Do homosexuals and lesbians have shorter index fingers than heterosexuals? According to a full-page article entitled “FINGERS TIP OFF HOMOSEXUALITY” first published in the New York Post on March 30, 2,000 the answer is “yes”. Researchers at the University of California at Berkeley surveyed 720 gay men at street fairs in San Francisco and determined that gay men had shorter index fingers than heterosexual men. In a second article on March 31st, the Post claimed this was “the most talked about story in the history of the New York Post”. They explained how larger amounts of male hormones in Mom’s womb linked short index fingers to gays and lesbians. Their theory also extended to ring fingers, “Homosexuals and lesbians have shorter index fingers than ring fingers.”
Predicting someone is gay from the length of his or her index finger is absurd. Sexual proclivities and appetites in general are reflected in the shapes, proportions, flexibility, elasticity, consistency, and colors of hands and fingers. Sexual behavior including seductiveness, passive/aggressiveness, and fetishes are reflected in the ball of the thumb, heart line, and pinky finger. Index fingers do not provide answers to questions of sexual orientation. I’ve examined many thousands of long-index-fingered gays and short-index-fingered straights at special events over the past thirty years. A preponderance of photographers, designers, architects, craftsmen, actors, performers, teachers, and salespeople has longer ring than index fingers.
Your index finger does say a lot about your character. Here is the long and short of index fingers. If your index finger is short (less than half way to the middle of the top phalange of the middle finger), you will have to work harder to achieve your goals than the long-index-fingered person. Your major challenge is learning to value yourself enough, to ask for what you’re worth. Too many short-index-fingered people received too little emotional support and encouragement while growing up. They were unable to be their authentic selves.
Plenty of successful individuals have short index fingers, however, nothing came easily to them. They earned every drop of what they achieved. What the Berkeley survey is saying, but doesn’t realize, is that the particular focus group of gay people they found at street fairs battle with issues of self-esteem. Perhaps a parent was unavailable physically or emotionally during their formative years. It’s no wonder so many gay people have short index fingers considering how confused, afraid, angry, and perverse western culture is concerning homosexuality.
I chose the photo of Mitt Romney to draw attention to and dispel one of many myths about palmistry. This particular myth is popular in the main stream because the scientific community has embraced and dubbed it “digit ratio theory.” You’ll find almost a half million results when you Google it. If you believe it, you can also assume that Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, and George Bush are also gay as they have longer ring fingers than index fingers. The “digit ratio theory” doesn’t define homosexuality, but it does perpetuate stereotypes and prejudices in our culture.
Hey Mark….your articles are full of wit and wisdom. I really appreciate the way you use palmistry to learn about yourself and to deal with your shortcomings.
Could you please someday write about heart lines and their variations.
Thank you for your insightful articles. They are seriously life changing.
Thanks much. When I started this blog, I decided that it would be personal instead of creating a palmistry cookbook. I definitely plan to write on variations of heart lines when I get to the character type I call the “Nurturer”. Meanwhile, feel free to comment and ask questions.
Really catchy title. Drew me in! Thank you for dispelling that homophobic canard.
As to short index fingers, while I’ve seen them on people with low self esteem, I’ve also seen short index fingers on highly spiritual people. For them I associated it with a mature sense of humbleness and lack of ego.
I have to say, on the one hand, I am a bit concerned about popularizing palmistry “facts” given the complexity of the hand. Meaning and interpretation are so contingent on a host of interdependent variables. The impulse is to simplistically reduce a data point to “x means y” and then erroneously apply that knowledge uniformly in all instances.
As the saying goes, a little knowledge can be dangerous. While the term is unfortunate, IMHO it really is a “black art” to be able to accurately decipher the complex, inscrutable facts and mysteries embedded in our hands.
YES! Thank you. Every detail needs to be examined in the context of the whole and all other details at the same time. The danger in interpreting details out of context is in substituting one form of pre-determinism for another by reducing individuality to cookbook formulas.
This is absolute shit. There is no way you can determine someone’s sexuality with the size of a finger. No way! I suffer from Sexual Orientation OCD where I get unwanted thoughts and impulses if being gay. I know I’m not gay but I’m a female and my index finger is smaller than my ring finger. So does that mean I’m gay? No I don’t think so. I think you need to take everything into account when doing this because it doesn’t help people like me trying to recover from something taking over our lives and then finding out that if a certain finger is smaller or bigger than the other your gay. It’s rubbish! I’ve always liked men, always and suddenly one day I accidentally ticked a box that said I was bisexual on a survey and I freaked out. I advise no one to read this because this may distress people likes its stressing me out. Your either sexually attracted to someone or not. It’s got nothing to do with fingers ! So anyone who’s suffering from OCD don’t take this shit one bit !!
I agree with you 100%. My point in this blog entry is that the length of fingers does not determine a person’s sexuality.
Hello my name is Samantha. I just wanted to ask didn’t it say in other articles men with long index fingers were gay? And if the majority of men have longer ring fingers than women. How does palmistry relate to this? Hope you can help. Thank you
I’ve mostly read accounts of short index fingers relating to homosexuality, although I’ve seen plenty of long and short index fingered gay people. I’ve also seen lots of women with long ring fingers – I don’t have statistics and haven’t done a study, but I’d be willing to bet that there are as many women with long ring fingers as men.
Awww thank you so much for the reply. Well yes I read in a lot long ring fingers in women means they’re most likely lesbians. We’re the long ring fingers you mostly saw in women lesbian? Did they come off more masculine features? Sorry for asking a lot of questions. Just trying to gather more information about the finger ratio theory. I also want to see how it relates to palmistry as well. I’m confused it says the index finger is jupiter and is the yang. While the ring finger is the yin and it’s crazy so many men according to studies have the longer feminine finger. Lol it gets real confusing.
Forget about sexuality in the ring finger. A long ring finger is an ambitious person. If it’s a woman, it’s an ambitious woman who is likely a professional or career minded. In Astrology, Jupiter rules Sagittarius, which is yang, but is exalted in Pisces, which is yin. Don’t believe everything you read. If you haven’t read my Hand Book, you probably should. http://www.amazon.com/Hand-Book-Hands-Palmistry-Volume/product-reviews/1497462614/ref=cm_cr_dp_synop?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=0&sortBy=bySubmissionDateDescending#R3M33LW2YKRGQI
I would be gladly to check it out. I am very interested in the subject. So far I agree with you. My ring finger is longer than my index. I am drawn to men. I am not real assertive. I only argued a lot in relationships because of insecurity. You are right I don’t really receive a lot of emotional support from my family, And feel like I really have to work harder to achieve my goals. Though I know some wonderful people who are like family to me now, and I do my best to have a optimistic view in life. Thanks for the info. 🙂
how do you know if someone is straight by the fingers ?
I don’t believe you can definitively tell whether someone is straight or gay from their fingers. That was the point of my post.