Gaydar (a portmanteau of gay and radar) is a colloquialism referring to the intuitive ability of a person to assess others' sexual orientations as homosexual, bisexual or straight. Gaydar relies on verbal and nonverbal clues and LGBT stereotypes, including a sensitivity to social behaviors and mannerisms like body language, the tone of voice used by a person when speaking, overt rejections of traditional gender roles, a person's occupation, and grooming habits. The detection of sexual orientation by outward appearance or behavior is challenged by situations in which masculine gay men do not act in a stereotypically gay fashion, or in which metrosexual men (regardless of sexuality) exhibit a lifestyle, spending habits, and concern for personal appearance stereotypical of fashionable urban gay men. For women, a tomboy might be mistaken for being butch, or a gay woman might act and appear in traditionally feminine ways. Scientific research A number of scientific studies have been conducted to test whether gaydar is real or just a popular myth. Perhaps the earliest study asked people to judge sexual orientation from video clips, with results concluding that it was a myth. A later study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology showed that people could judge sexual orientation more accurately than chance. This study asked people to indicate their sexual orientation using the Kinsey scale and then had others view very brief silent clips of the people talking using thin-slicing. The viewers rated their sexual orientations on the same scale and the researchers found a significant correlation between where the people said they were on the scale and where they were perceived to be on the scale. Later studies have repeated this finding and have even shown that home videos of children can be used to judge accurately their sexual orientation later in life. Later studies found that gaydar was also accurate at rates greater than chance for judgments just from the face. Study participants use gendered facial cues and stereotypes of gay people to make their judgments, but reliably misjudge sexual orientation for people countering stereotypes. The ethnicity, and nationality of neither the person making the judgment nor the person they are judging seems to make a difference when making judgments from faces. Even individual facial features (just the eyes) can sometimes give enough information to tell whether a man or woman is gay, straight, or lesbian. One study showed that judgments of