<tan>How's your gaydar?

[glenn]

Another thread prompted this: How's your' gaydar?

Mine is nonexistent. And I mean really nonexistent.

&lt;tan to tan&gt; what does good/bad gaydar say about someone?

[Anonymous]

Interest in their fellow human being.

[Mr. Penguin]

Mine is usually pretty good.

But it never really worked on Loner.

The geekdar though, went off like a geiger counter on Bikini Atoll.

[duodenum]

hmmm, wanna guess what I am?

[L. Mo]

mine usually works pretty well...until I met Loner. :D

[Anonymous]

hmmm, wanna guess what I am?
confused and seeking personal identity from others only later to show defiance for unique individuality

[BigMactuary,]

Whats a gaydar? The ability to know if someone is gay? But seriously doesnt it take one to know one?

[duodenum]

i'm an it :)

[WWSituation]

Mine is horrible, and i used to live with a gay roomate - I'd never know if his friends were gay or straight. I was born without this sense.

[Maine-iac]

None whatsoever. Totally clueless.

[Dr T Non-Fan]

What is the importance of this super-human ability?

[Emily]

What is the importance of this super-human ability?
Well, suppose you're a guy, and you're using a public restroom. You need to do number 2, so you head for the nearest stall. As you enter you see another guy entering the stall next to you. After entering you notice a hole in the divider between your stall and his about the diameter of a of a bratwurst. It might be nice to know what to expect, and what is expected of you. If you have poor gaydar or you don't know what I'm talking about, I suggest you leave quickly.

[Dr T Non-Fan]

In that situation, it would be more appropriate for the gay man to have a good gaydar. Otherwise, he might find himself Bobbitted.

[Mr. Penguin]

What is the importance of this super-human ability?
Well, suppose you're a guy, and you're using a public restroom. You need to do number 2, so you head for the nearest stall. As you enter you see another guy entering the stall next to you. After entering you notice a hole in the divider between your stall and his about the diameter of a of a bratwurst. It might be nice to know what to expect, and what is expected of you. If you have poor gaydar or you don't know what I'm talking about, I suggest you leave quickly.

Emily = G. Gordon Wolfe (http://www.actuary.ca/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=9392&start=0)?

:o

[Emily]

In that situation, it would be more appropriate for the gay man to have a good gaydar. Otherwise, he might find himself Bobbitted.
What if you're the gay man?

[Emily]

What is the importance of this super-human ability?
Well, suppose you're a guy, and you're using a public restroom. You need to do number 2, so you head for the nearest stall. As you enter you see another guy entering the stall next to you. After entering you notice a hole in the divider between your stall and his about the diameter of a of a bratwurst. It might be nice to know what to expect, and what is expected of you. If you have poor gaydar or you don't know what I'm talking about, I suggest you leave quickly.

Emily = G. Gordon Wolfe (http://www.actuary.ca/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=9392&start=0)?

:o
Yup, only one person on this board has ever heard of one.

[Anonymous]

Yup, only one person on this board has ever heard of one.
Nice cover there. ;)

[oldgirl]

Not good. I think it's better to assume everyone is bi unless told otherwise. :D

[servo]

Mine sucks. Figuratively speaking, of course.

My older brother is gay and didn't come out until his mid 30's. Did I have a clue? Of course not! Just because he always found fault with whatever girl we tried to set him up with didn't mean he was that way. Just because most of his best friends are women doesn't mean that he relates to them the wrong way. Just because he's a real snappy dresser when the rest of us were slovenly didn't mean a thing. Just because Cher and Barbara Streisand are his favorite performers...

Okay, maybe I missed something along the way.

Also, my best friend and room mate in high school was gay (was because he passed away) and I didn't know about it until above mentioned brother told me 10 years later.

Apparently, gaydar is for the gay, and the gay at heart.

[Smoove B]

I Can Instantly Tell Whether Someone Is African-American With My Amazing 'Blackdar'

By Shawn Parker

I have this amazing gift. It's called "blackdar," and it enables me to tell whether someone is African-American without even knowing anything about them. To be honest, I don't know where I got the skill. But wherever I did, I can pass somebody on the street and just instantly know.

Like that guy from Saturday Night Live who's in that new Ladies Man movie? That guy is definitely black, no doubt about it. He gives off all the signals.

And Whitney Houston? You better believe she's black.

