Oh, hell. Am I stereotyping? Please search my soul for me.

I just saw this photo of Tony Curtis on the CNN website:

http://extratv.warnerbros.com/images...ony-curtis.jpg

I hate to admit this, but the very first thought that popped into my head was, "Wow! He sure looks gay!"

Now let's be completely clear here, I have ZERO negatively associated with that thought. It's not any qualitatively different from thinking, "Wow, he looks so young in that photo!" or "Interesting how his mouth is a bit crooked, but it adds to his good looks" or "I wish I could get my husband to wear his hair like that."

However, I wonder if I should be slapped with a wet fish for that thought anyway. If he were in high heels and lipstick and I thought "hey, he looks like a drag queen", I don't think anyone would find fault with that reaction. But there is none of that here, all I'm doing is looking at his facial features. Surely there is no such thing as "gay facial features"?

Fellow posters, in particular those of you identifying as something beside boringly mainstream straights, please do one of the following two things:

1) sternly tell me to divest myself of what are obviously some last vestiges of unfounded stereotyping about gay people.

2) laugh and say "relax, Hattie, a gay guy would look at that photo and think the same thing. No big deal."

I humbly await your judgment.

Well. He does look kind of gay.

Thank you!

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all I'm doing is looking at his facial features. Surely there is no such thing as "gay facial features"?

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Gayface.

And a related article: http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...bout-that-face

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Originally posted by Taumpy

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all I'm doing is looking at his facial features. Surely there is no such thing as "gay facial features"?

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Gayface.

And a related article: http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...bout-that-face

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Fascinating. And I feel much, much better now.

The prominent eye liner and lip color MAY have something to do with your reaction, but that's only a guess on my part.

Yeah, that picture does have some gay face going on.

I'm somewhat skeptical of that Scientific American article, though. "[T]he participants were able to identify the gay faces at levels greater than chance" is actually pretty vague when you stop and think about it. There may be facial cues that people can pick up, but they'd only have to be present in a small percentage of the gay men to account for identification being at greater levels than chance. In the studies half the men are gay and half are straight, meaning if you consistent identify 51% of the gay men you've just identified them at levels greater than chance.

That's perhaps the least gay looking picture of Tony Curtis I've ever seen and it still looks pretty damned gay. As he got older and had more work done on his face he just kept looking gayer and gayer.

I don't know how a person can avoid stereotyping, and I'm not sure it's the crime it's made out to be.

You only become a dick when you can't get past stereotypes.

I, for one, think most white guys should avoid dancing.

I don't think that thinking Tony Curtis looks gay in that picture is an issue.

If you didn't know him and didn't give him a job because of it...well that's douchy.

Oh, yeah, he looks crazy gay in this picture.

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Originally posted by Sarahfeena

The prominent eye liner and lip color MAY have something to do with your reaction, but that's only a guess on my part.

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Yes, I must confess, when I see a picture of a man and he's wearing more makeup than I usually do, my brain goes to the gay place as well.

He looks just mildly gay to me in that photo, since I make allowances for the era in which it was taken. A lot of handsome men back then look gay to modern eyes, because of hair, makeup, body langauge and expression, even if they actually weren't.

Now, here, on the other hand....: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_wkMSc5DjQ1...320/curtis.jpg

I don't know about looking gay but I do know that I am spending a lot of time wishing I'd been born a lot earlier or him a lot later because hot damn the things I would do to him.

(Also, when will people learn? Eyeliner on guys should be brown and applied between the lash line and the eye.)

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Originally posted by Inner Stickler

I don't know about looking gay but I do know that I am spending a lot of time wishing I'd been born a lot earlier or him a lot later because hot damn the things I would do to him.

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Yeah, I know. Hot damn, the man was gorgeous in his youth.

You want a gay photo from the 50's? Check this out.

http://worldofwonder.net/2010/08/11/7435eaf9_620.jpg
The guy in front is that same devilishly cute hunk o' tastiness that hangs out in the bathtub photo from The Searcher that myrna posted a long time ago.

What is with the color of photos from this era?

So much green blue.

Makes me nostalgic.

Well in the photo I posted, it's a sunny day at a pool and the photographer probably had to correct for that, also film was at a very different stage of development at this time and who knows how long it hung out in some archive slowly aging and changing color before someone scanned it and posted it online.

That sort of colouring seems to have been prevalent in photographs until the 1970's, during the '80s photos were just dour.

He kinda looks like my first boyfriend in that picture, so I guess that could be a sign of looking gay. I'm inclined to agree with Elendil's Heir that it's more about the fashion choices and facial expressions during that era than anything else.

But if I crossed paths with a guy who looked like that whether he had gay face or not wouldn't matter. My wishful thinking would insist he wanted me. Gaydar always gets more false positives the hornier you are.

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Originally posted by Inner Stickler

You want a gay photo from the 50's? Check this out.

http://worldofwonder.net/2010/08/11/7435eaf9_620.jpg
The guy in front is that same devilishly cute hunk o' tastiness that hangs out in the bathtub photo from The Searcher that myrna posted a long time ago.

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That photo is all kinds of awesome. My question, to which I'll sadly never know the answer, is - among all those involved (subjects, photographer, publicists, etc.) who got it at the time and was quietly (VERY quietly, given the homophobia of the times) giggling, and over whose oblivious heads did this deliciously sail?

My theory: Everyone got it. They just pretended they didn't.