then, I'm quite willing to class the problem as part and parcel of the larger issue of bigotry in general.
posted by spiderwire at 8:37 PM on June 20, 2007

I long for the day when mature adults treat sexual preferences like they do taste in ice cream.

Exactly! In that matter, we can all agree: vanilla is the best (& only) choice.
posted by UbuRoivas at 8:50 PM on June 20, 2007

NB: I do think that there is one vaguely plausible reason to be cautious of the biological account of sexuality, and that's eugenics concerns. That said, I think that's a strawman argument:

(a) I'm willing to cross that bridge when we come to it -- even if we identify any solid genetic basis for sexuality, we don't have the technology for genetic selection;

(b) I find it difficult to imagine religious fundamentalists doing embryo selection based on a putative "gay gene" when they can't even wrap their heads around stem-cell research;

(c) All the evidence seems to indicate that the basis for sexuality is nature and nurture, not one or the other -- and at the very least sexuality almost certainly isn't exclusively genetic, let alone localizable, and good luck finding a way to deal with hormone exposure and all the rest of the possible factors, fundies -- I'm sure your perfect Aryan babies will turn out just great once you start monkeying around with all that (no pun intended);

(d) Given the above, I'm also quite willing to engage a debate where I get to advocate in favor of anti-eugenics rules. I think that'd be a pretty good position for gay-rights advocates to defend. "Not being a Nazi" is a hell of a soapbox.
posted by spiderwire at 8:52 PM on June 20, 2007

rtha & Tehanu: I'm just commenting with joy that the supposed Farkification of MetaFilter is still a long time away. Overthinking + anything is good.
posted by UbuRoivas at 8:53 PM on June 20, 2007

I find it difficult to imagine religious fundamentalists doing embryo selection based on a putative "gay gene" when they can't even wrap their heads around stem-cell research

I think you might just have discovered a clever Trojan Horse there...
posted by UbuRoivas at 8:58 PM on June 20, 2007

UbuRoivas - I grok you.

1. There's personal moral culpability attached to the "choice" version that simply doesn't exist in the "innate," biological account.

Personally, I have not found this to be true. I have been told by more than one anti-gay fundamentalist type that I still did have a choice: to not act on my homosexuality. In the view of these folks, acting on it - even if it is something I'm born with - becomes a moral choice. And being "born that way" certainly wouldn't entitle me to adopt children or visit my partner in the hospital etc.
posted by rtha at 9:01 PM on June 20, 2007

rtha: I wasn't trying to imply the converse; I agree with EB that bigots will be bigots, regardless of the ultimate explanation for one's sexuality. What I should have said is that there are certain narratives of personal culpability that attach to the "choice" version that don't attach to the "biological" version, or that attach more strongly.

Another way of putting that point is that I can't think of any assignment of personal accountability that applies to the latter but not to the former (i.e. that are exclusively "biological"). I think that your account is a case in point; I'm skeptical that any of those people would have been more forgiving if they believed that you had made a personal choice independent of any innate basis whatsoever.
posted by spiderwire at 9:22 PM on June 20, 2007

I think you might just have discovered a clever Trojan Horse there...

Yeah, I was kind of proud of that. :) I hope it'll never come to that, of course, but I do wonder what would happen. I suspect that most religious fanatics would be quite willing to abandon their hardline embryo-rights position if it meant assurance that their children would be straight. (Although, as with their abortion positions, I doubt they'd admit as much publicly -- just like abortion regulations in reality only apply to the lower classes.)

More frightening to me is the (perhaps) more realistic problem I alluded to, which is that they might even be willing to employ experimental techniques to that end. It's disturbing to consider the possibility of a new generation of Thalidomide babies resulting from parents' intolerance.

On a less morbid note, you could always pose it as a hypothetical: "Would you support embryo selection to weed out any of your potential children with teh gay gene?" I'd love to hear the response to that one.
posted by spiderwire at 9:35 PM on June 20, 2007

spiderwire: Hmmm.