I've had this power since I was a kid. Once, when I was maybe 10, I saw Sammy Davis Jr. performing on television, and I just said to myself, "I bet that guy's black." Well, a little later, his autobiography came out and--kaboom! I was right! And you remember in the '80s, when Bill Cosby got into a whole flap with NBC about an anti-Apartheid slogan on The Cosby Show? Well, I had him pegged years before that. I saw him on The Tonight Show once in the '70s and thought to myself, "That guy's as black as the last banana."

And why do you think that Roots mini-series felt so authentic, so convincing? Those actors weren't just pretending to be black.... they were black. Yes, even LeVar Burton--black, black, black!

I could go on and on. Did you ever watch In Living Color? Oh, man. That show was an enclave. We're talking Chocolate City. The question on that show was, who wasn't black? Not many, let me tell you.

Having blackdar is an instinct either you have or you don't. Even so, there are little telltale signs to look for that can tip you off as to whether somebody's black. There are certain ways of dressing, walking, and talking that can give it away. And, of course, where the person lives. For example, there's an area in San Francisco that's almost entirely black. Same thing in New York. Los Angeles has a black part of town, too. So, if you meet somebody and they tell you they live in one of those places, chances are pretty good that they're black.

Okay, so my blackdar is not 100 percent infallible. Sometimes, on very rare occasions, it fails me. Like with Mariah Carey. At first, I was positive she was black, but now I'm not so sure. And that guy on the Yankees, Derek Jeter. I'm pretty on the fence about him, too. But, like I said, that's the rare exception. Almost always, I'll look at a person and immediately know for sure whether they're black, like, say, Jesse Jackson, or not, like Peter Jennings.

Last week, I was at the mall food court with my friend Demetrius. The two of us were just sitting there, having fun watching people walk past and trying to pick out who's black. As we're talking, this obviously white guy at the next table overhears us. So he turns to us and says, "How are you guys so good at that? Is it because you yourselves are black? Are you?" I just told him, hey, that's none of your business.

[Loner]

I could tell you guys the secret, but then I'd have to kill you.

Or you'd all have to go gay.
At least, those of you that aren't already there...

[...]

Being bisexual I don't need a gaydar - y'all look good.

[glenn]

My older brother is gay and didn't come out until his mid 30's.
It could be genetic you know - you could have inherited this. Given your poor gaydar, YOU COULD BE GAY AND NOT EVEN KNOW IT! Something to think about.

[Natalie_Portman]

I also have no gaydar.

My sister-in-law became gay after her divorce, and I just thought that she was living with "friends". She came out three years after we met, and I had no clue. I accepted it, and I had a blast at her commitment ceremony!

[Loner]

Marrying someone of the opposite sex is standard gaydar-jamming technology.

[servo]

My sister-in-law became gay after her divorce

After the divorce? Not likely.

It could be genetic you know - you could have inherited this.

You know, I've always been a somewhat happy fellow. Did I miss another clue? Even my high school fight song had the line "We all are happy, we all are gay, fame has come our way..." I guess I have to come out of the closet and finally admit it: I'm a lesbian.

[Vic Romano]

Mine is excellent.

Related to this: At my 20-year HS reunion, a female friend said she had recently come out. Another friend and I said, "We knew you were gay back in high school!" She replied, "Why didn't you tell ME?!? It would have saved me years of confusion." :)

[Natalie_Portman]

My sister-in-law became gay after her divorce

After the divorce? Not likely.

Good point! But what does that say about my hubby??

:spnner:

But whatever happened, she is much more content now.

[2pac Shakur]

Don't Cook Tonight!


dad: Well It's a well known fact sonny jim that there's a secret society of the five wealthiest people in the world, called the pentaverate, that control everything, including the newspapers, and meet tri-annually in a secret colorado mansion known as the meadows. Jim: So who's in this pentaverate? dad: the queen, the vatican, the yettis, the lockchilds, and colonel sanders before he went tits up. oh how I hate the colonel, with his wee beady eyes and the smug look on his face... Oh, you're gonna buy my chicken, OH! Mike: dad, how can you hate, the Colonel? dad: Because he puts an addictive chemical in his chicken that makes you crave it nightly, SMARTARSE!

[Incredible Hulctuary]

I Can Instantly Tell Whether Someone Is African-American With My Amazing 'Blackdar'

As funny as 'Blackdar' sounds, sometimes it really isn't so easy to tell if someone is black. Gayness can be more obvious than blackness in some cases. As a black man, I have been mistaken for Hispanic by a cop (in the place I got the ticket, they write the driver's race on it, presumably as a way of tracking racial profiling). I also have cousins who look 100% white and I would have never known otherwise if they weren't my own cousins.

