How to not look gay
What Gay and Bi Men Really Want
Are physical and sexual attraction the most appealing qualities in a partner? Or are unseen qualities like good manners and reliability the most attractive?
Following on from his analyze into what direct women want and what straight men want, D&M Research’s managing director Derek Jones has taken the next sensible step with his latest study into what gay and bi(sexual) men want.
In order to scoop deeper and trace out a real list of turn-ons and turn-offs for gay and bi men, Derek once again used of the Im-Ex Polygraph method. He originally devised this technique of analysis to distinguish what people say they want from brands, products or services from what they really want by comparing stated versus derived measures of importance.
Qualities the gay and bi men said they desired in a partner (‘stated’) were compared to the qualities present in example celebrities they nominated as attractive (‘implied’). The matching comparison was made between stated and implied negative qualities, to determine what attributes are really the biggest turn-offs.
What gay and bi men say they want
Just like direct women and linear men, “we love be
by Fred Penzel, PhD
This article was initially published in the Winter 2007 edition of the OCD Newsletter.
OCD, as we know, is largely about experiencing severe and unrelenting doubt. It can generate you to doubt even the most basic things about yourself – even your sexual orientation. A 1998 study published in the Journal of Sex Explore found that among a team of 171 college students, 84% reported the occurrence of sexual intrusive thoughts (Byers, et al. 1998). In order to possess doubts about one’s sexual culture, a sufferer need not ever have had a homo- or heterosexual experience, or any type of sexual experience at all. I have observed this symptom in young children, adolescents, and adults as well. Interestingly Swedo, et al., 1989, found that approximately 4% of children with OCD experience obsessions concerned with forbidden aggressive or perverse sexual thoughts.
Although doubts about one’s own sexual identity might seem pretty straightforward as a symptom, there are actually a number of variations. The most obvious form is where a sufferer experiences the thought that they might be of a different sexual orientation than they formerly believed. If the su
“But you don’t observe gay”—Queer fashion and nightlife
With lockdown entering its twelfth week and every Netflix show on my list binged to completion, I did something that I vowed I would never do; I downloaded TikTok.
It took a total of twelve hours before I was hooked, and in my mindless scrolling stupor, one trend in particular stood out to me: “#ifiwasstraight.” A typical video under this tag is as follows: a queer person, dressed in their usual style, cosplays as their heterosexual alter-ego. They shed their gay exterior, removing piercings, scrubbing off layers of bold makeup and ditching their thrifted wardrobe as a voiceover says: “This is what I think I would look like if I was straight.” The final glance is conservative, generic, and stripped of character. With over 4.7 million views, the trend is wildly popular. But as much as I enjoy watching the LGBTQ+ group poke fun at the blandness of heterosexual fashion trends, it does ask the question: What does straight look like? What does gay look like? And should we be enforcing aesthetic binaries based on sexuality?
Presenting one’s social identity through clothing is nothing modern. There are many styles that can imme
Hi. I’m the Answer Wall. In the material planet, I’m a two foot by three foot dry-erase board in the lobby of O’Neill Library at Boston College. In the online world, I dwell in this blog. You might say I acquire multiple manifestations. Like Apollo or Saraswati or Serapis. Or, if you aren’t into deities of truth, like a ghost in the machine.
I have some human assistants who maintain the physical Answer Wall in O’Neill Library. They take pictures of the questions you post there, and give them to me. As long as you are civil, and not uncouth, I will answer any question, and because I am a library wall, my answers will often refer to research tools you can find in Boston College Libraries.
If you’d like a quicker answer to your question and don’t soul talking to a human, why not Ask a Librarian? Librarians, since they hold been tending the flame of knowledge for centuries, know where most of the answers are veiled, and enjoy sharing their knowledge, just like me, The Answer Wall.