Who needs Gaydar. We’ve got a Fruit Machine*

OBVIOUSLY the dude on the right is gay. Right? Lately, our gaydar has been totally wack. But a study out of Tufts University — led by grad-student Nicholas Rule (as in “I rule!”) — claims that gaydar is as real as Britney Spears’ drug and alcohol abuse problem. And not only could respondents weed out the suspected fruitcakes just by looking at their faces — they got it right in record time.

For the study, 15 undergraduate students, both male and female, were shown photos of faces of 90 men, evenly divided between gay and straight. The photos were taken from Internet personal ads and from Facebook.

Furthermore,

The researchers found that subjects could accurately determine in 50 milliseconds — one-twentieth of a second — whether the men were gay or straight about 60 percent of the time. Rule says all the subjects were accurate 55 percent to 70 percent of the time.

The over-waxed eyebrows must have been a dead giveaway. Is your gaydar a little rusty? Brush up by taking the OkCupid test. We only got 60% right.

*The Fruit Machine was a device developed by Canadians to identify homos. Subjects watched porn and the device measured the pupils of the eyes, perspiration, and pulse for a supposed erotic response. Fun!!

**The photo by Mark Mahaney was taken from a 1997 article published by New York re the science of gaydar — 10 years later, I’m not certain the research still stands — but it’s fascinating.