Eyes revealed sexual orientation

American experts discovered, when a person looks at pornographic and irritated images, the pupils in their eyes will unconsciously expand. This action can be used to study sexual orientation and stimulation without the need for genital measurements.

According to author Ritch Savin-Williams, a developmental psychologist at Cornell University (USA), his new study and his colleagues are the first large-scale experiment to show the expansion of the pupil in eyes are commensurate with the emotion of activating in 'suffering'.

LiveScience quoted Savin-Williams as saying: 'If a man says he is normal, his eyes will expand when he sees women. In contrast, for men who are gay, their eyes will expand when they see a male object. '

The relationship of pupil size in the eye with stimulation has long been known. In the 16th century in Italy, women often used an eye drops made from Belladona poison to keep the pupils in their eyes from shrinking and it was thought to create a charming appearance.

Savin-Williams researcher said, in fact, the pupils in the eyes expand slightly like responding to any interesting stimulating factor, including the face of a loved one or a work of art. pretty. Dilation of the pupil is a sign that the autonomic nervous system - which controls unconscious actions such as pulse or breathing - is increasing activity.

Historically, traditional studies of sexual stimulation and inclinations often rely on the process of asking volunteers to watch pornographic movies or photos while attaching devices to measure blood flow to the body. their genital.

Savin-Williams said that these measures have many disadvantages, such as some people can control their genital stimulation or simply have no genital response. in the laboratory environment.

Moreover, in many different cultures, it is very difficult to ask direct questions about sexual orientation with research subjects. Some of them may even be too embarrassed, do not dare to admit desires or deny it to themselves.

To overcome these problems, Mr. Savin-Williams and his colleagues paid attention to the pupils in the eyes. They conducted experiments with 165 men and 160 women, including ordinary, gay and bisexual people by showing them 1-minute videos of a man or a woman masturbating and scenes. Other neutral.

A vision monitor camera will record the movement of the pupils in the eyes of these subjects during the video playback process, including the smallest changes in pupil size. Researchers also reported on their stimulating feelings for each type of video.

As a result, the expansion of the pupils in the eye is consistent with what was discovered in studies of genital stimulation. In men, everything is clear: Men normally react to women's sensual images, while gay men feel "hot in people" while watching erotic images of same-sex people. Bisexual people are irritated for both men and women.

In women, everything seems more complicated, said Savin-Williams. Gay women have a greater expansion of their children before sexy images of other women. However, normal women expand their pupils basically the same when they see the sexuality of both men and women, even though the announcement only feels excited to men, not to women.

This does not mean that all ordinary women are secretive bisexuals, author Savin-Williams warned. This is due to their subjective stimulus, he said, not necessarily corresponding to the stimulation of the body. Researchers are not sure why this happened.