Can you tell if a guy is gay

Is he gay or straight? At a glance, the key to telling might be in the way he walks. Johnson and her colleagues attached motion sensors, like those used in the movie industry, to the hips and shoulders of eight volunteers — four men and four women, half of whom were gay.

The motion sensors captured the only movements of the walkers, masking details such as clothing or hairstyles.

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The researchers videotaped the volunteers walking on a treadmill at various speeds, and then played the video for undergraduate observers, who were asked to determine the sexual orientation of each person. Observers' accuracy As the gay men walked, they slightly swayed their hips.

The observers were accurate in assessing the men's sexual orientation a little more than 60 percent of the time. Research such as Johnson's may give scientific credence to "gaydar," suggesting that people really can tell whether someone is gay or straight from visual clues.

As the lesbians walked, they slightly moved their shoulders back and forth — Johnson calls it a less exaggerated version of an Arnold Schwarzenegger-type swagger. But when it came to identifying the sexual orientation of the women, it was all up to chance. But although the research is getting attention for its results about a distinction in how gay men walk, Johnson and her colleagues were more focused on studying the observers.

That quick assessment can mean that the observer is associating that person with stereotypes they've heard — for example, that a gay man isn't as masculine as a straight man. Next, Johnson plans to study the implications of judging someone's sexuality by those visual clues.

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