# Does blindness affect sexual orientation?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-blindness-affect-sexual-orientation/463180
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [September 11, 2008, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-blindness-affect-sexual-orientation/463180 "2008-09-11T23:11:52Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@warmgun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/warmgun)
#### Post date: [September 11, 2008, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-blindness-affect-sexual-orientation/463180/1 "2008-09-11T23:11:52Z")
I saw a really attractive blind woman today and it started me wondering.
So much of sexual attraction is based on looks. This is prevalent throughout the animal kingdom. Is the proportion of gay people in the blind community the same as the sighted community? Does blindness affect sexual orientation?
ETA: I’m thinking of blind from birth.
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### Author:  [@Richard\_Pearse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Pearse)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2008, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-blindness-affect-sexual-orientation/463180/2 "2008-09-12T00:51:21Z")
Given that you can perceive someone’s “looks” by feel, I’d suggest, by your own logic, that blindness does not affect your sexuality.
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### Author:  [@Don\_t\_fight\_the\_hypothetical](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_t_fight_the_hypothetical)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2008, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-blindness-affect-sexual-orientation/463180/3 "2008-09-12T01:15:43Z")
[quote=“1920s Style “Death Ray”, post:2, topic:463180”]
Given that you can perceive someone’s “looks” by feel, I’d suggest, by your own logic, that blindness does not affect your sexuality.
[/QUOTE]
Huh? You think you can feel if a woman is good looking?
I don’t know the answer but it will be interesting to see where this goes.
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### Author:  [@Richard\_Pearse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Pearse)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2008, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-blindness-affect-sexual-orientation/463180/4 "2008-09-12T01:24:55Z")
You can feel bone structure, skin texture, muscle/fat content, body shape etc. There’s plenty of material there for a blind person to decide whether they find someone physically attractive. You’ll note I put “looks” in quotes. The part of an attractive person that can _only_ be perceived by sight is very small. Of course for someone who can’t see to get to a point where they’re feeling someone’s body other than just the face, they’ve already decided they like them based on other factors such as personality.
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### Author:  [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2008, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-blindness-affect-sexual-orientation/463180/5 "2008-09-12T01:25:21Z")
> [@warmgun](#):
>
> So much of sexual attraction is based on looks.
I believe this is much truer for males than for females. And a good thing it is too because some of us would never get laid otherwise.
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### Author:  [@tygerbryght](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tygerbryght)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2008, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-blindness-affect-sexual-orientation/463180/6 "2008-09-12T01:52:35Z")
Hmmmm. Why would you suppose that some physical impairment would affect a person’s sex drive?
This first is hearsay, based on magazine articles, but I recall reading that Ray Charles was extremely fond of the ladies. He reputedly would take a woman by the hand, run his hand up her forearm, and have an excellent idea thereby what kind of figure she had.
Personal experience: Some years back, a blind man who worked at the same university I did tried to persuade me into bed. He had been married, and was then divorced. This man was blind from birth. The eyelids were there, but the eyes themselves were undeveloped.
On this basis, I presume that sex drives work exactly the same in blind people as in sighted, and that both strength of the drive and orientation are entirely independent of sightedness. Perhaps you underestimate the degree to which areas of the brain normally devoted to one function are re-purposed if a function is lost (or undeveloped). There is published research on this subject.
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### Author:  [@Balthisar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balthisar)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2008, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-blindness-affect-sexual-orientation/463180/7 "2008-09-12T01:56:31Z")
> [@tygerbryght](#):
>
> …I recall reading that Ray Charles was extremely fond of the ladies.
But he wasn’t born blind.
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### Author:  [@Mississippienne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mississippienne)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2008, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-blindness-affect-sexual-orientation/463180/8 "2008-09-12T01:57:29Z")
I do have to wonder how it would affect your growing sexuality. How would you know if you liked girls or boys, if you’d never laid hands on either? Had never kissed anyone? Most of us made eyes at cute members of our preferred gender looooong before we ever so much as held hands. Would you just assume you were straight? Would the sound of female voices give you a tingle male voices don’t, I wonder?
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### Author:  [@Jenaroph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jenaroph)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2008, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-blindness-affect-sexual-orientation/463180/9 "2008-09-12T03:51:06Z")
I’m guessing (and it is a guess) a good deal of sexual attraction for the blind is based on smell, much as it is (unconsciously) for sighted people.
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### Author:  [@Don\_t\_fight\_the\_hypothetical](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_t_fight_the_hypothetical)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2008, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-blindness-affect-sexual-orientation/463180/10 "2008-09-12T05:38:02Z")
nevermind
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### Author:  [@R.P.McMurphy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/R.P.McMurphy)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2008, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-blindness-affect-sexual-orientation/463180/11 "2008-09-12T05:45:48Z")
Not to answer the OP but to add to it, I would think that blind people could teach us a tremendous amount about our sexuality. Possibly, thoroughly studying sexuality among the blind could give us important insights into what we find attractive, sexual orientation and other nuances that influence our sexuality and fetishes. Has it been done? Were there any important findings?
I find the question intriguing.
