There goes that theory

One Thanksgiving, I got into an argument with my cousin. He stated that "If you think someone is gay, they probably are." I thought this was ridiculous. The subtext of the assertion was that you can safely discriminate against people based on your unconfirmed guess about what their sexual orientation is. While I immediately rejected the result of the assertion, that we should discriminate against people, I completely ignored the premise, that you could tell what someone's sexual orientation by looking.

It turns out I was wrong. We've all heard about Gaydar, the word coined for the supposed uncanny ability of gay people to recognize other gay people. Is it true? Did I believe this before our argument? I always assumed that there were agreed upon signals being passed, or that mutual eye contact like flirting was giving the final clues. But a study that came out last month that was reported in the Science podcast (see the January 24, 2008 episode at time stamp 34:50) says that people have a highly accurate perception of sexual orientation based on a very brief glance.

The study was apparently published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology and was conducted by Nalini Ambady and Robert Rosenthal. It was a repeat of a 1994 study where the competency of professors was evaluated by people that didn't know the professor. They flashed facial pictures only at the test subjects and asked them what they thought. The correlation was very accurate, matching the student surveys taken from people that had spent an entire term with the teacher.

They conducted the survey again, this time asking subjects what the sexual orientation of the person in the photograph was. A quick glance was all that was required for most people to accurately judge the sexual orientation of the person in the picture. In fact, they said that if the people were allowed to think about it longer, the accuracy dropped to below 70%.

So it seems that Gaydar is not limited to gays.

The question I have then, is why do most heterosexuals totally ignore this input? I know sexual orientation of people is not something I ever wonder about. I just assume everyone is straight, and I have to be shaken out of regular thinking modes to even wonder about homosexuality. Anybody can spot outrageously overt gay behavior, but not many homosexuals are that obvious.

They stated that this effect of recognizing something in a quick glance is also related to romance. They said the same brain pathways would be used in determining love at first sight. And I always thought that quick attractions were somehow delusional. I guess you have to trust your gut.

I still stand by my original position that people should not be discriminated against, but that's just my own idealism. The important lesson here is that people are making subconscious decisions about others. I'm sure these decisions are not restricted to sexual orientation. I wonder how many people make snap decisions about me when I meet to discuss technical matters? I wonder if they also choose whether they think you are knowledgeable and competent from the first glance? Since I am in sales, selling technical equipment, it would be useful for me to know if people thought I was full of crap before I even opened my mouth. I've been in a perennial discussion with my boss about the impression your car makes to people. I always thought this was stupid and shallow, but you have to wonder how many opportunities are missed or made based on first impressions.

Fear and Control

When Heath Ledger died last week, it was unexpected. I remembered him mostly from A Knight's Tale, where he was pretty funny. Everyone remembers that Heath was in Brokeback Mountain. No one I know watched that movie. I didn't even know what it was about. The movie got awards and recognition, so that usually tells you that it's good, but I wasn't about to walk up to the counter at Blockbuster video rental and plop down a "gay flick".

I heard the scenery in the movie was beautiful, but I thought it was a gay romance film. When Heath Ledger died, I decided to rent the movie. My wife and I watched it last night.

Spoiler alert. You may want to skip the next 3 paragraphs if you haven't seen it. It was a good movie. It was sad. I kept thinking that it didn't seem realistic that they were really in love, it seemed just like actors playing a role. That's true for most Hollywood movie romances, as far as I'm concerned. We kept waiting, wondering where the movie was going. I did not know it was set in 1963 up to the late 70s/early 80s. The movie was about suppressed romance. The two characters were gay, but couldn't come out of the closet, or truly express their love for each other or live together.

Then, Jake Gyllenhaal's character Jack Twist dies. When Heath's character Ennis Del Mar contacts Jack's widow and parents you see the true cost of their actions. They denied themselves their whole lives until it was too late.

It wasn't clear to me what happened to Jack. Earlier, Ennis had told a story about some gay ranchers being tortured to death, possibly by his father, that set the tone for the whole movie. Ennis was scared to go public because he had seen clearly what can happen to gay people in his world. I missed a brief part where they showed Jack being beaten by some guys in a field. Before my wife told me that, it was not clear if Jack actually died by accident or was killed for being gay. It seems clear that Jack's parents knew their son was gay and his mother at least was sympathetic about her son's plight and Ennis's grief. I guess that's part of what made it so sad. This guy loses his lover and can't even properly mourn for him. Jack's parents even told Ennis that Jack wanted to live with him on a ranch out there, so they knew that Ennis was Jack's true love. The father wasn't very pleased about it, but he also was not overly hostile toward Ennis.

It's odd that in the movie, Heath lives, and in real life, he died. Some of the tone of the movie, the tragic death of someone before their time, parallels real life. Who knows what Heath Ledger would have been like if he had lived.

Talking about the movie afterwards, I remarked that fear of homosexuality wasn't always around. The Greeks were fairly open about male homosexuality, and there was no stigma about it. My wife pointed out that Christianity imposed the restrictions. It's all about fear and control. You're supposed to be afraid of the consequences, and that's how the church maintains their control over you.

On one hand, things seem to be changing. There seems to be more understanding and a greater tolerance by society at large about homosexuality. However, the church is fighting back, as they see their control slipping. The ability for men to be openly gay gains ground a little bit each year.

I was also thinking about female heterosexual sexuality. Islamic fundamentalism has sought to suppress this aspect of life, with little true success. We in the west don't have much problem seeing this as restrictive, against human nature, and inherently wrong, but we turn around and apply the same restrictions to gays.

I guess we still have some growing up to do.