Gaydar is real

Study Says 'Gaydar' Is Real

|Courant Staff Writer

August 21, 2008

Not only does "gaydar" exist, suggests a study out of Tufts University, but it can work pretty fast.

Some people say they can tell the sexual orientation of folks with little information, and now a study gives them data to back up their claims.

Published in July's Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, the study claims that people could guess fairly accurately ("better than chance") whether men were gay or straight by looking at photos of their faces.

For the study, 15 undergraduate students, both male and female, were shown photos of faces of 90 men, evenly divided between gay and straight. The photos were taken from Internet personal ads and from Facebook. The study's lead author, graduate student Nicholas Rule, says men were used in this study for convenience, because they have a greater presence on the Internet than women.

The researchers found that subjects could accurately determine in 50 milliseconds — one-twentieth of a second — whether the men were gay or straight about 60 percent of the time. Rule says all the subjects were accurate 55 percent to 70 percent of the time.

Seriously, was there any doubt that this didn't exist. Its not like its Bigfoot or anything. Now my roommate and Darth Gaydar have scientific proof that there is such a thing.