feature article : The Eyes Have it, Gaydar: Common or Confidential /

How often have you found yourself pacing the cereal aisle at Westport's Sunfresh? While there, you absently re-read two or three times the nutritional contents of Rice Krispies just to steal another glance at the guy similarly absorbed in his Lucky Charms. The knowing smile creeping across your face tells me this experience isn't unique just to me.

Cereal choices aside, what exactly is at play here that might lead a curious onlooker to believe these two men could be gay? Granted, I'll come right out and let you know that yes, I'm gay, but what about our friend twirling about his box of green clovers and yellow moons?

To many Kansas Citians, the task of finding a gay man wandering about Westport is about as easy as spotting one at any Promise Keepers convention. As the saying goes, "Location is everything." Fortunately for us, we're bound to show up anywhere; it's all a matter of determining how we spot one another. The term Gaydar conjures any number of mental images that range from the purely comical (perhaps Queer Eye's Carson swinging a strobe light about while intermittently hooting "Couture!") to the more scientific (among the psychological flavors du jour: the intuitive-yet-judging Myers-Briggs Mocha Blend and Kinsey's 10% Carb-free Fusion).

Lisa Woolery, Ph.D., in her presentation to the American Psychological Society Annual Conference in 2004, offered this more comprehensive definition:

"Gaydar is a popular culture term that refers to the ability for one individual to correctly identify the sexual orientation of another. In popular culture, the phenomenon often is considered an inexplicable intuition seemingly innately bestowed upon members of the gay community."

Is it a matter of intuition or rather one of careful observation? As magical a talent as gaydar might sometimes appear to those wielding a less scrutinizing model of it, undoubtedly there's more skill than occult sense involved in its mastery.

Woolery suggests that a stew of social influences gives rise not only to gaydar itself but also lends to it an unmistakable flavor of vital importance. "Cultural conditions prompt the necessity for a social skill like gaydar. In oppressive cultures, gay and lesbian people often engage in covert practices to recognize and connect with each other. People may learn to display subtle cues as well as learn to read cues - both intentional and unintentional - that increase the probability of correctly identifying another's sexual orientation."

To speak in terms of probabilities might lead one to consider gaydar as nothing but a measure of complicated guesswork. And to a degree, this certainly is the case. A more reliable (if not a tad more hostile) means of determining another person's sexual sway would be a strapped-down polygraph test with a battery of spearheaded questions such as "Who is Madonna to you?" and the marginally less subtle "SoÖ you gay?" Not exactly akin to the casual-but-persistent glances one might instead prefer to ponder while waiting in line at Sunfresh. One leaves a better first impression than the other, to say the least.

"Oppressive cultures" aside, our peering through the mystery veiling this true "queer eye" shouldn't serve to strip away its more lighthearted contributions to our wonderfully diversified population. The perseverance of gaydar in our community probably is anchored more in its entertainment value than its origins in sexual apartheid. After all, who hasn't whiled away an airport layover by divvying up the masses into groups of "Oh, for sures," "Doesn't know it yets" and the unmistakable "Makes me more gay just thinking about it" variety?

The fun of having a gaydar at all should be exactly that: it should be fun! Our maintaining a sense of humor regarding a thing born of social experience keeps it freshly alive and interesting. Additionally, no small amount of curiosity feeds our seeming insatiability for quietly estimating the nuggets and tidbits we're able to glean from the nameless faces we encounter each day.

How we're able to make such rapid assessments is the real magic trick in all this. That our brains are wired for the efficient classification of all the endless sensory information pouring into it is nothing short of miraculous. Stereotyping, for all its oftentimes negative applications, is a key component to how we compile seemingly random observations into a unified and useful tool of measure. Without a method for compressing mental data, the world might well resemble at all times the raging chaos of stimulation certain synthetic vacations from lucidity usually offer, though more briefly.

Who would have imagined a case being made that gaydar quite possibly keeps us grounded in reality? A reality sometimes influenced a bit too much by wishful thinking when a certain gaydar's beam is waved over any National League baseball team's starting lineupÖ but I digress.

With a working definition under our belts of what gaydar is, perhaps it's time to set up a few parameters to determine its appropriate use. Meaning, if one were to rely solely upon the range of so-called "gay mannerisms" many people employ, straight or gay, our gaydar would be hopelessly underutilized to the point of being unnecessary. Putting aside all points of fashion sense (or a lack thereof), tastes in music (again, or a lack thereof), and rankings on the butch/femme scale brings about a greater challenge for the 'dar-equipped observer.

For every assumption that a man endowed with a sibilant S must be gay, and a woman who knows her way around a garage must be a lesbian, there follows the exclusion of innumerable gays and lesbians who fail to meet such simplistic qualifications. Are they somehow less gay? I hardly think so.

So, what's left if such run-of-the-mill stereotypes aren't available? Voices can be consciously altered and suggestive body language easily muffled, but our eyes will always reveal the most about what's really going on behind them.

To better illustrate my point, I'll put into action my earlier comment regarding a particular brand of glances that seem a bit more than a feature of passive browsing. During a recent trip to New Jersey, my partner, Sean, and I visited a wholesale retail store called B.J.'s (similar to Costco, but with an obviously more titter-inducing name). While idling away in the checkout line, we both noticed the cashier several aisles away noticing us. Or rather, he was noticing Sean, dressed as he was in a muscle shirt and baggy shorts. As for the cashier, he didn't "look gay" as many might have said: the standard 18-24-year-old, attractive, college-guy arrangement that probably wouldn't peg a nominally calibrated gaydar. However, the time he had spent looking at gays hinted to us that Justin the B.J.'s Cashier probably wasn't quite like all the other boys.

What sealed the deal, so to speak, was his deployment of the classic 1-2-3-Turnaround-and-Look-Again maneuver. Whatever its purpose, most of us would consider this particular game of eyes to be one of the gay primaries.

Why is this? Call it the culmination of similar-but-unique experiences (a.k.a. stereotypes) shared among people without regard to age, skin color, political bias or persistence of religious indoctrination. Call it a matter of lucky guesswork that perhaps offers no greater plunge into the human psyche than a quiz in Cosmo but certainly brings about a few more smiles for good measure. Or simply call it gaydar and move forward into a polite introduction.