GAY LIFE

Gay men grow up having to suss from an early age who among nongay males is friend and who is foe -- that last way lies danger. Moreover, gay adolescents can spend an inordinate amount of time trying to deduce if a guy is sexually available. Hence "gaydar" (gay radar), an ability that, in theory, all gay men possess to tell the queer from the not. (In practice, not always so.)
Heterosexual males do not experience this combination of fear and desire in the same way gay men do. Oh, a nongay guy may desire a girl (or woman) and fear she'll reject him. But he doesn't often have to wonder whether she's heterosexual, nor does he worry that, if he presumes wrong, he may be beaten.