Posts Tagged → advice
Gaydar.
Yes ….. another sex-ed post ……. not as raunchy as most would like but there you go ……
We’ve all watched Will and Grace, The L-word and Queer as Folk and have borne witness to that magical 6th sense known as the Gaydar and although many of you might think it was just an urban myth or something as simple as seeing if the guy gets a manicure or the girl chooses to let moustache run rampant …… think again …..
The gaydar is probably best defined as the ability to pic out or discern the gender of a person with a relatively high accuracy. It’s been studied by psychiatrists (finally made themselves useful), gender studies experts and even neurologists and the results are quite interesting. For one thing thanks to the work of Ambady, Hallahan and Conner (Currently tenuring at Tufts I believe) we can now say hand on heart that if you showed a one second clip or even a photo of a person to a group of gay and straight men and women, gay men are by far the most likely to guess the gender correctly while straight men wouldn’t know a gay man if he bought him a beer and gave him a quick rub down ……
Which means that the so-called gaydar is actually one of those things that you need to learn, practice and hone. Unlike sexual orientation (which is one of those things you are born with); you actually need to work at it and learn it and the reason why gay men are better at it than say, gay women or the straight population is because gay men need it to “survive”. Thanks to societal pressures and the fact that it is/was largely considered taboo gay men have had to get really good at it to prevent a beat down, loss of their jobs etc …..
Having said that various panels, questionnaires and studies have been conducted to analyze exactly how the thing works and to this day they cant say that it depends on hair, behaviour, skin color, appearance or anything else. But they can say the it’s a type of intuition or impulse which means that it relies on a preconceived idea and is therefor hotwired over time.
So it’s not something that requires active thinking but is rather something that we do subconsciously by taking in the person as a whole. Kind of like the type of thing you’d do when picking out a friend on your first day of school. You talk to them but you don’t know why you do it exactly.
The problem with this type of hotwiring is that it’s labile and isn’t 100% efficient … it’s also easily lost if not used enough (which explains why straight men are crap at it). It largely depends on the following:
- experience: whether you’ve actually seen or are exposed to people of varying sexual orientation, and if you, yourself are comfortable with yours.
- mood state
- Stereotypes you may have with regards to clothing, a lisp or say pink hair.
- Predispositions: do you want the ride that fine ass? or hoo hoo?
So when all is said and done it’s kind of one of these things that does exist, but you have to work on ….. alot. You also have to clear your head for it to work right and you pretty much have to go out there and let that freak flag fly!
But there is an important question that none of the studies mentioned above tries to address and that point is probably the most important and interesting of all; as homosexuality becomes more socially acceptable will the need to hone this skill dwindle? Will that sixth sense shrink like a residual organ and be left a useless remnant of it’s formal self?
Could a Liberal Society kill the gaydar?
Only time will tell ……
Huzzah ! Huzzah ! Huzzah !
Dear Mr President (yes I am referring to Obama),
Congratulations on winning the Presidency of the United States. You are now for (all intents and purposes) the person assigned to clean-up after the monstrosity that was George Dubwya Bush White House.Your victory has restored my faith in the American People and in Democracy as a whole. It has also proven that America does have an average IQ above 40 and that red-necks are too dumb to use the new voting machines (at least I think you went with voting machines this time ’round; wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t though).
Sadly, however you also join the ranks of some of the most unhealthy people I have ever seen or heard of. You see your predecessors (for the most part) suffered from some of the most annoying, painful and in some cases fatal medical conditions you can imagine (they’re even worse than rockstars). (I suspect these conditions were largely caused by the stress of the job as I have found the same to be true about my own neurosis and the job I’m stuck with; not that I’m comparing being the leader of the USA with being the medical equivalent of a janitor in a healthcare system that is bleeding faster than a cow in a slaughter mill).
Take Thomas Jefferson for instance; the man suffered from dysentery, depression, rheumatism, constipation, boils, hearing loss, an enlarged prostate and even Aspergers syndrome (think of it as a smart form of autism …. tawa7ud fee il 3arabi, not clinically proven during his life time I might add) not to mention incessant headaches and a bout of small pox.
Another good (well not good, more like interesting) example would be Abe Lincoln who ended up being cross eyed with double vision, had longstanding facial nerve pain (thanks to a tooth ache for which he refused to see a dentist …. he had a phobia of them) a concussion which left him with post traumatic amnesia, baldness (yes, it is a disease), scarlet fever and ofcourse that fatal gunshot wound that eventually killed him.
And lets not forget the man who bagged Norma-Jean in all her glory, Mr Kennedy suffered from the following during his life time:
- Scarlet fever
- measles
- knee injury
- bronchitis (= asthma)
- jaundice (=liver problems)
- rubella
- whooping cough
- colitis (= irritable bowel)
- osteoporosis
- presbyopia (can’t remember it now; some thing with vision)
- diphtheria (?)
- sexually transmitted prostatitis and urinary tract infections (guess Marlyn wasn’t the only one who wished him a “Happy Birthday”)
- backaches (from all the erm …. exercise)
- malaria
- Addison disease (it’s like a derangement in the adrenal glands, it skews everything from your blood pressure, to hair growth)
- Fatal gunshot wound.
The poor man is the reason I hope to die before I’m 60.
So if I may be so bold as to give any advice to a man as brilliant as your very good self, it’d be to take yer vitamins, do a little running, eat a little less red meat and hire a good doctor (my CV is attached ….. I’m not that bad …. though I do say so myself)
So good luck and god speed; lord knows you’re gonna need it, it’ll take a goddamn miracle to clean up after that fuckwit…… seriously, if you manage to fix the economy in 8 years you’d be “the man” ……..
Yours Sincerly,
KTDP
p.s. If you get stuck and can do nothing about all the damage “The Dubwya” has done then your best be would be to just ignore everything till somebody else fixes it ….. it works great for me …….
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