[glenn]

I also have family who look 100% white and I would have never known otherwise
Techguy=Tito Jackson. Pass it on.

[Incredible Hulctuary]

I also have family who look 100% white and I would have never known otherwise
Techguy=Tito Jackson. Pass it on.

Not even close. They (my cousins) looked white since birth.

[Alpha12]

I'm working on jamming people's gaydar, not that I'm looking to pick up guys, but I figure it's a sneaky way to get women. How to do it? Watch Queer eye for the Strait guy and pick up on how to be well dressed and cultured instead of homely and geeky. Personally my gaydar is set off only by clearly androgynous people, or the lisp. Even then I'm not sure.

[NoName]

I don't know about this gaydar stuff. Saying you have good gaydar because you had a hunch that one person was gay that turned out to be correct is obviously fallacious. You would have to consider everyone you ever met (for at least whatever length of time you think your gaydar takes to kick in), find out their orientation, and determine the level of both Type I and Type II errors. Does anybody even have the necessary information to do that?

[2pac Shakur]

Does gaydar work in electronic format?
What posters do you think are gay on the RF?
I've got a couple I'm thinking of (besides Loner).
Maybe this is something we shouldn't discuss. It could be a sensitive issue for some...

[NoName]

Readers of this board have come to appreciate your careful weighing of evidence and drawing of appropriate conclusions. I see no reason you should deprive us of the fruits of applying these talents to non-political topics. Who do you think is gay, and why?

[The Left]

[Enhanced female gaydar doesn't seem to work when assessing women, however. "This effect is not apparent when a woman is judging another female's orientation," says study author Nicholas Rule, of the University of Toronto. "This suggests that fertility influences a heterosexual woman's attention to potential mates rather than merely increasing sensitivity to sexual orientation or nonverbal cues more generally."

The study consisted of three experiments. In the first, 40 women judged the sexual orientation of 80 images of men's faces. Forty of the photos were of self-identified gay males while the other 40 were of straight men. In addition, the women reported the length of time since their last menstrual cycle and its average duration. None of the women were using any systemic contraceptives. The researchers found that the nearer women were to peak ovulation, the more accurate they were at judging each male's sexual orientation.

The second experiment was similar and involved viewing female faces, half of whom were self-identified lesbians while the other half were straight. A correlation between fertility and accurate judgments of the women's sexual orientation was not apparent.

"Together, these findings suggest that women's accuracy may vary across the fertility cycle because men's sexual orientation is relevant to conception and thus of greater importance as women are nearer to ovulation."

A third experiment involved priming half the female participants with a story about a romantic encounter before performing the same tasks as in the two previous experiments. Rule found that the women who read the romantic story were significantly more accurate in their judgments, implying that inducing romantic or mating-related thoughts improved accuracy in identifying men's sexual orientations.

Related:
Ovulating women buy sexier clothes
Male testosterone levels surge with ovulation
Ovulation triggers female risk-taking behavior
Masculinity trumps intelligence for ovulating women

Source: University of Toronto
.

[abt5]

seriously? this thread is from 2003?

[The Right]

seriously? this thread is from 2003?
Yes it is from 2003. And the bolded part should have a period or exclamation instead of a question mark.

[JollyGoodFCAS]

When I first met my bro-in-law, I figured that he was gay or at least going to realize he was gay within the next few years. But then when he was drooling over Katie Holmes and staring at chicks in the gym (so much so that one of them even slapped him) I gave up on it, even though he was a big Depeche Mode fan, dyed his hair, bought Prada sunglasses and was a great dancer. Then at his college graduation, he mentioned that he received some sort of award for his work with the LBGT or whatever they called their group, and I figured that he just had some gay dancer friends and was just being nice to them. He came out a few weeks after that.

[abt5]

When I first met my bro-in-law, I figured that he was gay or at least going to realize he was gay within the next few years. But then when he was drooling over Katie Holmes and staring at chicks in the gym (so much so that one of them even slapped him) I gave up on it, even though he was a big Depeche Mode fan, dyed his hair, bought Prada sunglasses and was a great dancer. Then at his college graduation, he mentioned that he received some sort of award for his work with the LBGT or whatever they called their group, and I figured that he just had some gay dancer friends and was just being nice to them. He came out a few weeks after that.

damn nature, you scary

[UNCORRELATED LAY]

The second experiment was similar and involved viewing female faces, half of whom were self-identified lesbians while the other half were straight. A correlation between fertility and accurate judgments of the women's sexual orientation was not apparent.

The correlation isn't there, because deep down inside all women are lesbians.

And really who can blame them.