May 21, 2004  |  By: KATHI WOLFE  | COMMENTS     

used to.”

Because of this lack of inter-generational contact, Shernoff says young gay men don’t often get to see older gay men as “sexy or graceful.”

Robert Kertzner, a psychiatrist in private practice in San Francisco and an adjunct associate research scientist at Columbia University, has studied gay men and middle age. He says gay men have some of the same aging-related issues as straight men and women.

“Regardless of sexual orientation, men and women, as they get older, spend more time reflecting on [their] identity,” Kertzner says. “There can be a natural distancing from the world of young people.”

Finances, health, and sexual functioning are also concerns for many older people, he adds. For gay men, he says the age-related issues that stand out are isolation and invisibility.

“Gay men as they get older, are less likely to have children, less likely to be partnered, than straight men,” he says.

He also says older gay men may be less sexually desirable than younger men to some gay men, or their perception of their undesirability may limit the partners with whom they become involved.

Between 1998 and 2001, Andrew Hostetler, assistant professor of psychology at the University of Minnesota, Morris, surveyed 94 single gay men in Chicago between the ages of 35 and 82 on their attitudes toward aging. He says the results of his research were a “mixed bag.”

“More than two-thirds of the men felt that there were plenty of opportunities for men of their age to get involved in the LGBT community,” Hostetler says. Yet, at the same time, more than half of the respondents felt unappreciated by gay people under age 30.

About 44 percent said they felt ignored by gay men because of their age, and 42 percent said that gay and lesbian social services aren’t doing enough for people over 60, Hostetler says.

The men who were less fearful about aging were those who see themselves at this point in their life as not wanting or expecting a relationship, Hostetler says. There is this ideal “developmental life course pathway” for gay men which involves finding partnership in their 30s and then pairing off to do the “domestic thing,” he says.

“To the extent that there’s ageism in the community, one part of it is that gay men are afraid of not finding Mr. Right — of being old and alone,” Hostetler says.

Ageism in the gay community isn’t likely to go away any time soon, the experts say. Yet, there are signs that attitudes toward aging and older men do change.

“Every year, at least one of my gay male students befriends me. He’s not hungry for sex. He wants to have a mentor,” says Shernoff, citing one example in which younger gay men can get to know older men socially.

Gay activism is a wonderful venue for younger and older gay men to meet, he says.

“Older gay men have an obligation to bequeath a better world to younger queers,” Shernoff says. “And younger queers need to make the world safe for older queers.”