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### Author:  [@warmgun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/warmgun)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2008, 6:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-blindness-affect-sexual-orientation/463180/12 "2008-09-12T06:14:08Z")
> [@tygerbryght](#):
>
> Hmmmm. Why would you suppose that some physical impairment would affect a person’s sex drive?
I didn’t. I wondered if it would affect your orientation. See **Mississippienne** ’s post.
> [@Jenaroph](#):
>
> I’m guessing (and it is a guess) a good deal of sexual attraction for the blind is based on smell, much as it is (unconsciously) for sighted people.
That doesn’t convince me it follows that sightless males would be attracted to females and vice versa.
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### Author:  [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2008, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-blindness-affect-sexual-orientation/463180/13 "2008-09-12T12:30:18Z")
Blindness would affect the reasons for which individuals of your preferred gender would be attractive to you, but why would it affect overall gender preference? Seeing boobies – even really nice boobies – doesn’t make sighted straight women gay, so why would not seeing boobies affect the gender preferences of a blind person of either gender?
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### Author:  [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2008, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-blindness-affect-sexual-orientation/463180/14 "2008-09-12T13:03:53Z")
> [@Don\_t\_fight\_the\_hypothetical](#):
>
> Huh? You think you can feel if a woman is good looking?..
I’m not blind, but I volunteer to do an extensive study. All in the interests of science, of course. I promise I’ll keep my eyes closed.
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### Author:  [@Bill\_Door](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bill_Door)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2008, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-blindness-affect-sexual-orientation/463180/15 "2008-09-12T13:13:28Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#):
>
> I’m not blind, but I volunteer to do an extensive study. All in the interests of science, of course. I promise I’ll keep my eyes closed.
Well, I’m blind in only one eye, so I could be used to fill in the gaps between the blind and the sighted in the study. It would make the graphs look better.
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### Author:  [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2008, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-blindness-affect-sexual-orientation/463180/16 "2008-09-12T14:32:51Z")
Humans are not just animals. One can be sexually attracted to someone for reasons other than appearances.
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### Author:  [@Quercus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quercus)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2008, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-blindness-affect-sexual-orientation/463180/17 "2008-09-12T14:40:17Z")
> [@Mississippienne](#):
>
> I do have to wonder how it would affect your growing sexuality. How would you know if you liked girls or boys, if you’d never laid hands on either? Had never kissed anyone? Most of us made eyes at cute members of our preferred gender looooong before we ever so much as held hands. Would you just assume you were straight? Would the sound of female voices give you a tingle male voices don’t, I wonder?
Well, as a sighted, hetero, man, who appreciates the visual female form as much as the next sighted hetero guy, I can tell you that the sound of female voices absolutely gives me a tingle that male voices don’t. And, while I can’t perfectly recall every instant of my development regarding what I’m sexually attracted to, I can say that the single instant I most recall involved smell.
So I don’t really think a blind man would have had a particularly hard time telling if he was hetero or gay.
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### Author:  [@Jenaroph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jenaroph)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2008, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-blindness-affect-sexual-orientation/463180/18 "2008-09-12T15:27:19Z")
> [@warmgun](#):
>
> That doesn’t convince me it follows that sightless males would be attracted to females and vice versa.
Is it even questionable that men and women smell as different as they look? Hormones have major effects on body odor. Walk into a men’s and a women’s locker rooms and tell me you can’t tell which one is which without looking. Peeyoo.
There [are](http://www.jstor.org/pss/50182) [studies](http://www.nel.edu/23_4/NEL230402R03_Thorne.htm) that indicate sexual attraction in women is affected by hormonal components of men’s body odor. According to the summary of the second study I linked, exposure to the pheromones in the experiment influenced how women rated the attractiveness of photos of male faces. In other words, women were rating men as better or worse _looking_ based on whether or not they liked their _smell_. In the absence of the ability to judge looks, might one not deduce that a blind woman may judge by smell alone? (Along with other factors such as voice, personality, etc. that are of course encountered in a non-experimental setting.)
I have yet to run across similar studies of men but I’d find it hard to believe that women are the only ones affected hormonally by smell.
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### Author:  [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2008, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-blindness-affect-sexual-orientation/463180/19 "2008-09-12T16:40:05Z")
> [@Bill\_Door](#):
>
> Well, I’m blind in only one eye, so I could be used to fill in the gaps between the blind and the sighted in the study. It would make the graphs look better.
And are you a left boob man or a right boob man?
Sorry. That was horrible. Couldn’t resist.
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### Author:  [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2008, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-blindness-affect-sexual-orientation/463180/20 "2008-09-12T22:28:37Z")
This is merely anecdotal, but I had a friend in school who was both blind and a lesbian. She had been legally blind since birth, but wasn’t totally blind until her late teens. (Incidentally, total blindness is quite rare.)
Someone else we knew did once ask my friend about what made another person attractive to her. She said it was mostly their voice. She also said she would often ask a friend “What does so and so look like?” and imagine their appearance based on the description she got. Of course, a person who’d always been totally blind wouldn’t be able to do that, but they might still be influenced by whether someone was described as being beautiful or ugly.
I believe it was George Costanza who said “A good looking blind woman doesn’t even know you’re not good enough for her”, but if the blind woman had a friend who said “Ugh, you’re dating a total troll” then that might make a difference to her.
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