Fascinating story over at the NY Times on cars and sexual orientation.
“Cars are no more straight or gay than cellphones, office chairs or
weed whackers. But in recent years that truism has not stopped a
perception among some motorists that certain cars can, in the right
context, be statements about a driver’s sexual orientation. But to some people, such stereotyping is homophobia, pure and
simple. A poll seeking to determine the most gay automobiles, conducted
by a South African Web site, was a topic of heated interest last
December on Gizmodo, the New York-based technology blog, where one
reader wrote: “Since when are cars gay or straight? We’re really
polling people’s prejudices here.” Others, though, including gay theorists, say many gay motorists happily embrace certain cars as reflections of identity.”
The full story is here (sub required).
I’m not sure if cars match sexual orientation, but what I do know is that people’s preferences in lots of things – from music and furniture to their choice of neighborhood and location reflects their underlying personality type. The pyschologists Sam Gosling and Jason Renfrew show that musical taste reflects personality type and that people who ask about musical preferences may be actually finding those who match their underlying personality type. More likely than picking up gay or straight, what this might reflect are the purchasing patterns of more visible, trend setting people. It’s fairly clear to us that trend-setters, like creative and innovators generally, are high on openness to new experience. And thus such people, gay and straight, are more likely to buy new, less conventional, more “out there” stuff. Plus they’re also heavily concentrated or clustered in certain places and certain kinds of neighborhoods which magnifies their preferences and role as tastemakers.
Your thoughts?
“Ramone Johnson is a gay journalist and former
Saturn engineer who compiles an annual “Top 10 Gay Cars” list for
About.com, which is owned by The New York Times Company. Mr. Johnson
said that “traditionally we are used to being defined by others.”
Driving a stylish car can be a way of “taking control back” and saying
“this is who I am,” he said. Mr. Johnson maintains that “soft lines” and a “vibrant personality”
— say like those on a Volkswagen New Beetle — are typical attributes of
a gay man’s car, and fashion-forward red gauges and other styling cues,
for example, make the Pontiac G6 more of a gay car than its sibling,
the Grand Am, because the features express a taste for freedom and fun. Neither automobile manufacturers nor dealers compile statistics on the sexual orientation of buyers.
Frank Markus, who is gay and the technical director for Motor Trend
magazine, said auto companies tend to associate gay consumers with
higher disposable incomes since fewer have children (one reason many
are free to opt for less practical cars, like two-seaters or
convertibles, as well). Tellingly, when the American Family
Association, a conservative Christian group, pressured the Ford Motor
Company to pull advertising from gay publications like The Advocate in
2005, the ads were for Land Rover and Jaguar, two high-end brands owned
by Ford. Subaru has been the most prominent company to embrace the gay
market. As long ago as 2000, the automaker created advertising
campaigns around Martina Navratilova,
the gay tennis star, and also used a sales slogan that was a subtle
gay-rights message: “It’s not a choice. It’s the way we’re built.”
Little wonder that many lesbians refer to their Outbacks as “Lesbarus.”
Even General Motors recently began to include questions about sexual
orientation on some internal market surveys, although data are not yet
compiled, said Adam Bernard, who tracks the product strategies of
G.M.’s competitors and who also coordinates an advocacy group for gay
employees at the company called GM Plus. Since 2003, he said, the group
has consulted with marketing executives at the company about increasing
sales to gay consumers. Lacking a precise portrait of its gay car buyers, the company still
has taken increasing strides to break into this market, Mr. Bernard
said, advertising its Cadillac, Saturn and Saab divisions in gay
publications and Web sites like PlanetOut.com.
Company executives, he said, do not seem to feel skittish about
losing market share among straight consumers if gay buyers suddenly
seize on a particular model. “I don’t think internally we ever asked
the question, ‘If we put Cadillac in The Advocate, are we going to lose
straight Cadillac buyers?’ ”“Frankly,” he added, “the money’s all the same color.” Mr. Markus of Motor Trend said clichés about gay drivers tend to
collapse on close inspection, like the gay man who is a “gym bunny” and
gravitates toward Jeeps and convertibles “to show off his hot body.”
But, he added, “If you could actually push a button and see what every
gay person drives, it’s probably not too different from what the
average person drives, but it might skew higher in price.”
On Gaywheels.com, one indicator of actual gay buying trends is the
list of vehicles most frequently researched. As of last October, the
Toyota Yaris, a $12,000 economy car, led that list, followed by the
Toyota Camry, which was the No. 3-selling car in America last year. It would be hard to find a more conventional automobile.”
