As gay men, we’ve long been accused of dating people who could be our twins. But research indicates we may not have a choice.
By Alex Reimer
We all look the same!
Studies show that “gay face” is real, though the look doesn’t have anything to do with masculine or feminine features.
It’s about sym 👏 met 👏 try 👏, honeyyy…
Gay scientists Mitch Moffit and Greg Brown recently addressed the phenomenon on their popular YouTube channel, “AsapSCIENCE.” The two partners started summarizing research on the topic, which is surprisingly thorough.
Early studies in 2011 found that gay men have more symmetrical faces than their hetero peers. But as Brown mentions, the studies didn’t factor in grooming–surgical or otherwise.
“We like to pluck our eyebrows, keep our beards nice and trim. I know a lot of gay men who have Botox and filler trying to make their faces symmetrical,” he says.
Digging beneath the symmetry, researchers started performing quantitative analysis of male faces, with the help of morphometric software. The technology allows users to analyze 2D and 3D data, such as… images of faces!
The software found two quantifiable differences between gay men and straight men. Typically, gay men have shorter noses and larger foreheads than straight guys. (Lesbians, meanwhile, have more upturned noses and smaller foreheads than straight women.)
Subsequent research has supported those findings. Spanish researchers in 2021 morphed features on faces to exaggerate the gay ones. Then volunteers guessed each person’s orientation.
The more exaggerated the gay features were, the more likely the volunteers were to think that person was gay. Moffit says the results suggest that “gay-face” is more of a spectrum, rather than binary.
“It’s not that you either have a gay face or you don’t, but that there’s a scale from slight ‘gay face’ to full blown ‘gaaay face,’” he explains.
