Pretty Girls Prefer Gay Boys, According to Gross Study

· Updated on May 28, 2018

You know that annoying ‘90s Hollywood cliché of the beautiful straight woman who has the fabulous gay best friend? It usually depicts the gay man as a cartoonish comedic relief with no actual sex life or romantic desires. Well, turns out they at least got one part right.

According to the Daily Mail, the University of Texas in Arlington recently released a study that reveals beautiful women prefer gay male friends, whereas less attractive women didn’t. According to the study, beautiful women value gay male friendships because they don’t think gay men will deceive them and that they can provide advice on relationships and clothes, whereas straight men will only want sex. In addition, they found that less attractive women thought gay men might try to steal their boyfriends.

How did they come up with these groundbreaking facts, you asked? Well, they started by photographing 68 young women in tight clothing and having a panel rate the photos on a scale of 1 to 10 for attractiveness. The photos were then shown to a group of 103 heterosexual men and women, who were asked how much they agreed to a series of statements, on a scale of 1 to 7. Men were asked questions about how they would get into the women’s pants, while women were asked how they would compete with the women (because of the men trying to get into their pants).

In an additional study, the women from the 68 photos were asked to allocate “friend dollars” to people of different genders and sexual orientations, creating an ideal friend group. They found the more attractive women put a higher value on gay male friendships. Meanwhile, it appears that no actual gay person was included in this study about gay people.

The authors of the study stated:

“Taken together, these findings provide converging support for the idea that women’s own levels of physical attractiveness play an important role in their willingness to form friendships with gay men These findings suggest that befriending gay men may be an important feature of women’s mating strategies, especially among attractive women who face greater mating threats from heterosexual individuals.”

So, congrats on proving that society is just as misogynistic and homophobic as we kind of already knew, I guess? Glad us gay men are able to not only confirm what straight people think of us, but that we’re also just tools in their mating rituals, all in service of the straight men who objectify women and discriminate against queer people. As fun as that sounds, I’m officially discontinuing my services as the token gay best friend.

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