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ABSTRACT
Popular US queer discourses endow gay men and lesbians with the ability to determine the queerness of another person with a mere glance. Although the same discourses construct this queer-detecting "gaydar" as an inborn talent, I argue that it is, in fact, a form of "skilled vision" (Grasseni 2004, 2007) that anyone can acquire through sufficient socialization with gay men and lesbians. As much as it is about looking, it is equally about being looked at. In this article, I illustrate the cultural workings of gaydar using ethnographic data gathered during ongoing fieldwork among Taipei's gay "Bears." After tracing the origins of the Taiwanese Bear through Japan and ultimately back to the US, I critically examine how Taipei's Bears embody Bearness through their clothes and bodily movements. I draw two conclusions. First, while the Bear originally celebrated somatic diversity, interpersonal competition increasingly homogenizes Taipei's Bears' attire to reveal the limits of Bear sociability. Second, gaydar remains important to the majority of gay men who dress more subtly, as the ways they look convey their interest in the men that they encounter. [Keywords: Gaydar, skilled vision, gay Bears, gay fashion, Taipei]
Foreign Language Translations:
Gaydar: Using Skilled Vision to Spot Gay "Bears" in Taipei
[Keywords: Gaydar, skilled vision, gay Bears, gay fashion, Taipei]
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Radar Gay: Usando uma Visao Qualificada para Detetar "Ursos" Gay em Taipé
[Palavras-chave: Radar Gay, visao qualificada, Ursos gay, moda gay, Taipé
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(ProQuest: ... denotes non-US-ASCII text omitted.)
Introduction
Gaydar = the gayger counter that gay men and lesbians use to detect gayma gaydiation emitted by others of their kind.
The meanings and effects of the gaze vary cross-culturally. In this article, I argue that the twin acts of looking and being looked at form a crucial but under-theorized facet of queer identities and socialities. Popular US queer discourses endow gay men and lesbians with the ability to determine, with a mere glance, the queerness of another person (or lack thereof). Whenever a straight friend in either the US or China asks me how I know who is gay, I will look at the passersby and, usually after a few moments of searching, intuitively point at someone who seems too muscular, wearing clothes that seem too bright and too...