Signals That Gays Send Out to Each Other

There are many obvious signals and many subtle ones. In a small town such as yours, very few gay men are open about their sexual life. They have had to mask their homosexuality for survival, and usually, the masks are very effective.

Eye contact is a standard signal among gay men, even as it is among heterosexual men and women. For every social situation there is a moral looking time—the length of time it is proper to catch and hold someone else’s eye. When you pass someone on the street, the moral looking time is only a second or two. If one man holds another’s eye longer than that, he may be signaling a number of things. “Do I know you?” “I’m friendly and I want to say hello.” “I’m sure I’ve seen you before.”

In most of these messages, a smile and a nod confirm the meaning. When there is no smile or nod and the eye is held too long the meaning changes. It may be “You are a stranger.” “You look peculiar.” Or “I am interested in you sexually.”

This extra long eye contact is one of the most common signals used between two gay men. The follow-up signal, after they’ve passed each other, is to turn and look back. From there it can proceed as any heterosexual pickup does.

There are other obvious signals that allow one homosexual to recognize another. In years gone by, a red necktie sometimes served to announce the gay to anyone who recognized the signal. Obviously, not every man who wore a red tie was gay, but it was a starting point.

Today, the signals are just as obvious but less well known. A single earring or a bunch of keys clipped to the belt and worn with jeans and a leather jacket send their own body language signal to the gay world. Worn on the left, the earring or keys signal “I’m aggressive”; worn on the right they signal, “I’m passive.”

Unfortunately for the gay world, the keys on the belt is not always a gay giveaway. Many heterosexual men wear keys clipped to the belt as a type of jewelry. So the gay subculture has taken to wearing a handkerchief, half tucked into the back pocket, as a signal: aggressive on the left side, passive on the right.

With the handkerchief, a color code has developed: black ones for sadists and masochists, green for bondage and discipline, mustard color for genital size, and blue for conventional sex—all with the left-right, aggressive-passive code.

The color signals have begun to spread out, according to a number of gay authorities. Colored bumper stickers are available for the gay men who want to pick up others in cars, and small colored tie tacks for the gay businessman who wants to send a message to his fellow executives.