Gaydar

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Gaydar is a suitcase word made up of the parts gay and radar . It describes the ability to recognize gays or lesbians . In fact, the results are based on the intuitive interplay of largely preconscious impressions from various sensory organs . The term is used like a fictional sense organ or measuring instrument that deflects as soon as one believes to recognize homosexuals .

Word meaning and translation

In 2000 the word was added to the Oxford Compact English Dictionary . It is also used as Anglicism in German and in other language areas. The equivalent "Lesdar" is rarely used in English either.

The English word “ gay ” can refer to both men (“gay men”) and women (“gay women”). A translation with “gay radar” is more restrictive in today's parlance, because it can also mean “lesbian radar” or both. However, the translation as "Homoradar" is only used sporadically in German.

functionality

This article or the following section is not adequately provided with supporting documents ( e.g. individual evidence ). Information without sufficient evidence could be removed soon. Please help Wikipedia by researching the information and including good evidence.

Obvious stereotypes only partially form the basis of Gaydar and are perceived in a more differentiated manner by gays and lesbians than by people who personally know no or only a few homosexuals and have no interest in the subject. Also important are small, often subtle details, behaviors, certain expressions, looks (for example a moment too long; important form of communication when cruising ), dealing with the partner who may be present and in any case attentive observation and training in order to perfect the Gaydar . Several studies have shown that homosexual men and women are more easily able to identify other homosexuals due to various factors such as smell that is not consciously perceptible ( pheromone ), appearance and language.

In 1863, Johann Ludwig Casper published a text that he received anonymously, which is the earliest known self-description of a Berlin gay in the modern sense. It says:

“You don't have to think, however, that this tendency [homosexuality] is too widespread. Oh no! Kind nature has given us a certain instinct which unites us like a brotherhood; we'll find each other in a moment, there is hardly a glance of the eye like an electric shock, and with some caution has never deceived me. "

Scientific investigations

A US study from 2015 showed that no "Gaydar owner" was able to achieve a hit rate that deviated significantly from randomness only on the basis of photos presented.

Studies with pheromones from the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia and the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm in 2005 found that "gays were good at recognizing the scent of other gays" and preferred them. Studies on lesbians were not yet completed at the time.

William Lee Adams, a Harvard student, found out in a study for his senior work that homosexual men and women, especially gays, were more secure and within a very short time using only silent films and photographs (both from the neck up and without jewelry and Makeup). Lesbians were harder to spot and, to a greater extent, were mistaken for heterosexual by both homosexual and straight people. The study was based on earlier work by his study advisor Nalini Ambady, now teaching at Tufts University , which was published in 1999, did not just focus on the face and came to the same conclusion. The people to be recognized in this study came primarily from lesbian and gay student associations; in the case of the still images, an average of 55% were correctly recognized and in the case of the ten-second films an average of 70%.

A similar work by Rudolph Gaudio from 1994 showed that this also works with voices. These findings were elaborated by Ron Smyth and his colleagues at the University of Toronto and published in 2003.

Reception in popular culture

  • In the episode "The One Where Nana Dies Twice" (1994) of the television series Friends , Chandler has a discussion with a gay work colleague about rumors that he is gay himself. The colleague says that he knows that Chandler is not, as he can almost always tell whether someone is gay or not. Ironically, he adds that “his people” have “some kind of radar”.
  • In the The Puppy episode (S4E22, S4E23, Outing, first broadcast April 30, 1997) of the television series Ellen , the character Ellen learns the concept of gaydar as part of her coming-out process. She then explains it to her friends with the words: “I must be giving off one of those vibes again. That's what we do… we give off vibrations and then we pick up the vibrations from our gaydar… so I've heard. ”(“ I have to radiate one of these vibrations again. That's what we do ... we radiate these vibrations and then we catch these vibrations with our Gaydar ... that's how I heard it. ")
  • In the episode Let's Do It (S1E02, first broadcast in 2004) of the television series The L Word , Dana Fairbanks confirms her lack of gaydar by admitting to Alice and Shane that she is unable to hear people's signals around them to be recognized.
  • In the episode It's Good to Be Queen (S1E19, American first broadcast February 2006) of the television series American Dad , the character Stan is equipped with a gaydar on his wrist, which does not seem to be working at the time.
  • Gaydar Radio is a UK digital radio station aimed at gay and lesbian audiences in the London and Brighton areas .
  • In the Futurama episode, Encounter with Zapp Brannigan , Bender has a gaydar, an electronic device that detects homosexuality. The device shows almost all men as gay.

"Fruit machine"

A device for recognizing gays and lesbians was developed in Canada . It is jokingly referred to as the “fruit machine”, since “fruit” is a slang - mostly negative - term for homosexuals. At the same time, “Fruit machine” in British English is a synonym for a one -armed bandit . In the 1950s and 1960s, homosexuals were considered a security risk according to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). A lot of energy has been expended to identify and track down homosexuals. By 1967 over 9,000 names of suspected homosexuals had been collected and some lost their jobs.

