Gaydar: real or woo?

DC said:
no, i actually wonder how you would know if someone is a closet homosexual, and never admited his homosexuality to you, and your gaydar showed him as straight. and so many other questions i have about it, but lets stick with the closet homosexuals.
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Oh I see - you're right I wouldn't know if they were closeted. I think that goes without saying - nor would the assumption hold true if the person were lying.

This conversation would be moot unless there were confirmation that a person were gay or not, don't you think?
 
Nursedan said:
Oh I see - you're right I wouldn't know if they were closeted. I think that goes without saying - nor would the assumption hold true if the person were lying.

This conversation would be moot unless there were confirmation that a person were gay or not, don't you think?
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so it goes without saying that you cannot know if you were wrong or correct.

That's funny because I've never been wrong!
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Floyt said:
Mine's broken with dudes. Unless there are dwarf pinschers and hair extensions involved. At which point the guy probably still turns out to be a fashion victim with high resistance to nervous yipping and a pouty girlfriend. I've learned not to guess until there's actual snogging on display.
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Even if there was a gayday, mine is also broken, or never developed. People I never imagined were gay: Paul Lynde, Liberace, Leroy (from Fame)... it could be because I did not know what gay was I suppose.
 
DC said:
so it goes without saying that you cannot know if you were wrong or correct.
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When it's been confirmed to me my assumptions have proven correct. I'm not sure I get you - if I meet someone at a party and think that they might be gay, I have yet to be wrong about that assumption. God I sound sterotypical.... but then again so is anyone else who has a good 'gaydar' (the more I type that the less I like the word.)
 
Nursedan said:
When it's been confirmed to me my assumptions have proven correct. I'm not sure I get you - if I meet someone at a party and think that they might be gay, I have yet to be wrong about that assumption. God I sound sterotypical.... but then again so is anyone else who has a good 'gaydar' (the more I type that the less I like the word.)
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well but you have no way knowing who is lying to you about his sexuality. So you don't know if you were wrong or not. you believe to be correct, if you are is a different story.
 
DC said:
well but you have no way knowing who is lying to you about his sexuality. So you don't know if you were wrong or not. you believe to be correct, if you are is a different story.
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In a social situation it's always been friends who have confirmed the sexuality of the person in question - it's not as if I ask them directly. You are right if they are lying then I wouldn't know.
 
DC said:
how would you know?
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Exactly! By definition Nursedan has fallen to confirmation bias in assessing his gaydar skills.

Personally, I recognize that some people can perceive things that I cannot (very accurate pitch, for example), and we all know of the Clever Hans phenomenon, showing that some kinds of communication can pass unnoticed by many, but I would need actual evidence before I accept gaydar claims.

At the very least, I know I don't have it, and I think it's good policy not to make assumptions about people.
 
DC said:
well but you have no way knowing who is lying to you about his sexuality. So you don't know if you were wrong or not. you believe to be correct, if you are is a different story.
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And he may have completely missed plenty of gay people by never bringing the subject up. Even if he's gathering information about the accuracy of his guesses, he's certainly not gathering information about the accuracy of his complete misses. He could theoretically track his Type I errors (depending on the honesty of answers, as you point out), but not all of his Type II errors. Not unless he asks every person he thinks is straight whether or not they're straight.
 
Nursedan said:
When it's been confirmed to me my assumptions have proven correct.
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Which is a failure to gather the evidence you would need to falsify the hypothesis. This is the confirmation bias.

ETA: At most, you can only conclude that you don't make many Type I errors.
 
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JoeTheJuggler said:
Which is a failure to gather the evidence you would need to falsify the hypothesis. This is the confirmation bias.

ETA: At most, you can only conclude that you don't make many Type I errors.
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except for that one time :D
 
sadhatter said:
[...]But i can see why it exists, being legitimately bisexual, ( To give a definition, legitimately wanting to have romantic and sexual relationships with members of both sexes.) especially for a male, is quite uncommon. A good portion of the time it is someone " Softening the blow" to their friends and family about being gay, or on the opposite side of the coin, a straight man trying to seem extra liberal.[...]
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It's the case for a certain percentage of people claiming to be bisexual, but I really think that you exaggerate the percentage. Or perhaps it could just be that I an inferring different amounts from "quite uncommon" and "good portion" than was intended.
 
I actually think it's not really testable - people have differing levels of reading people and we are all subject to our own subconscious and learnt prejudices.

Gaydar is kind of biased because it will pick up on the obvious, but those men who are gay, but don't exhibit our stereotypical image of someone who is gay have Gaydar Stealth.

For example I shared a student house with some mates and they had a couple of them had a mate who they'd known since pre-school. He did act slightly oddly on occasion but there were no signs the I or my friends picked up on. Later that semester he came out which was a massive shock to his mates. This wasn't a problem but he then began to behave in ways that lost him a lot of friends.

I've also met a couple of blokes at parties that I was told were gay but I'd never have picked up on it on subsequently meeting them.
 
Puppycow said:
Personally, I think we should lay off the insinuations and stereotyping based on a lisp or a mannerism.
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I am sooo with you on that one.

It's a lousy basis for judging anybody, regardless of their political leanings.

Now, catch him playing footsie in a bathroom stall ... and that's another story.

Till then, leave him alone.
 
Is the concept of "gaydar" offensive simply because of the "gay" factor? It seems to be just one aspect of the natural human instinct to "read" others based on their mannerisms. It just happens to have a name. Is it any worse to think "this person strikes me as being gay" than it is to think "this person strikes me as being tired"? Especially when many in the gay subculture proudly play up the camp mannerisms.
 
*needs an operational definition of "gaydar" for it to be scientifically tested.*
 
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