What Does It Mean to be Gay and Middle Aged?

For those of us who came out in mid-life, we have no first hand knowledge of what it means to be young and gay. Oh yes, we see young gays around us at events and may read about it, yet we will never know what it is to be gay and out before finding ourselves in middle age. As I have remarked on occasion, "I was a has been from the moment that I came out." I suspect that getting older isn't easy regardless of whether one is gay or straight. However, given the emphasis on youth and beauty in the gay world - I find it hard to even find male beauty photos of older men despite google searches - the tribulations appear to be worse. I don't feel any older than when I was 29, but the mirror tells me otherwise. The Guardian has a story from the north of England that looks at the question of what it means to be gay and in middle age. Here are some sometimes humorous highlights:
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On Sunday at Fac251 in Manchester, promoter Paul Cons is reviving Flesh, his famous gay club of the early 90s for one night. As well as raising money for the Albert Kennedy Trust and the Peter Tatchell Human Rights Fund it's going to be a nostalgic night for older Manchester gays.
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"As well as creating an amazing party, I would love Flesh to be the start of a conversation about what it's like to be gay in your 30s, 40s, 50s in 2010. I think it's a good moment to look back at your youth, celebrate it, reflect on it, but also look at where we are now and where we're going."
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This set me thinking. I'm a staggering 51 – too old for alcopops yet too young for Midsomer Murders. So I asked my more mature gay followers on Twitter how they felt about middle age and got very different responses, from "It feels shit . . . Hate getting older, thank goodness for Botox, beauty therapists and booze," to "Really nice. I wish I could go back and slap the 17-year-old me though." Others asked why a gay man's experience of middle age would be any different from anyone else's.
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What had become of us? Of the 10, six were partnered up, two were single and two were dead. Four had moved to the country, one emigrated to Australia and three remained in London. Four had gone bald. Two had taken cocaine in the last year (and complained that it wasn't as good as it used to be). Three of us had contemplated adopting children or approaching lesbian friends with turkey baster in hand but it had all been talk and no issue resulted. Five had dogs, of which four were small and camp. Three had been out to a gay club in the last year
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Back in the days when my pleasure-seeking friends and I were out at Bang and Heaven and the Pink Pussycat every night of the week (and rather putting ourselves about) we viewed anyone over 40 with suspicion. If they dared to approach us, they would get the full force of our disdain. They were desperate and musty and just wrong. Nightclubs were for young people like us, and those coffin dodgers had no business being there.
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The difference, I conclude, between gays and straights when it comes to mid-life is that gays don't feel bound to fulfil certain roles. Why should we? Having lived our lives on the boundaries of society's norms we feel able to negotiate our way through the experience of ageing.
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The consensus is that middle-aged gays are happier than they were in their youth. . . . If my theory is right, Flesh on Sunday will be a fabulous event, throbbing with portly middle-aged northern gays at one with themselves at last but still able to cut a rug on the dance floor.

“Bi-Curious” Summer

That's the title of a column on Wingnut Daily by Christianist Brent Bozell, III, which would be almost laughable were it not for the fact that it epitomizes the Christianist mindset that everything is supposed to conform to THEIR religious views. Especially when it comes to homosexuality. The Christianists want to pretend that we do not exists or that we have rights and a significant purchasing power. With Christianists, the concept of simply changing the channel or that parents - not broadcasters - should be responsible to monitor what their children watch never seems to register on the radar screen. Personally, even though I might never watch the shows that set Bozell to ranting, I applaud MTV and the others that Bozell lambastes for refusing to censor their broadcasting to satisfy the Bozell's Christianist world view. One thought however: Do Christianists like Bozell rant because of their prudishness or because of their own repressed sexual frustration/dysfunction which is threatened by gays and bisexuals? My guess is that it's the latter. Here is a sampling of Bozell's rantings:

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When our culture merchants calculate how to exploit societal attitudes toward the homosexual lifestyle, one factor doesn't enter into the equation. Frankly, they don't give a damn about people who believe it’s a sin against God. Those religious people with their religious hang-ups aren’t likely to watch MTV, so why bother with their silly complaints.

