Contents:
- Medical Video: Nature or Nurture - Are People Born Gay?
- Is that gay?
- What is that gaydar?
- Are there gay features of mere physical appearance?
- Straighten out the misunderstanding about gay
- What does this mean for the LGBTQ + community and the wider community?
Medical Video: Nature or Nurture - Are People Born Gay?
When looking at men six pack but her body language is so gentle, what comes to your mind? Or when your tomboy girl friend decides to have a very short haircut? Maybe what comes to mind is that these people are gay. These prejudices are known by the term gaydar. However, is it true that gay characteristics can be seen only from their physical appearance? To straighten out people's understanding of homosexuality, see the following explanation.
Is that gay?
Gay is a popular term for homosexual people. Homosexuality itself is sexual orientation (emotional, sexual, and intellectual attraction) towards same sex. The term gay can be used both for the case of men with men and women with women (also known as lesbians). While for opposite sex lovers, the term often used is straight.
What is that gaydar?
Gaydar taken from the words gay and radar. Simply put, gaydar is the ability to guess a person's sexual orientation based on his physical characteristics. The gay characteristics in question can be haircut, dress style, body shape, body language, or how to talk.
These guesses arise from an ancient understanding that a gay man must be feminine while gay women must be masculine or tomboyish. From there, the term appears gaydar.
Are there gay features of mere physical appearance?
In this century, more and more studies have been studying objectively homosexuality. One of them is whether humans do have it gaydar or the ability to guess a person's sexual orientation only from his physical characteristics. In fact, according to a number of studies that have been conducted, there is no scientific evidence that justifies the existence of gay characteristics of their physical appearance.
Research in the Journal of Sex Research proves that there are no gay traits that can be seen from their physical appearance. From experiments conducted by these experts, hundreds of participants were asked to guess the sexual orientation of more than 100 foreign men (55 of them gay) only through photographs.
In the second experiment, the photo is accompanied by a brief description of the hobby or profile of the people in the photo. However, without the participants' knowledge, the description included in the photo is careless. The researchers randomly and originating information such as "I like shopping" or "I am a supporter of the A soccer team".
The results showed that the participants could not guess the sexual orientation of foreign men correctly only from the picture. While when they were given random descriptions, participants tended to guess people who like shopping or go to salons as gay men, even though that person straight. Instead, participants guessed that football fans were certain straight, even though it turns out that person is gay. This proves that from mere physical characteristics such as height, body shape, or face shape, there is no predictable difference between people straight and gay. Meanwhile, new differences began to be recognized after there was information about a person's lifestyle.
Straighten out the misunderstanding about gay
Your guess about sexual orientation is more about prejudice or the stereotype of society about gender (sex) and sexuality, not scientific theory. In ancient times, society had not understood that gender and sexuality were not two poles that could not be mixed. In fact, gender and sexuality are very complex and flexible concepts.
That is, a man who likes his fellow men does not necessarily have a feminine nature such as likes to form the body on the gym or shopping. Likewise with gay women not always tomboy or ignorant about their appearance. A person's lifestyle or expression cannot be used as a standard or radar to guess his sexual orientation.
What does this mean for the LGBTQ + community and the wider community?
From various scientific studies that have been carried out, the public should be able to better understand that the concepts of gender and sexual orientation are not absolute and binary. So, the only way to guess a person's sexual orientation is to get to know the person in depth, or if the person tells you bluntly that he gay.
Without your realizing it, putting together certain people who you don't know very well can make your mind more closed. If you do not understand the boundaries, the habit might lead to oppression (bullying) either verbally, physically, psychologically, or by excommunication.
