gaydar : Gay & Black Glossary

gaydar

The ability of gays to tell if others are gay, even when they are in the closet. The biggest give away is eye contact. Straight men only make eye contact when they are preparing to fight. The biggest give away for lesbians is sensible shoes :-). The various signals are extremely subtle. They were honed over centuries of gay oppression. They can’t be so obvious straight people would notice them. If your gaydar is not well tuned, you could end up with a knuckle sandwich. If you are a straight person, don’t worry. You would not accidentally give them out by mistake. One signal is not sufficient. It is more like a mating dance of birds with step and counter step.

The key signal is brief repeated eye contact. A quick scan of the body of another male is a real give away. Turning around and looking at another male is a very blatant clue. A gay man in a public space looks more alert. He keeps track of where the other males are. A straight male is more zoned out and stolid looking, not reacting to his environment. He is not scanning. His attention might be drawn by a nearby female. A gay male is watching for other gays anywhere within a block.

The New York Times claims there is a correlation between being gay and left handed, and having the ring and index fingers the same length.

closeted

	You can get the freshest copy of this page from:	or possibly from your local J: drive (Java virtual drive/mindprod.com website mirror)
	http://mindprod.com/ggloss/gaydar.html	J:\mindprod\ggloss\gaydar.html
	Please email your feedback for publication, letters to the editor, errors, omissions, typos, formatting errors, ambiguities, unclear wording, broken/redirected link reports, suggestions to improve this page or comments to Roedy Green : . If you want your message, your name or email kept confidential, not considered for public posting, please explicitly specify that. Unless you state otherwise, I will treat your message as a letter to the editor that I may or may not publish in the feedback section. After that, it will be too late to retract it. If you disagree with something I said, please quote it and cite the web page where you found it, tell me why you think it is wrong, and, if possible, provide some supporting evidence. Threatening to kill me or spouting obscenities has yet to persuade me to change my mind.
	Canadian Mind Products
	mindprod.com IP:[65.110.21.43]
view	Your face IP:[38.107.179.214]
Feedback	You are visitor number 21,140.