Do Hair Whorls Whisper Of A Masculine Kind Of Love?
David France, who is so gay that he co-wrote Jim "Gay American" McGreevey's The Confession, has a long examination of the (pseudo)science behind gaydar in New York mag. It's endlessly long and contains few revelations—the ultimate conclusion is that sexuality is "about your soul." But if you're really interested in looking for physical signs of a gay gene, the article talks about three fun ones: "gay accent," lesbo-hands (index finger longer than ring finger), and hair whorl (gay men's may tend to go counterclockwise). The article cites a whorl study of "more than 50" short-haired gay men that took place at a pride festival, about 23 percent of whom had counterclockwise hair whorls. How scientific and conclusive! We decided to aid the research by taking a long, hard look at (who else?) ourselves.
Balk's whorl goes clockwise ... as does Choire's. Hmm! Josh "you're gay, you have a girlfriend" Stein's whorl seems to run counterclockwise, but with that much hair, definitive results are hard to ascertain, which is pretty fitting. Doree is left-handed. And Emily has lesbian fingers, which should surprise some, but not all, of her college classmates.
All in all, though, these results seem just as inconclusive as those of the studies cited in the magazine. Maybe we'll just have to continue discerning people's sexuality based on who they like to bone! Or be boned by!
