Date: Sun, 7 Jul 1996 08:54:10 -0400 (edt) From: Sam Damon Subject: Gay Handwriting revisited > Sam Damon wrote: > > One 1970's graphologist also claimed that gay male handwriting differs > > from that of straight males, but graphology isn't exactly considered > > a hard science. A later more rigorous study found no differences at all. > > Can you provide _any_ published citations for either of those studies? > The only one's I'm aware of were not published. << Gay males could not be > identified as such. But if a script was that of a gay male, then their > sexual "kinkyness" could be predicted. These were for unpublished studies > that haven't been replicated. >> << I suspect the studies themselves have > been lost. >> Damn, tough audience here ... You want references, eh? I can't just pretend like I know these studies, eh? Keeps me on my toes; thanks. I wish our AIDS patients are as skeptical and inquisitive about their healthcare. Disclaimer: I have no experience in graphology and only know these studies superficially. Your email handle suggests that you're well-read on this... I'm aware of one unpublished study, which was presented by graphologist Eldene Whiting at the 1975 covention of the American Handwriting Analysis Foundation at the University of Santa Clara, Perhaps the abstract is available somewhere. Many of the gay male characteristics seem to describe "excessive" ornateness that somehow represents masculine-feminine ambivalence. The study that found no difference was indeed published in a journal: Lester D, McLaughlin S, Cohen R, Dunn L. Sex-deviant handwriting, femininity, and homosexuality. Perceptual and Motor Skills 1977;45:1156. In this study, "sex-deviant" means "males who write with handwriting judged to be feminine and vice versa." It does not mean perverse, kinky or psychopathological. The article concludes, "sex-deviant handwriting is not reliably associated in these studies with femininity or with sexual orientation." Statistical analysis is included in the one page report. The first two researchers also published an earlier study in the same journal on sex-deviant handwriting and neuroticism: Lester D, McLaughlin S. Sex-deviant handwriting and neuroticism. Perceptual and Motor Skills 1976;43:770. This study found no correlation between neuroticism and gender-atypical handwriting. I had written some detailed messages on this topic a few months ago when the subject was hot and heavy so I won't bore people by repeating them here. Of the seven characteristics I listed (from the Whiting study above), a very very unscientific survey here showed that the gay men did display many of those features. But there was no control group and the result could easily have been a result of the placebo-ish effect one sees with generic astrological personality profiles (where the descriptions are so general that virtually everyone will think that it's about them). I'd be very interested in getting my hands on the studies you alluded to. Some of our Neuro-AIDS research concerns the way HIV affects motor skills. If gay men can be shown to have different fine motor patterns (i.e. handwriting), this can have some bearing on the neuro-psych tests we administer. This is different from the 1995 study by J.A.Y. Hall, which found that gay and straight men differ in skills such as throwing.