But, Under the "choice" theory, it becomes all too easy for bigots to convince themselves that it's not their intolerance that's at fault, it's their son/daughter/spouse/friend's decision to "be gay."

I'll reiterate here - now, if the son/daughter etc. who has teh gay, well, having the teh gay might not be their "fault", but acting on that gayness is still a choice they can choose not to make. The Catholics, I believe, offer the most coherent version of love the sinner etc. We have free will and can choose to sin or not, etc.

The thing about bigotry is precisely that it is irrational, and even if you knock all the supports out from under it, bigots will, as you said, still find a reason to be bigoted.

I do get what you mean, though, I think. I'm just not sure I agree with it. EB's point that discrimination against gay people should not be acceptable regardless of whether or not gayness is a "choice" is one I've always believed.
posted by rtha at 9:45 PM on June 20, 2007

EB's point that discrimination against gay people should not be acceptable regardless of whether or not gayness is a "choice" is one I've always believed.

I agree completely. I'm just saying that (1) removing the supposedly rational supports makes discrimination less "acceptable" since it's more plainly exposed as pure intolerance, and (2) if bigots will be bigots, then as you and EB say, it doesn't much matter what account we give of the "why," since they'll remain bigots either way, so it's not a criteria to prefer one (political) narrative over the other, to my mind.
posted by spiderwire at 9:50 PM on June 20, 2007

Bigots, of course, believe that bigots should not be discriminated against.
posted by five fresh fish at 10:04 PM on June 20, 2007

Wow, this blew up! There's a lot going on here that I wish I could respond to right now in a direct fashion, but I can't at this precise second. I'll try, though...

It's not even in the least teleological. It's not teleological at all. There's not a single, tiny, infinitesimal bit in evolution that is teleological. Teleology in evolution is pushing up the daises. That, in evolution, is a dead teleology.

For what it's worth, I agree with you completely. I may have been unclear, but I was trying to state that evolution is *not* teleological. Furthermore, I agree with you completely about group selection and so on. I was only invoking Gould on the topic of bias - we may put forth any number of theories to explain in a benevolent fashion why homosexual behavior exists, but I'll always worry that such a simple explanation is simply us as good liberals trying to show why homosexuality is not only natural, but desirable.

Like you, I don't think we need to have such a definite biological reason to afford gays the same rights as everyone else, so to me the theory lacks any emotional pull. And then I start to demand the hard evidence behind why such complex behavior - there's an incredibly wide variety of how homosexual behavior expresses itself across different cultures - should have such a simple explanation. It may be entirely correct, but I'd like to see the evidence behind it, because at this precise second it doesn't seem to explain very much for me. It would seem more logical to me that there would be a passel of different reasons why homosexuality exists, of which the "good uncle" theory could be a significant part, and that not all of those reasons would be about homosexuality being the specific trait selected for, if that makes any sense.

I'm revealing my layman colors here, but please bear with me - I mean, there's no good, specific reason why nearsightedness or impotence exists. These are seemingly non-babymaking behaviors which are also completely common. And yet we have no nice, pat reasons why they exist, in the template of "nearsightedness offers advantage x which is why it exists." They're simply traits which happen. And I am NOT saying that homosexuality is a trivial disability like those traits - I am saying that we may be rushing to give it such a direct, feel-good explanation because gays are discriminated against and have gayness as part of their identity as human beings, so we wish to justify them with biology.

It does not gnaw at us, I hope, that impotence exists without a reason as specific and coherent as the "good uncle" theory - there are a number of reasons for it which we know and do not know, almost none of which center around impotence being advantageous for reason y so that is why it has been selected for - and I don't see why we should require or expect such a specific reason for a much larger and completely innocuous trait such as homosexuality.

