On Gays, And the Naso-labial Fold

I posted this in the comments, but figured I’d expand on it somewhat and stick it here too, to see if anyone else has noticed anything like this:

In affect psychology there is a disgust affect, which involves pulling the nasolabial folds up and outward, often while curling the lip somewhat. Here is one example:

To get the most out of that image, cover over everything above the middle of the nose with your hand, and just look at the upper lip and mouth. That is an instinctual facial response to disgust stimuli. It is innate, and there from birth.

I have noted a subset of gays exhibit a variation of this that pulls the naolabial fold outward slightly more than simple disgust, and often includes a nostril flare. I also notice this in girls who have been sexually abused. I think the first time I noticed it was in a young brunette pornstar who was profiled on Nightline. I do not remember her name, but I do remember she came from a Mormon family, and they said she was sexually abused at an early age by a relative, maybe fourteen. In the episode she immediately fell for a male costar on a trip to Italy, until he turned a porn scene into a violent scene, inexplicably transitioning to choking her, pulling her up by the neck, and slapping her back and forth from side to side while holding he up by her neck, as he acted out the acts they were assigned. She was wrecked right after it, crying and acting like it was nothing at the same time, as a crew member tried to comfort her. It was pretty awful. But all along the way as they interviewed her, I couldn’t help but notice what looked odd to me – that strange flaring of the nostrils and pulling that nasolabial fold up and outward to each side. Then I began to notice it in many, but not all, gays, usually the ones who seem the most neurotic (Milo does not have it, FWIW).

Hef is an excellent example of this – I would almost say textbook. In fact, he may be the most extreme example I have ever seen:

Cover over everything above the middle of Hef’s nose, and focus on the upper lip and mouth. Notice also Hef has no upper lip. It is curled under. That is usually a sign of quickness to anger or more often frustration.

Interestingly Hef himself spoke of having banged guys, and a commenter here said there was a book which said he kept gay porn playing on the TV while he was having anal sex with the girls. It would not surprise me if he had some sort of molestation history.

Here is a gay guy who has it to a much lesser degree, but he is much younger:

Notice, he is even curling the upper lip like the model in the first photo. Also, notice he is a different model of gay from Milo, psychologically, so I assume it means something psychological.

Here is Elton John:

Liberace:

Female comedian and lesbian Wanda Sykes:

Rosie O’Donnell:

Ellen, and her then girlfriend Portia Del Rossi:

To me the expression is kind of like smelling something disgusting, and being disgusted by it. Given gays show structural anomalies in their amygdala in the literature, it is interesting an anomalous facial feature associated with disgust, which is intimately associated with amygdala, would be prevalent among many of them.

I make that expression myself in a mirror, and try to visualize what I feel, as affect psychology advises you do to understand affect, but it is deeper than an emotion. It is a mixture of disgust, horror, and dislike/extreme contempt for a person or situation. I almost wonder if the act of molestation is so intense for some, and it triggers that mixture of emotions and feelings so intensely, it burns that mixture of emotions into the brain so deeply that they wear the affect of that experience the rest of their lives. Once burned in, it always shows, even when they smile, or try to appear neutral. It might even be some sort of outward manifestation of a fundamental change in their amygdala.

I do not see this in every gay, or to the degree I see it in Sykes or Liberace. Milo doesn’t have it, nor does he look to me like he will get it when he gets older. I haven’t checked how many gays exhibit it as a percentage, and I have seen it in heterosexual girls who experienced sexual abuse on true crime shows several times. In some of those cases, girls in their early teens exhibited it. I cannot remember seeing it in a person who I judged to be of low amygdala and conservative disposition, though it is not impossible that affect could result from a physical/structural, rather than psychological origin, and thus just be there independent of amygdala-status.

I thought it was interesting, though not really that new. Affect psychology has been all about this type of thing for decades now, although this is the first time I have seen it applied to gays specifically.

finally, a reader wanted a facial bifurcation of Hef, but I will begin with the top of his left (true) side face, which appears quite sad and strained to me:

Now with the right side he wanted to project to the world, which was happy, amused, and game for anything:

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