The rich tradition behind the blogosphere's new favorite term

At a time when it's becoming increasingly difficult to tell gay and straight guys apart, a bunch of blogs are offering a helpful clue. It's "gayface," an expression characterized by the pop eyes, arched eyebrows, pursed lips, and extreme vivacity found on a certain type of bachelor from coast to coast. Many late-night TV watchers were introduced to gayface last week when Jay Leno asked guest Ryan Phillippe, who appeared as a homosexual teenager in his first soap opera role, to give the camera his "gayest look." Phillippe, perhaps mindful of the Internet's wrath, demurred. But Leno's request secured the term's place in our modern lexicon.

So what's behind this face? Urbandictionary.com suggests that a compulsion to make Cher-like expressions leaves these men with permanent female "muscle contraction patterns." Bloggers have also linked gayface to the "extreme self-consciousness" that comes from being picked last for kickball every goddamn time. Facial coding expert Dan Hill, who conducts focus groups for Fortune 500 companies, concedes that the phenomenon exists—"Gay men do tend to be more expressive than the norm"—but dismisses its value as an indicator of sexuality. As he points out, some straight men are equally expressive (Sean Penn), while most gays lack the commitment the visage requires (the unvivacious congressman Barney Frank, for instance). Still, you can't ignore historical proof. As this timeline reveals, charmingly questionable guys have been pulling The Face since before Christ.

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Ancient Greece
APOLLO
The "god of light and music" swings both ways, can't grow a beard. Judging from this Etruscan statue (500 BC), he also pioneers the look.