Glassenberg’s study, he said, marks the first time facial preferences for gay men and lesbian women have been examined. The study, which was conducted online, asked 900 female and male participants to identify which faces they thought were most attractive from a pool of facial images digitally manipulated to be more masculine or feminine.įeatures of the most masculine faces included a broader jaw, broader forehead, and more pronounced brow ridge, while the most feminine faces had a more tapered chin, larger lips, and a narrower forehead. Hooven, a Harvard Human and Evolutionary Biology and Anthropology lecturer.
The fact that homosexual males are attracted to markedly masculine men could mislead people to suspect that their sexuality is most similar to that of heterosexual women, but based on what is currently known about the preferences of straight women, Glassenberg’s study actually disproves this assumption, according to Carole K. Other research has shown that female preferences are influenced by a mixture of factors including ovulation, contraceptive use, self-esteem, and sex drive, he added. In contrast, straight women are not necessarily attracted to the most masculinized male faces and lesbians are not always drawn to the most feminized faces, Glassenberg said. Glassenberg, a doctoral student in organizational behavior at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and Harvard Business School, the study found that facial attraction depends on a person’s gender rather than his or her sexual orientation.Īccording to the results, gay men prefer the most masculine faces and straight men prefer the most feminine faces. "For 12 years he chased GuzmM-an, and he never wanted to fire a single shot because he didn't want to indulge in any abuse," Bardem says.Įnrique Fernandez can be reached at or at 95.Gay men have the strongest sexual attraction to the most masculinized male faces, according to a study recently published online in the journal “Archives of Sexual Behavior.” Bardem sees that character as being akin to Arenas - a heretic because his vision was pure.
They make you question your assumptions."īardem has just finished The Dancer Upstairs, directed by John Malkovich, playing the cop who caught the leader of Peru's Shining Path terrorist group. "There are characters like Reinaldo who make you a better person," says Bardem. "Reinaldo wrote out of desire and love, and I think he would have been very happy if he could see this movie," he says. Still, he says, Arenas was "una mancha en la camisa de Fidel" - a stain in Fidel's shirt. Speaking in a mix of English and Spanish, Schnabel, who has a house in Spain and is married to a Spanish Basque (she plays Arenas' mother in the movie), claims that he is no right-winger. But del Toro had other plans, and Schnabel persuaded a reluctant Bardem to take on the main role. Painter-turned-director Julian Schnabel had Benicio del Toro in mind for the role of Arenas and wanted Bardem to portray the writer's last lover (a role that eventually went to French actor Olivier Martinez). "My uncle spent 10 years in Franco's jail because he was a Communist," says Bardem, "and he supported me in this project." His participation in the production, which is extremely critical of the Cuban system, is typical of changing attitudes toward the once-romanticized island. Would he go back to Cuba? "Yes, and either they won't let me in the country or Fidel Castro will personally come to greet me," he says with a sly smile. "When I returned I had picked up such a bad vibe there that I decided to do the role." The experience changed Bardem, who admits that like many Spaniards he had romantic ideas about the Cuban revolution.īefore traveling to Cuba, Bardem had reservations about playing Arenas. It was not personalized." Still, it's hard not to think of Bardem as the healthy antidote to Banderas' Latin overkill in Hollywood films.īardem visited Cuba to research Before Night Falls, never telling anyone that he was working on an Arenas project, for the Cuban writer was fiercely and outspokenly anti-Castro and no one would have dared to help him. "No, I wasn't making fun of Antonio at all," Bardem insists, "I was only parodying the stereotype.