Beyond that, I have to admit that, for myself, it would be MORE liberating, and not less, to simply have homosexuality be just one of those things that exists without one specific reason. That's MY bias. "Homosexuals make good uncles" sounds about as comforting as "Jews are good with money." My feelings on the matter do not make it true or untrue, but it does remove whatever emotional affection I might have for such a notion, on top of my finding it unconvincing as a primary reason, so, for me, my eyebrows are still raised.

Again, I'm not saying it's wrong. I'm not trying to be argumentative, Cool Bell Papa, honestly! I'd like to read something more in depth on the topic, so if anyone has any suggestions, sling 'em over. I'd hate to ignorantly throw out too many questions and objections before reading the bases on which people have arrived at such a theory.

...

As for the nature versus nurture argument, I think we can all agree that only a fool would assert that it's solely one or the other, so to that extent it is not an argument at all. We are simply trying to locate all the natures and all the nurtures, as it were.

As for fundamentalists choosing the "choice" angle, we should be wary of the fact that I have spoken to and heard from fundamentalists who also regard homosexuality as being innate, just as alcoholism can be innate in some people - I believe I'm cribbing this analogy directly from Trent Lott - but that the behavior itself is sinful. So, even if we discovered tomorrow the precise biological process behind homosexuality, don't think it would impact homophobes very much.

As for whether fundamentalists would willfully select their children to be straight, if given the technology............it may be seemingly inconsistent, but never say never.
posted by Sticherbeast at 11:19 PM on June 20, 2007

Thoughts on Gaydar, by an expert practitioner:
And by expert, I mean I've used it for over 30 years, in a wide variety of situations. By practioner, I mean I've acted on it a lot (being gay). The results are interesting.

There are a number of characteristics which form gaydar. Some are more obvious than others. Some are less valid! It is one thing to suppose someone gay because of how they move or speak. That's stereotyping. It's something anyone can do at the concious level. And any honest person can see that this isn't 100% reliable. Effeminate men can be straight, and too, hyper-masculine men can be straight. And most of us know, plenty of gay men simply seem ordinary. Age makes a difference too, but can work both ways. Younger people are more anxious to display their membership in a group, older gay folks were around in a time when that was more important.

Eye contact is another big factor in gaydar. It functions at a level that is less concious. It is interesting to note that experimentation has revealed that the dialation of eyes is indicative of a person's sexual interest, on a level people generally aren't aware (given a set of photos, people will select those with dialated eyes as more attractive). This may have some influence on the eye-contact gaydar, or not. But without dialation, just consider the body language involved. Meet someone's eyes. If they hold your gaze, this shows some kind of interest.

This eye contact trick works very well, so long as you learn it and use it within the same cultural context. Change the context, the gaydar goes out of wack! I know this from repeated experience. Even moving within the US, a different place can produce plenty of false-positives (one can suppose also false-negatives, but that's harder to verify). When you find yourself out in the general public and a large number of men seem 'gay', you start recalibrating the gaydar. This lesson hit me the hardest when I went to Italy at age 17 (or do Italian men just tend to be hot for 17-year-old gay American sailors? Hmmm, never thought of that. But think about dark, staring eyes from the face of a handsome Italian, you can appreciate how this discomboulates a horny gay boy...until he adjusts to the cultural fact that they stare).

The eye contact issue also plays within the States, especially moving from a large urban environment (more impersonal) to a small town. Small town folks in the States tend to look eachother in the eyes more. General friendliness is easy to misinterpret when you're used to general...(word? Not really coldness, but it seems that way to more rural folks. The polite way New Yorkers mind their own business that out of towners misinterpret all the time).

A variation on eye contact, perhaps, is what I call gaydar-gaydar. Perhaps this is the most sophisticated version of the bunch. You spot others running their gaydar. This is no different than looking for a hook up in an already selected crowd. Eyes meet, if the interest is mutual, they tend to lock, however briefly. A different look conveys "not you!".

