As gay men, we’ve long been accused of dating people who could be our twins. But research indicates we may not have a choice.
We all look the same!
Studies show that “gay face” is real, though the look doesn’t have anything to do with masculine or feminine features.
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Gay scientists Mitch Moffit and Greg Brown recently addressed the phenomenon on their popular YouTube channel, “AsapSCIENCE.” The two partners started summarizing research on the topic, which is surprisingly thorough.
Early studies in 2011 found that gay men have more symmetrical faces than their hetero peers. But as Brown mentions, the studies didn’t factor in grooming–surgical or otherwise.
“We like to pluck our eyebrows, keep our beards nice and trim. I know a lot of gay men who have Botox and filler trying to make their faces symmetrical,” he says.
Digging beneath the symmetry, researchers started performing quantitative analysis of male faces, with the help of morphometric software. The technology allows users to analyze 2D and 3D data, such as… images of faces!
The software found two quantifiable differences between gay men and straight men. Typically, gay men have shorter noses and larger foreheads than straight guys. (Lesbians, meanwhile, have more upturned noses and smaller foreheads than straight women.)
Subsequent research has supported those findings. Spanish researchers in 2021 morphed features on faces to exaggerate the gay ones. Then volunteers guessed each person’s orientation.
The more exaggerated the gay features were, the more likely the volunteers were to think that person was gay. Moffit says the results suggest that “gay-face” is more of a spectrum, rather than binary.
“It’s not that you either have a gay face or you don’t, but that there’s a scale from slight ‘gay face’ to full blown ‘gaaay face,'” he explains.
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A member of Gay Twitter™ posted an image of a store window and asked his followers whether their “gay brain” impacts how they read the slogan.
The same Spanish researchers proceeded to feed an AI system 35,000 images from dating sites of gay and straight faces. And let’s just say, AI’s gaydar is pretty, pretty good.
The system correctly guessed whether a man was gay 81% of the time, and whether a woman was gay 74% of the time.
Once again, gay men were determined to have larger foreheads than straight men, but also narrower jaws (it seems like evolution should fix that)!
To try and apply the AI’s findings to reality… let’s think of Troye Sivan. Does the “Rush” singer have “gay face?”
Yep!
Now how about the scientists themselves, Brown and Moffit?
Hard to say! But we do know this… they’re adorable together!
While descriptors such as “gay face” and “gay voice” can be used in a derogatory manner, it turns out that homophobes aren’t very good at spotting queer characteristics. When looking at volunteers in the 2021 study, researchers found the less prejudice someone exhibited towards gay people, the better they were at guessing gay faces.
Unsurprisingly, women are better than men at facial processing. Female volunteers in the 2021 study identified gay men correctly 75% of the time.
Survey says… women can read us to filth. But we already knew that!
Speaking of being easy to read, Brown stresses the findings aren’t universal. “Of course, gay people can have straight faces. Straight people can have gay faces. This is just research that’s describing some trends,” he says.
Though AI-generated research about “gay face” may make for entertaining content, it probably shouldn’t be applied in the real world, either.
“Scanning people’s faces and then sorting them into ‘gay’ or ‘straight’ seems like a dystopian movie I don’t want to be a part of,” Brown says.
Still, the findings are interesting, and also back up some preconceived notions. Speaking of which, studies have found that gay voice is real, too.
But that’s for another video. As for this one, you can watch it below:
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Quiz: How well do you know your gay slang?
Dive into our gay slang terms quiz to test your knowledge, challenge friends, and maybe learn a thing or two.
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