Are you straight or gay
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 drastic and unrelenting doubt. It can cause you to doubt even the most basic things about yourself – even your sexual orientation. A 1998 analyze published in the Journal of Sex Research create that among a organization of 171 college students, 84% reported the occurrence of sexual intrusive thoughts (Byers, et al. 1998). In order to own doubts about one’s sexual identity, a sufferer require not ever have had a homo- or heterosexual experience, or any type of sexual experience at all. I have observed this symptom in juvenile children, adolescents, and adults as well. Interestingly Swedo, et al., 1989, found that approximately 4% of children with OCD experience obsessions concerned with forbidden hostile or perverse sexual thoughts.
Although doubts about one’s control sexual identity might sound pretty straightforward as a symptom, there are actually a number of variations. The most obvious build is where a sufferer experiences the thought that they might be of a different sexual orientation than they formerly believed. If the su
New AI can guess whether you're gay or linear from a photograph
Artificial intelligence can accurately guess whether people are gay or straight based on photos of their faces, according to new research that suggests machines can include significantly better “gaydar” than humans.
The study from Stanford University – which initiate that a computer algorithm could correctly distinguish between gay and straight men 81% of the hour, and 74% for women – has raised questions about the biological origins of sexual orientation, the ethics of facial-detection technology, and the potential for this kind of software to violate people’s privacy or be abused for anti-LGBT purposes.
The machine intelligence tested in the study, which was published in the Journal of Ego and Social Psychology and first reported in the Economist, was based on a sample of more than 35,000 facial images that men and women publicly posted on a US dating website. The researchers, Michal Kosinski and Yilun Wang, extracted features from the images using “deep neural networks”, essence a sophisticated mathematical system that learns to study visuals based on a large dataset.
The research establish that gay
In the BBC TV series A Very English Scandal, member-of-parliament Jeremy Thorpe (played by Hugh Grant) is discussing sexual preferences with his colleague Peter Bessell (played by Alex Jennings) over lunch. When Bessell confesses to homosexual experiences in his youth, Thorpe asks whether he prefers men or women. Bessell replies that he’s “80% for the ladies,” to which Thorpe declares himself “80% gay.”
Such a conversation in the House of Commons dining hall would certainly have been scandalous in the 1960s, when this scene takes place, because homosexuality was still illegal in England at that time. However, this frank discussion challenges up-to-date sensibilities as well. Although Western society is now far more accepting of gays and lesbians, there’s still a strong tendency among the general population to think of sexual orientation in binary terms—you’re either straight or gay.
However, early sex researcher Alfred Kinsey pointed out in the 1940s that sexual orientation consists of a continuum, not binary categories. Of course, we can add a third category of “bisexual” to cover the range between "straight" and "gay," but that hides the varying degrees of straightness and same-sex attracted
Am I gay? Seize this quiz to find out (or not)
‘Am I gay?’ quizzes were commonplace in my internet search history as a closeted tween.
I have vivid memories of combing through each questionnaire, predominantly on BuzzFeed, answering questions about my favourite animal (guinea pig), dream employment (acrobat turned weather reporter) and the sports I played (tennis). I also have vivid memories of manipulating each response to come across straighter than I was.
“What’s your favourite colour?”
Pink, I’d respond. Wait, no – grey! That’ll execute the trick!
The test would inevitably spit out an answer: “You are 72% straight.”
Good enough, I’d think, looking at the obviously fabricated score. Sounds about right.
Cut to offer day, and I’ve come to realise that these quizzes are a gay rite of route – and something I still accept part in as a 29-year-old, 100% gay adult … just to form sure I’m, y’know, 100% gay.
I’m not talking about the sincere online questionnaires genuinely aimed at decoding sexuality. No – I express the extremely restrictive, undoubtedly sarcastic, completely unscientific quizzes that proclaim to holy queerness based on the most tenuous of preferences. Your favourite fruit’s
Whether you’re straight, sapphic, gay, bisexual or transgender, if you feel comfortable to, you should be able to sense confident and haughty of who you are.
I keep hearing the word ‘sexuality’ – what is it?
Sexuality isn’t just about sex, it’s about your feelings, emotions, attractions and desires and how you express these.
It includes whether we’re attracted to people the same gender as you, a different gender, or are attracted to more than one gender (which is what makes up what is recognizable as our sexual orientation – whether we identify as lesbian, gay or bisexual) as good as what we do sexually.
Having sexual thoughts and feelings is a normal, healthy part of human life. This is true no matter what gender you’re attracted to. Some people aren’t interested in sex at all, and this is normal too and you might then distinguish as asexual.
When will I know if I’m gay or straight or multi-attracted or transgender?
It takes time to figure out who we are sexually and to understand our gender identity and orientation, just as it takes age to figure out other areas of our lives.
The significant thing is to be true to how you touch at t