In a non-preselected environment, the variations get more subtle. As a gay teenager, I learned to recognize a reaction that was positive but puzzled. As an older gay person, I've come to recognize "I'm gay, and I hope you didn't notice", which probably means "not you" most of the time, but also may mean "Oh no! He noticed me looking!". This one really fits the radar metaphor, as it feels like you picked up a radar ping, then the radar shut down to avoid being located.

Just some observations on the topic of gaydar in general. Body language is part of this, especially in refining one's interpretation of the eye contact.
posted by Goofyy at 11:19 PM on June 20, 2007 [1 favorite]

They're simply traits which happen.

Before this gets potentially misunderstood - what I mean here is that not every single trait one possesses has been specifically selected for, for a particular, definite advantage that that particular trait offers.
posted by Sticherbeast at 11:30 PM on June 20, 2007

And how about us guys who are so oblivious that we'd never clue in that your eye contact was supposed to be a come-on?

Honest to god, I don't think I've ever flirted in my life. I'd have no idea how to recognize one!
posted by five fresh fish at 11:55 PM on June 20, 2007

I, too, am attracted by Elmo. You can tell by the reddish hints in my beard.

Thanks for putting the image of you blowing Elmo into my mind.

Really. Thanks.

I hate you.
posted by Many bubbles at 12:15 AM on June 21, 2007

there's no good, specific reason why nearsightedness or impotence exists

This raises an important point. Such attributes may exist within the range of variation which is not actively selected *against*. Mutations can be positive, negative, or neutral, and even some clearly sub-optimal variations can be continued genetically, because they are not sufficiently negative to prevent continuation, for any number of reasons.

For example, there was some talk recently of genes that expressed themselves as homosexuality in males and in females resulted in fecundity.
posted by Sparx at 12:17 AM on June 21, 2007

Unless I've misunderstood spiderwire, it seems like his complaint against my comment was that he thinks I was advocating choice over biology, which I wasn't. My comment was intended to argue that asserting the biology argument is not as helpful as many believe it is, and that there are downsides to it. I'm just asking that gay rights activists "dial-down" the importance they assign to these sorts of naturists findings and "dial-up" the ethical/moral counterargument that says that the bottom line is that gay activity isn't wrong. It seems ironic to me that spiderwire says, as part of his rebuttal to my comment:

“Indeed, I'm sure you'd agree that making decisions based on the preference of bigots is itself morally objectionable.”

...because it seems like that's his entire argument supporting the power and necessity of the biology argument: that bigots can support their bigotry with choice arguments so asserting a biology argument takes that option away from them.

I think that, ultimately, it's a weak form of argumentation and the bigots know it. They know that the gay rights movement is reacting and defending by finding a way to deny the basis of the bigots worldview. They realize that if the bigots held to a biology viewpoint, as they do with other things like race and sex, then the gay rights movement would as likely be pursuing a nurture argument, as progressives do with racial and sex differences in behavior. Just wait until the bigots accept the naturist argument in a big way and then start to make social organization arguments which include homosexuals on the basis of these associated biological essentialist traits. They'll be perfectly wiling to discriminate against gays on the basis of what they claim gays "naturally" can and can't do well. And so on.

The naturist argument's utility in terms of social justice is only that it refutes the bigots arguments about morality and choice, and that it makes gays more comfortable to know they were born that way—which, not incidentally, they only need such comfort because of the cultural context which assumes choice and thus doesn't provide for gay identity by default.

In the absence of all other considerations, then getting everyone to believe a naturist argument will put gays in the same place that people of color and women were in before their respective civil rights movements. Which is to say, it opens gays up to all of the routes of discrimination that are based upon naturist arguments—that they should occupy a less privileged place in society because of their innate "weaknesses".

Now, fortunately, there are other considerations. We do have a lot of preexisting civil rights legislation which, unfortunately, is built around naturist arguments and thus, hopefully, many gay rights can be shoehorned in on that basis. So the naturist argument gives us a legal advantage, that's very true.

