Another common stereotype about physical appearance is that extremely handsome men are likely to be homosexual. In one experiment, women rate pictures of men as more attractive if they thought that the men were homosexual than if they thought that they were heterosexual, while men do not exhibit the same tendency in judging the attractiveness of women. Extremely handsome celebrities, such as Tom Cruise, have long been dogged with rumors of being gay all their careers. Are extremely handsome men really more likely to be gay?
From an evolutionary psychological perspective, it does not make sense for extremely handsome men to be gay. As I note in a previous post, such men receive disproportionate opportunities for extra-pair copulations (“affairs”) and short-term mating because women typically seek them out for their high-quality genes. (Remember, beauty is not only skin deep, and beautiful people do have better genes.) High-quality genes of extremely handsome men will therefore be “wasted” if their carriers are exclusively or predominantly homosexual.
Consistent with the evolutionary psychological logic, it turns out that extremely handsome men are not more likely to be gay. In fact, there is some evidence for the exact opposite. Compared to other men, extremely handsome men are often least homosexual, and homosexual men are least physically attractive. While this may go against the common stereotype, it makes perfect evolutionary sense.
In contrast, there are some heritable physical traits that it makes evolutionary sense to be associated with homosexuality. For example, women universally seek mates who are taller than them, and as a result, taller men attain greater reproductive success than shorter men. So short men have relatively less to lose, reproductively speaking, by being exclusively or predominantly homosexual. While exclusive homosexuality can never have any reproductive payoff, relative loss in fitness terms (what the economists call the opportunity costs) is less if the men are expected to be less successful in heterosexual reproduction. Further, by refraining from direct reproduction themselves, men who have dimmer reproductive prospect (by being short, for example) can help and aid the reproductive success of their siblings with more promising prospect.
Conversely, for the same reason that taller men are reproductively more successful than shorter men, shorter women attain greater reproductive success than taller women. (As a footnote, this discovery was made by Daniel Nettle of the University of Newcastle, whom we’ve encountered before.) The evolutionary psychological logic thus suggests that taller women have relatively less to lose, reproductively speaking, by becoming exclusively or predominantly homosexual.
Once again, consistent with the evolutionary psychological logic, it turns out that shorter men are more likely to be homosexual than taller men, and homosexual men are shorter than heterosexual men. Similarly, taller women are more likely to be homosexual than shorter women, and homosexual women are taller than heterosexual women. Such is the power of the evolutionary psychological imagination: It can predict who’s more likely to be gay even in the absence of a stereotype.
None of this assumes that sexual orientation is a deliberate conscious choice. We know that at least male homosexuality is strongly genetically influenced. But a strong genetic influence on sexual orientation is not inconsistent with the findings that those who are less likely to be reproductively successful (ugly men, short men, and tall women) are more likely to be homosexual, because the genes for homosexuality can come to be associated with genes for physical appearance or for height. More research is necessary to explore the potential proximate mechanism by which the genes for male homosexuality have come to be associated with genes for height and physical attractiveness.
译文:
【所有刻板印象都没错，除了……】五：“太英俊的男人都是同性恋”
另一个关于外貌的常见刻板印象是说太英俊的男人很可能是同性恋。在一个实验中，女人们被要求评定男子的照片，如果她们认为该男子是同性恋，他的外貌得分就要比被认为是异性恋的男子高，而评价女子照片的男人们则没有显示出这种趋势。像汤姆·克鲁斯这样出名的俊男们，在整个职业生涯都会被同性恋的流言尾随。非常英俊的男人真的更可能是同性恋吗？
从进化心理学的观点来看，帅哥成为同性恋是没有意义的。正如我在以前的
文章中说过的那样，这样的男人拥有更多伴侣外性交（“婚外情”）和短期交往的机会，因为女人常常为其高质量基因而选中他们。（记住，
美丽并不是肤浅的，相貌好的人具有更好的基因。）如果帅哥们是不折不扣的同性恋，那他们所携带的优质基因就会被浪费了。
和进化心理学的逻辑相应，可以证明英俊男人是同性恋的可能性并不会更高，事实上，有证据表明结论恰恰相反。比起其他男人，大帅哥是同性恋的几率最小，而男同志长相迷人的几率也很小。虽然这和通常的刻板印象不同，但却具有理想的进化意义。
一些可遗传的体貌特征与同性恋相关也具有进化上的意义。比如一般来说女人会找比自己高的配偶，因此高个儿男人就比矮个子具有更大的繁衍成功率，所以就产生后代而言，矮个子男人成为同性恋的损失相对要小一些。由于完全的同性恋根本不能得到繁衍的好处，既然一个人本来就预计难以获得异性繁殖的成功，他在这方面的损失（经济学家称之为机会成本）也就相对要小。此外，通过放弃自己繁衍后代，生育希机会渺茫的男人（比如很矮）也就是在帮助希望更大的同胞兄弟获得后代。
与此相反，矮个子女人出于和高个子男人相同的原因，繁衍成功几率要大于高个子女人，（注：这是由纽卡斯尔大学的Daniel Nettle发现的，我们在
之前也提到过。）进化心理学的逻辑由此推断，高个女人完全或主要成为同性恋在繁衍后代方面的损失较小。
证据又一次与进化心理学的逻辑不谋而合，证明矮个子男人更可能是同性恋，而男同志也更可能比异性恋男人要矮。同样的，高个子女人更可能是同性恋，同性恋女子也比异性恋女子要高。这就是
进化心理学假想的力量：即使没有刻板印象，它也能预测那些人更有可能是同性恋。
但这并不等于性取向是有意为之的选择，我们知道至少男同性恋倾向受到很强的遗传影响。但性取向上的强烈遗传影响与较难成功繁衍后代的人（丑八怪、矮男人和高个女人）更可能是同性恋的发现并不矛盾，因为性取向基因和外表或身高的基因可能是相关的。为了探索同性恋基因与身高或外貌基因可能的相关机制，还需要进行更多的研究。