What is gaydar?

Whether to maintain the closet in everyday speech, or to find new expression for a late-20th century phenomenom, or for the fun of it, the gay men and women have invented a pidgin vocabulary that only those in the know would have a clue what they are talking about. A famously local version of 'Dorothy's friend' is PLU, an acronym for People Like Us, Singapore's first homo-social organisation.

Gaydar is an amalgam of the words 'gay' and 'radar', and refers to the sixth sense many gays and lesbians feel they possess to point out and identify a stranger as one with the same orientation. Many men and women insist on their ability to 'feel' another gay person, especially one of the same-sex, pass them by, despite the crowds of people around them. This happens regardless of how tight the clothes are, or how attractive the person looks. Some fag hags pay us the compliment that most of the handsome men are the gay ones. On the contrary, sometimes looks disable our gaydar. Some gay men confess to embarrassing moments when someone they approach is so incredibly good-looking they think him gay, only to hit a blank wall.

Click here to return to Features