But it doesn't provide that much, if any, of a cultural advantage, which is why anti-racists have to argue against Charles Murray and company and anti-sexists have to argue against all sorts of people that make naturist sexist arguments. Culturally, a naturist consensus about homosexuality will mean that we're going to be eventually spending a lot of time defending against naturist-based arguments supporting bigotry.

All this is the reason for my arguments favoring caution, of which I've written frequently and have had some currency on the web among gay activists, at least. Our promotion of the naturist argument should be a short-term tactical move only. We should be also spending a lot of time laying the groundwork for the moral and ethical arguments which will come to the fore once naturism is widely-accepted. We should not emphasize naturism to the point that we are providing our enemies with ammunition they will use in the future against us. We should be looking to the work the civil rights activists and feminists are doing to combat naturist-based arguments supporting bigotry. Well, that's a bit problematic as many of them are denying naturism entirely, which I think is correct with the anti-racists but incorrect with the anti-sexists. Perhaps we should be looking instead to the multiculturalists and diversity theorists to find arguments that oppose anti-homosexual bigotry and supports gay rights on an origin-indifferent basis.

The main point is that the naturist argument is only temporarily useful to gay activists and it comes with a lot of baggage. We can promote this argument in ways that accentuate that baggage and exaggerate the problems it will cause us in the future, or we can promote this argument in ways that pro-actively reduce that future trouble. To do this requires that we are already aggressively laying the groundwork for an origin-independent assertion of gay rights and the acceptability of gay behavior.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 1:01 AM on June 21, 2007

“And then I start to demand the hard evidence behind why such complex behavior - there's an incredibly wide variety of how homosexual behavior expresses itself across different cultures - should have such a simple explanation. It may be entirely correct, but I'd like to see the evidence behind it, because at this precise second it doesn't seem to explain very much for me. It would seem more logical to me that there would be a passel of different reasons why homosexuality exists, of which the "good uncle" theory could be a significant part, and that not all of those reasons would be about homosexuality being the specific trait selected for, if that makes any sense.”

I agree with you entirely. There's too much cultural evidence that it's not a binary thing—although I think there's mounting evidence that there's not an even distribution across the straight/gay spectrum, either.

I'm not sure that the gay/straight differentiation is entirely distinct from, and I suspect it may be wholly the product of, sexual differentiation.

Sex differentiation is complex and occurs across most systems of the body at most levels of a body's biology. That differentiation is not an exact process and there's variations of differentiation across all levels. I believe this results in a variety of sexual differentiation with regard to individual humans, not just two. I suspect that most, or even all, of sexual orientation differentiation occurs as part of this and that there is not a single genetic switch that results in all non-heterosexual orientations. (Although there may be a single switch which will result in a particular non-heterosexual orientation. If we discover such a gene, it will be a mistake to assume that it is the cause of all orientation!)

What seems most likely to me is that in both the case of sexual differentiation and sexual orientation differentiation there are numerous biologically determined outcomes that are then further complicated by cultural influences. The end result is that there are many, many ways of being male and female and straight and gay.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 1:24 AM on June 21, 2007

spiderwire: While you have some good points there, I'd just like to point out that ex-gay ministries are already jumping on the biology bandwagon framing their treatment in terms of remission and assimilation rather than a reprogramming or cure. This is very much in parallel to how prejudice against the Deaf has worked. There, assimilationists agree that people with profound hearing impairments have no choice regarding their condition, but do have a choice in regards to education and medical treatment that either integrate them with mainstream society, or isolate them. Likewise, ex-gay ministries appear to be willing to say, "ok, your attraction to MOTSS is an inborn disability, but we can help you overcome it."

