About

The IDRlabs Sexual Orientation Test is an online 15-question examination that uses the 1980 Erotic Response and Orientation Scale to determine the level of one's sexual orientation. The test has since been criticized online with some questioning its accuracy.

Origin

On February 28th, 2019, the organization IDRlabs released a sexual orientation test on their official website.^[2] The test is a 15-part examination based on the 1980 Erotic Response and Orientation Scale.

The Erotic Response and Orientation Scale was developed by psychologist Michael Storms in order to account for problems with the Kinsey Scale Test, which many found to be overly binary in its approach to sexual orientation. The test is lauded for its contributions, which include a more complex and less linear understanding of non-binary orientations as well as an appreciation of the fact that some people are asexual.

Spread

On March 3rd, 2019, Twitter^[3] user @INDIEWASHERE tweeted, "everyone do this test and then expose yourself in the comments let's expose the straights once and for all." Within four days, the post received more than 190 retweets and 1,400 likes (shown below, left).

Throughout the day, people responded to the post with their own results, which they made jokes about.

That day, the test was submitted to 4chan's /pol/ board,^[5] where users shared their results from the test (shown below). On March 5th, a thread about the test was submitted to /r/teenagers.^[6] On March 6th, PopBuzz^[4] published a report on the responses. Meanwhile, the test was submitted to a thread on 4chan's /mu/ board.^[7]

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References