If It Walks Like a Duck...

Today, CNN gave me more insight into my own sexual orientation than I have garnered from the last ten years of living as a violently self-aware gay man/boy/child/what have you. Thanks to a recent study performed by some big school (and sharply refuted by the U of Nebraska...shocker), we now know that there is a direct tie-in between the way a gay man's hair whorls (yes, it's a word) and the way a heterosexual man's hair. As it turns out, 25 percent of gay men (myself included) have hair that whorls (it even feels weird to spell) counter-clockwise, whereas only ten percent of heterosexual men's hair whorls (ahhhhh) counter-clockwise. These are hard, scientific numbers people...virtually irrefutable.

The argument is that, because my hair whorls counter-clockwise, like so many other gay men, it must be something that I was born into. I was destined not only to be gay, but also to have a counter-clockwise hair pattern. This pattern is built into my DNA. The two are connected and, without one, the other is much less likely to exist. Of course, no self-respecting republican is ever going to tolerate the idea that gay men are, in fact, born that way and cannot change (or decide to change). No, no. Sex is biological and, as such, so is sexuality? How preposterous.

This, apparently, goes for republican researchers (practically an oxymoron), as well. The U Nebraska professor argued that, much in the same way we choose to be gay, we are simply more likely to wear our hair in such a fashion that would cause it to whorl counter-clockwise. Now, I'm not sure, but I have had three different hairstyles in the entirety of my life (excluding the thankfully short-lived rat tail): the "surfer cut" -- it was the only thing my Italian barber knew in English...think long on top, short on the sides; a buzz cut --in large part responsible for my no longer looking like an awkward ten year old; and the curly jew-esque mop I wore when most of you met me -- for this one, I apologize.

The point is that none of these haircuts involved me making any attempt at maintaining, let alone forcing my hair to whorl. This argument is like saying that toilets flush in the opposite direction in the southern hemisphere because the toilet decided it to be so. Nay, perhaps it is the porcelain on which we can place the blame...or the flush mechanism, tampered with by a pesky (probably gay) toilet designer, intent on making excreting homosexuals more at ease -- you know how we freak out when the toilet whirls in a different direction than the whorl of our hair. We just need organization and symmetry.

My point is this: who gives a shit? Toilets spin in the opposite direction as ours in the southern hemisphere, and the occasional gay person's hair spins, pardon, whorls in a counter-clockwise manner. Here's some hardcore, factual proof that being gay is not a choice: under no circumstance, ever, would I have decided to alienate myself from a huge chunk of the population. I would never have chosen to live this alternative lifestyle (god I hate that word). As much as I am now fully comfortable in my own skin, at least for the most part, I still think that if I could I would go back in time, talk to myself and say, "You're facing a big decision. Do you really want to be gay?" I would’ve talked myself out of it. After all, it’s not exactly an impulse buy. The thing is that I never had such an internal debate. I was gay, am gay, and will always be gay....no matter how I wear my hair.

Another fantastic finding in this CNN article was that most people can determine another's sexual orientation based on the way that they walk. To prove this, they place four videos online with the heading, "Can you tell?" It then gave a brief explanation of gaydar, the miraculous thing that, like a counter-clockwise hair whorl, only a select few (once again, myself included) seem to possess. Watching the videos, you see four individuals walking in the dark with red lights scattered about their limbs.

The first is obviously a lesbian woman. I guessed it the second the video began. First of all, the way she person carried herself -- shoulders hunched, arms too far out to the sides -- made it apparent. According to the article, what seals the deal is the movement of her knees, which, like those of a straight male (video 4), are spread apart. To picture this, imagine the shape of a diamond stretching from the crotch to the feet and fit that between the legs. This, apparently, is the lesbian/straight guy walk. Who knew?

Unsurprisingly, gay men walk in a very similar manner to that of a straight female -- knees tucked like a virginal nun. Rather than a diamond, place nothing between the gay man's/straight woman's legs...no air or anything. If their legs were a catholic school dance, a chaperon would ask for the two legs to "make room for the holy spirit."

In a true, gay, narcissistic, hair-whorling fashion, I immediately watched myself walk in a full-length mirror. Thankfully, I don't suffer from virginal nun walk, nor do I stalk. Then again, I'm extremely duck-footed and, as the title of this entry says, if it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, and wears its hair like a duck, there is a good chance it's a duck.

Quack.