The concept of a personal inborn moral stain that must be fought against has plenty of support within Western Christian folk psychology. (In fact, one could argue that the struggle between inherent tendencies toward sin and sacred life is the central problem of Christianity.) In his epistles, Paul describes how he struggles against an unnamed affliction that threatens to destroy his life in Christ. In literature, the inborn moral stain passed between generations is a feature of Wuthering Heights and The Scarlet Letter. It was used to justify the forced relocation and education of colonized people. It is partly at the core of Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous ideology.

I think one of the big drawbacks to clinging to closely to biological narratives is that they take heterosexuality for granted. In contrast, queer art, literature, and theory has been its most brilliant when it has been able to point out that the Emperor has no clothes when in comes to sexuality. That almost all of it consists of social conventions that are hilarious in their attempt to bolster various forms of status within society. And this is where I think that moral conservatives are right to fear the queer culture, because queer culture has within it a radical core of people who attack the illusions of heterosexuality with much the same zeal that the Amazing Randi attacks the illusions of new age miracles.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 7:24 AM on June 21, 2007 [1 favorite]

This is interesting stuff.

I have a friend who's mother is a researcher on this kind of thing and she recently explained to me a study she was doing (as well as explaining all of the research already done thats mentioned in the article) on a rather long drive once.

The study she was working on then involved showing people pictures and allowing them to guess whether the person in the picture was:

A) straight female
B) gay female
C) straight male
D) gay male

Once this study is done (I have no idea when it was supposed to be completed) it should answer better the gaydar question as opposed to just the gay question.
posted by Suparnova at 8:26 AM on June 21, 2007

Perhaps because we've done gay animals already once this week

Uhhh... speak for yourself, buddy.
posted by turaho at 10:32 AM on June 21, 2007

Such attributes may exist within the range of variation which is not actively selected *against*. Mutations can be positive, negative, or neutral, and even some clearly sub-optimal variations can be continued genetically, because they are not sufficiently negative to prevent continuation, for any number of reasons.

Thanks for putting this better than I ever did. And this is what I'd put to Cool Bell Papa when he says:

Well, unfortunately, evolution is quite simple and pretty damn ruthlessly simple at that.

Because my complaint isn't with simple explanations behind complex behavior, but rather that theories of the "good uncle" sort assume that homosexuality was a trait specifically selected for. That may be true on some level, but there's no reason to assume that it is, and I maintain that, at the end of the day, we're going to eventually discover a number of reasons behind a number of sexual behaviors which we would describe as homo-, hetero-, or bisexual.

That is why I dub it a Just So story - because it assumes that homosexuality was this behavior which had some utility in passing on genetic information, which is why it has survived. Hardly every trait people possess exists for that reason. Neutral-to-negative mutations are all around us. A trait doesn't have to be positive to get carried on - all it has to do is not be so negative as to definitively end the bloodline.

...

I'd also put it out there that while we may speak of homosexuals as a people unto themselves, there is an extremely wide variety of behavior out there that we could call homosexual. Not every culture features individuals who identify as gay, who literally only have sex with men, and not every culture features individuals who identify as straight, who literally only have sex with women. Just because we find correlative physical traits for self-identifying gay men (and women) in Western society, that does not mean that we've identified all the corporeal bits behind homosexual behavior - because you don't need to be gay to practice that!

As KirkJobSluder points out, this calls into question heterosexuality itself, which is fine, too.

This is another reason why I am deeply uncomfortable with Just So stories about why homosexuality exists - as EB points out, homosexuality (and, by extension, heterosexuality) isn't just one "thing." No one explanation is going to explain very much of it.
posted by Sticherbeast at 11:36 AM on June 21, 2007

I am deeply uncomfortable with Just So stories about why homosexuality exists

I am so working up "How the Homo Got His Sexual" now...
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 11:44 AM on June 21, 2007

I am the king of being inarticulate! Allow me to clarify some things:

Because my complaint isn't with simple explanations behind complex behavior,

This might seem to contradict:

No one explanation is going to explain very much of it.

