i had a conversation about this with a friend recently, and she thinks that women do have better gaydar than men also, but for a different reasons. she thinks that men are more likely to be socialized into homophobia, and just have shitty gaydar because they refuse to deal with all that. i think i know as many women as men who are homophobes, so her explanation doesn’t ring true to me.
if i’m right about this (and i may not be, and if you disagree, please try and convince me why) i’m thinking it’s more biological. women and men, in general, have different sets of communication skills - women pay more attention (or at least more conscious attention) to the subleties of body language, etc. than men.
I’ve had a better gaydar than most guys I know except for my gay friends. My gaydar even worked through tv. My last boyfriend had absolutely NO gaydar. It was probably because he had so many gay friends. However, after I started pointing out men that I thought were gay, he would give me a Look whenever he thought he spotted Teh Gay and normally I would have similar thoughts. I couldn’t explain to you what makes my Gaydar tick. It’s like how I tell asians apart, I don’t know what exactly I look for, something just clicks somewhere. It could be, I just rate them on how attractive my friend Jessica would find them. Poor Jessica always falls in love with gay men. In a room full of hundreds of eligable men, she will fall desperately in love with the gay ones.
I’m a straight male but my gaydar works very well. For me however it is probably having spent a great deal of time around my gay brother and his friends. I never set out to develop gaydar…just seems to come with familiarity I guess.
That said may gaydar fails me utterly on women. Gay men I have little trouble spotting (I do not pretend it is infallible) but women it almost never works on. Admittedly I have not spent as much time around openly gay women as I have men but I still keep thinking it should be better than it is. No clue as to why that is.
On balance I have to say I really do not care how good or bad my ability to identify gay men or women is…more a curious point to me about men vs. women on the gaydar thing.
I don’t know if this is a “great debate,” but I think women generally are more observant of other people and pay more attention to interpersonal communications. For example, a woman may notice a kind of flirtatious manner between 2 men at a bar, and a straight guy is oblivious because there’s a basketball game on the TV and a woman with amazing breasts at the adjacent table.
Then we get to WhyNot, and the theory falls apart. I have terrible gaydar. Awful, horrible, no-good, very bad gaydar. Especially when it comes to potential romatantic partners. I consistently overlook men who are crazy about me because I think they’re gay and not interested, while I date and have even been engaged to no less than 5 men who were apparently straight, but “discovered” they were gay. It’s enough to give a girl a complex.
What can I say? I like my men like my wine: sweet and fruity, with a nice long finish!
But for the sweeping generalization about broads, I think the OP is correct, it’s probably a body language/social interaction reading thing. (Which I’m generally excellent at, just not where sexual orientation is concerned.)
My gawd, Bush reads Judith Viorst? (Or was it something else I said? Sentence fragments? Really, I don’t even watch the news, or press conferences 'cept for The Daily Show. I’m ashamed to admit I’ve hit this miserable depth of writing through nothing but my own practice and the fact that I type exactly as I think.)
I have decent gaydar with men, but none at all with women. It may be because I’ve known many more gay men than I have women. Or it may be because in the past I, like WhyNot, found myself incredibly attracted to a man only to find out he’s gay. So maybe I developed it as a self preservation thing.
Well, I know two women who were married to gay men for many years and never had the slightest inkling anything was wrong (one didn’t find out until her husband was diagnosed wioth AIDS).
So… while I admit I’m a pretty clueless male, beware of generalities. A lot of women have no “gaydar” either.
I disagree. I’m amazed by the number of women that are clueless about the issue. As a hetero male I think my gaydar is pretty good, but it still fails occasionally. I really think it has more to do with how familar you are with a a very wide range of gay people, which is why gay people who socialize with lots other gay people are the most acutely aware of who is and is not. As to gay people who don’t socialze with other gays I can’t say.
It’s been my observation over the years that men are way better than women when it comes to figuring out what men are straight and what men are gay.
I’ve known too many women who, like WhyNot, are prone to falling madly in love with gay men. With *obviously * (to everyone else) gay men. I can’t explain it, but I’ve seen it.
And then there’s the whole phenomenon of women who know they guy they’re attracted to is gay, but think they can “change” the object of their affections. I can’t even begin to understand this one.
in my experience, as a bisexual guy who is not exactly closeted, but not exactly the most open about it either (i almost never lie to people if asked - and only if i feel very uncomfortable/threatened in the situation, but i don’t bring it up either unless i feel it’s important at the time) women can & have outed me four or five to one over guys.
this could be related to how familiar given individuals are with gay people, but it suggests a gendered response to me. or else, the guys that know i’m not 100% grade “a” hetero just don’t say anything.
but my own is pretty darned good, if i say so meself. i can’t think of a false positive my gaydar has made, though i’ve prolly had some false-negative blips. er, non-blips.
oh, and thanks mebuckner, for the title fix & forum move.
I have to agree with bob_loblaw. I get many more false negatives than I do false positives when it comes to my gaydar. As a gay man, this has led to several happy surprises.
I really believe that gaydar sensibility really depends upon the individual. Most straight men will look for effeminate traits in other men and use that as their reasoning. For me, it is much more of an intuitive thing. Lingering looks and body language sometimes do it for me. Other times it is just an innate sense of sexual compatibility. I think that is why alot of straight women have great gaydar too.
I’ve never had a gayday. 
