Body motion and type can indicate one’s sexual orientation to the casual observer, concludes a new study in the September issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, “Swagger, sway, and sexuality: Judging sexual orientation from body motion and morphology.” The researchers found “the gay subjects tended to have more gender-incongruent body types . . . (hourglass figures for men, tubular bodies for women) and body motions (hip-swaying for men, shoulder-swaggering for women) than their straight counterparts.” Men seem to telegraph these clues more than women, however: observers looking just at body motion (and not details of face, hair, etc.) categorized the sexual orientation of men with more than 60 percent accuracy, but their categorization of women did not exceed chance.
Anyone with the least amount of gaydar would agree that a person’s walk is often part of what triggers our antenna. The above study, though, is lacking in a few areas that would let us use it as scientific proof of this. Only eight male and eight female subjects, half gay and half straight, participated. That’s four gay men and four lesbians. It takes only one trip to a Pride March or LGBT Center (or IKEA on a Saturday) to know there are easily more body types in the lesbian and gay community than that.
The press release also does not indicate whether the researchers used gay and lesbian subjects across the gender-identification spectrum. I’d venture to say “casual observers” would tag a butch swagger as lesbian, but not a femme sway (and vice versa for gay men), and the observer’s accuracy would depend in part on her or his own sexual orientation and relationship with LGBT people. (Children of LGBT parents, for example, who grew up in the LGBT community, might be more accurate than those with straight parents.) The observers were also all undergraduate students. The press release doesn’t say whether the subjects were, but that’s a reasonable assumption. I have to wonder if the observers would be as accurate looking at older subjects.
Clearly there are many factors yet to study here. The fact that the observers’ categorization of women did not exceed chance, and was accurate for men only 60 percent of the time—hardly a resounding majority—makes me think the researchers are stretching their conclusions. (They also cite a 1999 Harvard study that found college undergraduates were able to judge sexual orientation accurately 55 percent of the time—again, not much more than chance) just by looking at photographs of seated strangers.) It’s a shame, because they also raise some interesting questions about the effect their findings could have:
“Studies like ours are raising questions about the value of the military’s ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy,” [lead researcher Kerri Johnson] said. “If casual observers can determine sexual orientation with minimal information, then the value in concealing this information certainly appears questionable. Given that we all appear to be able to deduce this information to some degree with just a glance, more comprehensive policies may be required to protect gays against discrimination based on their sexual orientation.”
The findings also are part of mounting evidence suggesting that sexual orientation may actually be what social scientists call a “master status category,” or a defining characteristic that observers cannot help but notice and which has been scientifically shown to color all subsequent social dealings with others.
“Once you know a person’s sexual orientation, the fact has consequences for all subsequent interactions, and our findings suggest that this category of information can be deduced from subtle clues in body movement,” Johnson said.
“Suggest” is appropriate. I don’t think Johnson’s research, as I understand it from the admittedly limited public information I have, allows more certainty than that. It is not unreasonable to say, however, that people think they can tell whether people with certain types of body motion are “gay,” even if they are wrong. This has an impact on the likelihood an individual will be the victim of discrimination or a hate crime because of her or his presumed sexual orientation. With both the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) and the Matthew Shepard Local Law Enforcement Hate Crime Prevention Act expected to come up for a vote in Congress in the next month or so, this is a point to keep in mind when trying to convince people of the wide positive effect the bill would have, within the LGBT community and beyond.
(Thanks to PhysOrg.com for the link.)