These endeavors also led to the fact that the RCMP, together with a psychologist from Carleton University, tried to design a measuring device that should be able to detect sexual orientation based on "objective" scientific methods . It was based on the change in pupil size . When an object of interest to the viewer appeared, the pupils should dilate. A black box was mounted on a chair in which pictures of dressed to naked women and men were shown. A camera measured the pupil size. The people being examined were told that the device measured stress . The device should serve to assign people from the groups of suspected homosexuals as well as those who were explicitly suspected of homosexuality to the category of secured homosexuals and also to prevent homosexual officials from being hired. The main problems were getting test subjects. The experiments were stopped in 1967. However, dossiers on homosexual persons continued. A Canadian War Museum in Ottawa standing electric psychometer was not part of the "Fruit Machine". It is not known whether a “Fruit Machine” still exists somewhere.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ 'Cybersquatting' enters Oxford dictionary. In: bbc.co.uk , August 10, 2000
  2. ↑ Jason Koebler: New Evidence Sexuality Is Innate: Study Finds Gay Men Respond to Male Pheromones. In: Motherboard. May 1, 2014. Retrieved January 16, 2019 (American English).
  3. ↑ Anonymous: Self-confessions of a pederast . in: Johann Ludwig Casper: Clinical Novellas for Forensic Medicine , 1862, p. 38 ( online in the Google book search)
  4. ↑ Spectrum of science : The gay radar is imagination “ Quite a few believe that (...) they can see [the] sexual preference with a close look in the face - and they are wrong. (...) However, all experiments show a keen sense of stereotypes: Test persons can easily recognize "typically homosexual" movement patterns (...) when asked to reliably distinguish them from a confronted "norm" value. An association between such stereotypes and actual sexual orientation is often misleading, warn the researchers: In real life, one is more likely to be wrong than right to infer sexual orientation based on a stereotype. For example, many test subjects in experiments would often rate men with pink shirts as gay; In real life, however, you meet more straight men (who are more common) with pink shirts than the few homosexuals. “ From September 8, 2015, accessed on September 22, 2015
  5. ↑ Janet Hyde, et al .: Inferences About Sexual Orientation: The Roles of Stereotypes, Faces, and The Gaydar Myth. In: The Journal of Sex Research. 53, 2016, p. 157, doi : 10.1080 / 00224499.2015.1015714 . " We report five experiments testing these accounts. Participants made gay-or-straight judgments about fictional targets that were constructed using experimentally manipulated stereotypic cues and real gay / straight people's face cues. These studies revealed that orientation is not visible from the face. "
  6. ↑ Yolanda Martins, George Preti, Christina R. Crabtree, Tamar Runyan, Aldona A. Vainius, Charles J. Wysocki: Preference for Human Body Odors is Influenced by Gender and Sexual Orientation. In: Psychological Science 16 , 2005, pp. 694–701 ( abstract )
  7. ↑ Randolph E. Schmid: Gay Men Respond Differently to Pheromones. In: livescience.com , May 10, 2005
  8. ↑ Willow Lawson: Queer Eyes: Blips on the Gaydar. In: Psychology Today .com, November / December 2005, accessed April 4, 2007
  9. ^ Nalini Ambady, Mark Hallahan, Brett Conner: Accuracy of judgments of sexual orientation from thin slices of behavior. In: Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 77 , 1999, pp. 538-547
  10. ↑ Essays Gaydar ( Memento of the original from June 29, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English), Blur-F - Details on the Ambady investigation  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.blur-f.com
  11. ↑ Rudolph Gaudio: Sounding Gay: Pitch Properties in the Speech of Gay and Straight Men American Speech 69, 1994, pp. 30-57.
  12. ↑ Ron Smyth, Greg Jacobs, Henry Rogers: Male voices and perceived sexual orientation: An experimental and theoretical approach. In: Language in Society No. 32 , Cambridge University Press, 2003, pp. 329-350 ( abstract )
  13. ↑ http://gaydarradio.com/
    Article in the English Wikipedia on Gaydar Radio
  14. ^ A b c Terry Goldie: In a Queer Country: Gay and Lesbian Studies in the Canadian Context. In: Arsenal pulp press , 2001, ISBN 1-55152-105-9 , p. 211
  15. ^ A b Douglas Janoff: Pink Blood: Homophobic Violence in Canada , University of Toronto Press, 2005, ISBN 0-8020-8570-9
  16. ^ Alan Bellows: The Gay-Detecting Fruit Machine. In: damninteresting.com , November 28, 2005
  17. ^ Nancy Nicol: Stand Together - Section 1: "The National Security Campaigns". Film description and video link, York University, Faculty of Fine Arts, 2002
  18. ↑ a b c Barry Deeprose: Gay Pride in Ottawa - Question or Statement. Speech at the opening of the Pride Campaign in 1998
  19. ↑ Richard Burnett: Bugs for PM!  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: ottawaxpress.ca , March 30, 2006@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.ottawaxpress.ca