But I don't think so. My point isn't that homosexuality is so wicked complex, but rather that what we call homosexuality - let alone "a homosexual" (or "a heterosexual") as a unit - is actually how we define a set of behaviors expressed in a certain manner.

...

Also:

Not every culture features individuals who identify as gay, who literally only have sex with men, and not every culture features individuals who identify as straight, who literally only have sex with women.

Sorry, that was pretty sexist. We had planted the seed earlier of "women don't have sexual orientation oOOOoooOOOoooOOOo" and it led me to forget about lesbians. I apologize profusely.
posted by Sticherbeast at 12:02 PM on June 21, 2007

Ethereal Bligh: First, would it be too much trouble to have this discussion in the second person?

Unless I've misunderstood spiderwire, it seems like his complaint against my comment was that he thinks I was advocating choice over biology, which I wasn't.

I thought I was pretty clear on that point -- I agree that it's something of a false choice. If I hadn't made that plain, then I'll say now that I do agree that the difference between the nature and nurture narratives is a tactical issue. I'm well aware that the vast bulk of research indicates that the reality is somewhere in the middle, and I also agree that the central issue to contend with is bigotry itself. OK, moving on.

My comment was intended to argue that asserting the biology argument is not as helpful as many believe it is, and that there are downsides to it.

Yes. I did understand that. That was the part where I characterized your argument as a warning against the "biology" argument as a panacea, which is exactly what you're saying, I believe.

...because it seems like that's his entire argument supporting the power and necessity of the biology argument: that bigots can support their bigotry with choice arguments so asserting a biology argument takes that option away from them.

I suppose that's one way to put it, but I think that's a distortion of what I said; my argument is that your position enables hostage-taking tactics. The fact that bigots are able to accommodate their narrative to your position strikes me as a poor reason to maintain that position: by doing that, you're allowing their inflexibility to dictate your approach. I think that's easily distinguishable from kicking out the psychological supports for bigotry. Equating the two arguments is at the very least disingenuous.

Ultimately, you seem perfectly willing to concede that both positions are created equal so far as bigots are concerned, which I didn't think I was disputing. The problem is that if you're right, your argument doesn't advance a reason to prefer one narrative over another -- it merely cautions that we need to keep our eye on the ball (i.e., bigotry itself), which I thought was pretty self-evident.

However, even if the naturist and personal-choice positions are the same in terms of how bigots will act, you're not engaging any of the offensive arguments against the personal-choice argument. In fact, your legal-structure point works in the opposite way.

I see you making a few arguments:

1. You say that gay-rights activists shouldn't consider the biological account as a silver bullet. I asked you in the previous comment for some more concrete evidence that anyone is doing this, and I'm still not hearing it.

2. You introduce the argument that bigots will inevitably contrive some sort of essentialist distinctions that allow them to pigeonhole non-heterosexuals into subordinate positions -- I assume that you mean that you fear some sort of collateral-attack scenario, such as the way that vacation rules discriminate against women in the workplace. Again, I don't see any sort of concrete scenario here. Are you arguing that all the gay men are going to get cordoned off in design departments? A pink ceiling? That's an interesting assertion, but I can't think of any "innate weaknesses" that might be deployed against gays in the ways that maternity leave or social inequality works against women or minorities, respectively. Perhaps I'm just not creatively evil enough, but I suspect that the reality is that this argument is a strawman. Perhaps you can give me an example.

Aside from those two questionable positions, I don't see you making much of a defense against the offensive arguments I made. In particular, I think the broad issue is that the personal-choice arguments have a strong tendency to legitimate personal hatred, by displacing culpability onto the victim.

KirkJobSluder does a decent job of pointing out the problems here -- and I agree with the Scarlet Letter point, KJS. I can see a hardcore fundamentalist articulating the position that God tests everyone in different ways, so the task for a gay person might be to resist their natural "defect," while the task for a good middle-class white male heterosexual might be to... go to Church regularly, I guess. And life's unfair, but God works in mysterious ways, and so on and so forth.