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Religious concerns safely tossed aside, producers are free to explore how best to profit from pushing envelopes. They know that (most) men don’t enjoy watching gay men, but enough do like to watch women flirt with lesbianism to make it a commercially viable enterprise. Enter the idea of women being “bi-curious,” as the slang goes.

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The trend has landed on top of the Billboard pop charts and has dominated the top of the i-Tunes download list in the form of Katy Perry’s song “I Kissed A Girl.” The concept has become so mainstream that she performed her song on Fox’s summer series “So You Think You Can Dance.” She’s also made a cameo appearance on the CBS soap opera “The Young and the Restless.” This summer she’s one of the few female performers featured on the Warped Tour, an appropriate word for her act. Her lyrics have the flirty patter down. “I kissed a girl and I liked it /The taste of her Cherry Chap-Stick / I kissed a girl just to try it / I hope my boyfriend don’t mind it.” Should the public be scandalized? Perry sings that they should not, that it’s saucy, and yet innocent: “Too good to deny it / ain’t no big deal, it’s innocent.”

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That’s all in keeping with MTV, which in the pursuit of profit will film anything short of anyone smoking a cigarette because that, after all, would be to send the wrong message to impressionable youngsters.

Aging and Gay, and Facing Prejudice in Twilight

While the LGBT community is making profound gains on some fronts, on others prejudice continues to be the hallmark of our treatment. One truly has no guaranty of decent and unprejudiced treatment - my own divorce hearing before a prejudiced judge is a case in point. This story from the New York Times demonstrates that even in their "golden years," gays cannot uniformly expect decent elder care and treatment (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/09/us/09aged.html?ex=1192593600&en=31488165b0295b95&ei=5070&emc=eta1). Here are some highlights:

Even now, at 81 and with her memory beginning to fade, Gloria Donadello recalls her painful brush with bigotry at an assisted-living center in Santa Fe, N.M. Sitting with those she considered friends, “people were laughing and making certain kinds of comments, and I told them, ‘Please don’t do that, because I’m gay.’” The result of her outspokenness, Ms. Donadello said, was swift and merciless. “Everyone looked horrified,” she said. No longer included in conversation or welcome at meals, she plunged into depression. Medication did not help. With her emotional health deteriorating, Ms. Donadello moved into an adult community nearby that caters to gay men and lesbians.

Elderly gay people like Ms. Donadello, living in nursing homes or assisted-living centers or receiving home care, increasingly report that they have been disrespected, shunned or mistreated in ways that range from hurtful to deadly, even leading some to commit suicide. Some have seen their partners and friends insulted or isolated. Others live in fear of the day when they are dependent on strangers for the most personal care. That dread alone can be damaging, physically and emotionally, say geriatric doctors, psychiatrists and social workers.

Several solutions are emerging. In Boston, New York, Chicago, Atlanta and other urban centers, so-called L.G.B.T. Aging Projects are springing up, to train long-term care providers. At the same time, there is a move to separate care, with the comfort of the familiar.

Sometimes tragedy results. In one nursing home, an openly gay man, without family or friends, was recently moved off his floor to quiet the protests of other residents and their families. He was given a room among patients with severe disabilities or dementia. The home called upon Amber Hollibaugh, now a senior strategist at the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and the author of the first training curriculum for nursing homes. Ms. Hollibaugh assured the 79-year-old man that a more humane solution would be found, but he hanged himself, Ms. Hollibaugh said. She was unwilling to identify the nursing home or even its East Coast city, because she still consults there, among other places.

California is the only state with a law saying the gay elderly have special needs, like other members of minority groups. A new law encourages training for employees and contractors who work with the elderly and permits state financing of projects like gay senior centers.

The sad reality is that to far too many "Christians" and others in the elderly care industry, do not even view LGBT individuals as even fully human. Having faced that feeling in court myself recently, the experience is very debilitating emotionally. My heart goes out to these poor individuals.