Gaydar is Fake

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I once saw a TV show where a bunch of guys were put together and then another group of people tried to guess the sexual orientation of these men. The guy who got the most "straight" votes turned out to be gay. I wish I had a link but I don't so just believe me.

I guess this means that gaydar is fake and it is impossible to determine sexual orientation based on appearance.

Am I right?

Absolutely-without exception.
There never is any gaydar.

I still havent gotten over the shock of learning that Liberace was gay!

Of all people-LIberace. Who wouldve thought?

(yes-i am being sarcastic).

Some gay guys deliberately broadcast their gayness, and if you've known a few gay men, it's easy to pick up on. Otherwise, not so much.

I heard somewhere that gaydar is about 60% accurate, looking just at photos. Better than flipping a coin, but only just. Oddly, the same is true of mormon-dar using only photos.

in my limited experience with people, I have found that there are definitely clues that someone might be gay, and I'm not just talking about hairstyles or the stereotypical voice. Some male faces have a distinctly feminine shape to them. It always surprises me how few of these men with faces like this turn out to be straight. Most gay men don't have an obviously gay face and of course I'm making generalizations. Every individual is different, but some gay men do have the look and of course many openly gay men adopt characteristics that give them away that are part of gay culture. If you make a collage of gay faces and a collage of straight faces there would little doubt which group is which, unless you went out of you're way to find the most masculine gay faces.

I know some people who say they knew a girl who's gaydar was so good (and so misdirected) that gay guys would watch to see who she was interested in to figure out who was gay.

Nearly every guy she flirted with was gay. Most of the guys she dated came out of the closet within a month or two.

It's not fake but it's not an exact science.

There are tells in the way people act and dress.

"Gaydar" seems to be nothing more than an intuitive understanding of human behavior, which means that the more genuinely gay people you know, the better your "gaydar" may be; but that if the only people you know are all gay (or all straight), then your "gaydar" may be about as accurate as a coin toss.

I can't speak of gaydar, but I think I've had some instances of Aspiedar.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

I tend to really get along well with most of the gay men I know - I think it's stereotypical that straight women love to hang out with gay guys. It's not that they're just into 'girly' stuff, because (especially the more NT of us) have female friends for that, but they see us more as people and less as objects than straight men do, and simultaneously don't see us as competition.

This, and also a lot of gay men in the closet often have actions that can speak a lot of their insecurities and such. That said gaydar is something real for someone that knows what to look for, but it doesnt work on a picture. You need actual interaction to figure it out.

I can't pick out every gay man; and sometimes my instincts are wrong (Remember, James, "hope clouds observation.")

But that being said, there are still clues.

One of my advantages is that I have been forced to learn how to conciously read body language--since it's not an inherent skill for me, I have to think about what I am seeing, and the meaning that I ascribe to it.

It's imprecise, but it's not (entirely) fake.

I suspect that I have psychodar...

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

My Jehovah's-Witness-dar is 100% accurate while watching them walk up my drive. Always in pairs, neatly and formally dressed and clutching bags (which inevitably turn out to be full of propaganda books.)

Mormons do that, too. So you may be wrongly painting Mormons with the Jehovah's Witness brush!

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer