There’s an old say that “eyes are a portal into your soul,” well now it might seem to also be a way to identifying your sexual preference.

An article in the science Journal Plos One is describing how a group of researchers at Cornwell University have been able to identify the sexual orientation of men and woman through testing responses in the dilation of their eyes whilst watching pornographic material.

The dilation of the pupils is an unconscious sign of arousal, a sign in which researchers hope will be less invasive then previous techniques that focused on measuring genital arousal.

“The idea was to find an unconscious measure,” Lead researcher Gerulf Rieger told abcnews. “We tried to find measures that were not so invasive, but reliable.”

“What if someone comes in and says one thing and responds a different way?” said Rieger. “We wanted to really find a measure of sexuality that goes beyond what people tell us.”

An infrared eye-tracking camera was used to measure eye dilation while the test subjects watched erotic and non-erotic videos.

The findings showed that heterosexual men and homosexual women predictably showed more eye dilation when shown sexual images of women, while homosexual male eyes responded to men.

Also interesting was the results they found on heterosexual woman, whose eyes responded to images of both sexes. Rieger said this did not mean women were generally bisexual… rather, it represented an evolutionary difference in the way the eyes informed the brain.

”[A woman’s] body is not connected to their mind, which is very different from guys,” he said, adding that bisexual men produced similar dilation responses to that of heterosexual women.

While these results might bring us a step closer to understanding sexual preferences in both men and woman, one must not forget the cruel and invasive ways that were used to investigate sexual preferences in the past and what they were used for, such as ex-gay therapies. This discovery may for the greater good… or lead to further oppression elsewhere in the world.

What are your thoughts?