Again, I think that the fundamental problem with both your arguments boils down to a few basic points:

1. That the anti-gay arguments can't be any worse when made in a naturist context as opposed to a personal-choice context. None of the problems you've pointed out (except EB's two highly dubious panacea and collateral-attack arguments) are offensive -- you're just playing defense. I don't see any differentiation of the positions, and short of that, saying that "bigots will be bigots" doesn't advance the ball, it just states a truism.

2. No one's answered the most basic issue (to my mind), which is the psychological mechanism by which a friend can justify hating a long-time acquaintance or a parent their child because of sexuality -- that's a big deal and it's been my experience that it requires a great deal of doublethink.

Whatever allows friends and family members to get across that psychological bridge and not totally reject people for being gay is a good thing, to my mind. Even if the alternative is Homosexuals Anonymous, that's still an inclusive mechanism, discriminatory or now.

Another way of putting that point is that there's no such thing as Embezzlers Anonymous, because fraud falls in the category of a personal moral choice. While it's not right to class sexuality with alcoholism, it's better that it be put in that category than in the fraud/murder/theft column.

3. Finally, the difference between those two conceptions (inherent defect versus personal evil) isn't just about acceptance or coming out of the closet, but about personal guilt.

By that I'm referring to repression: closeted political leaders like Ted Haggard, or the studies that positively correlate homophobia and homosexual response amongst self-identified straight men -- it's no secret that some of those who are most willing to demonize gays do so out of personal guilt. Again, I concede that guilt might exist regardless of whether they understand sexuality as biological versus choice-based, but it simply seems to me that the former carries less personal stigma.

Specifically, under a personal-choice understanding, there's a self-reinforcing effect to repression -- the only option is to continue hiding one's sexual behavior, and the longer it continues, the greater the incentive to conceal it (note, e.g., the head of the Universal Life Church and his hooker meth dealer). While Homosexuals Anonymous might be an odious concept, I'd argue that having that door open at least presents some alternative -- rather than concealing lies with more lies, it presents a path out of the spiral of self-repression and denial.

Regardless, I understand your points, EB and KJS, and I appreciate you engaging in the debate. And I'm in complete agreement that the source of the problem ultimately isn't in how we describe it, but in bigotry itself. But at the point where we all seem to agree that this is a tactical issue, I really don't understand your objections to what I'm saying.
posted by spiderwire at 2:28 PM on June 21, 2007

spiderwire: Regardless, I understand your points, EB and KJS, and I appreciate you engaging in the debate. And I'm in complete agreement that the source of the problem ultimately isn't in how we describe it, but in bigotry itself. But at the point where we all seem to agree that this is a tactical issue, I really don't understand your objections to what I'm saying.

Well, I'm not certain that I fully understand what you are saying, and I'm hesitant to say, "you are wrong in that..."

My concern is that there is a tendency within in the "naturist" narrative to not see the value in the rich cultural traditions and communities of resistance that have developed around sexual orientation. So you have people who openly bash camp, drag, leather, and lesbian separatism out of the view that if queers were more "straight acting," heterosexism would just go away.

Also, I think that for many people, the narrative that one is coming out of the closet and into a community can be very empowering. The most powerful form of activism that exists right now is coming out of the closet and living as openly as possible. The "naturist" narrative on it's own is a pretty thin and tasteless gruel for doing that. I don't mind the naturist narrative when it coexists with community and culture. But it's not the only one worth telling.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 6:08 PM on June 21, 2007

CNN: Can you tell whether someone's gay just by the way he or she walks?

"Watch Video 1 , Video 2 , Video 3 , and Video 4 and see whether you can tell if the walker is gay or straight. For the answers, click here."

posted by ericb at 2:13 PM on June 29, 2007

Damn proprietary plugins.
posted by five fresh fish at 6:11 PM on June 29, 2007