Gay and Gray

The Older Homosexual Man, Second Edition

Raymond Berger

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781136592010
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: LGBT Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

In the absence of accurate information, American culture has upheld a distorted view of what it means to be an older gay man. Gay and Gray is the first and only scholarly full-length treatment of older gay men in America today. It breaks the stereotype that older gay men are strange, lonely creatures and reveals that most older gay men are well-adjusted to their homosexuality and the aging process.This second edition contains four new chapters that present additional perspectives on the reality of gay aging. Dr. Minnigerode's study shows that older gay men do not perceive themselves as growing old faster than their heterosexual counterparts, and that forty is the age at which most gay men believe that the label "young" no longer applies--this finding led Berger and other researchers to define "older" gay men as those over forty. Pope and Schulz confirm Berger's finding that for most older gay men a continuation of sexual activity and sexual enjoyment is the norm. John Grube's paper on the interaction of older gay men with younger gay liberationists explores the cultural divide between today's older gay man and his younger counterpart, filling a gap left in the first edition. And a concluding chapter by Richard Friend on a theory of successful gay aging summarizes much of the current thinking about this topic. The true situation of the older homosexual male presented in Gay and Gray challenges preconceptions about what it means to be old and gay. It asserts that in most ways, older gay men are indistinguishable from other older people. Because the book portrays older gay men in a realistic and sympathetic light, it is therapeutic for the many gay men who have been burdened with society's negative and distorted views about them. These men may compare their own lives to those of the respondents described in the book. Gay and Gray offers younger gay men a rare glimpse into their futures and enlightens and comforts those who count older gay men among their family and friends. The conclusions drawn in the book will change people's perspectives and offer new ways of thinking for and about older gay men.Gay and Gray is filled with rich case histories and treats its subject with dignity and compassion. Topics of focus include:

• love relationships
• social and psychological adjustment
• gay community
• self-acceptance
• being "in the closet" and "coming out" as a gay person
• intergenerational attitudes
• popular stereotypesAs the first intensive interview and questionnaire study of gay men aged 40 and older in America, Gay and Gray examines the lives of these men in light of cultural stereotypes. Author Berger asks about the social lives of these men, their involvement in both the heterosexual and homosexual communities, their "coming out" experiences, their attitudes about younger gays, their experiences in growing older, and their strategies for adapting to life's challenges. In the study, Berger reveals that, contrary to stereotypic views, most older gay men are well-integrated into social networks and lead active and generally satisfying lives. He found that few live alone; most scored as well as younger gays on measures of psychological adjustment, such as self-acceptance; many are open about their homosexuality with family, friends, and colleagues; and the most well-adjusted older gay men were integrated into a homosexual community, associated with younger gay men, and were unwilling to change their sexual orientation.

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

 

On the outside we are old and shriveled, but on the inside we are twenty-two years old.

Dispel fear through understanding.

In 1962 Michael Harrington startled the nation with publication of The Other America, which revealed that millions of Americans lived in extreme poverty. Somehow, only the poor themselves had noticed. The situation of older homosexuals today is analogous in that they, as a large minority, are usually ignored. The increasing attention which is now being paid to the elderly, and to homosexuals as a group, has not extended to older homosexuals. When gerontologists talk about the elderly, they mean heterosexual elderly; when gay rights advocates talk about homosexuals, they mean young homosexuals. The homosexuals who began to disclose their identities publicly on a large scale in the 1970s were mostly young; they now constitute the public stereotype of the homosexual, while large numbers of their elders continue their lives unnoticed.

Despite the predominance of younger people in the public gay community–the bars, clubs, social and political organizations–there are as many older as younger homosexuals (Kinsey, Pomeroy, and Martin, 1948). If we assume that 10 percent of the adult male population is homosexual (Kimmel, 1978), then there are nearly a million homosexual men over the age of sixty-five in our country today.

There are, of course, many older lesbians as well. The older female homosexual has remained hidden to an even greater extent than has her male counterpart; this is reflected in the newly emerging literature on the older homosexual, which focuses primarily on the male. The older women are simply less accessible to the probing eye of the researcher. As Chapter 9 explains, we were unable to collect sufficient information on the older lesbian and therefore decided to limit Gay and Gray to males. In so doing we do not intend to contribute to the trend to ignore this group. Some female researchers have been more successful in studying the older lesbian (e.g., Robinson, 1979; Wolf, 1978) and the task of enlightening us about this group may have to be left to them.

The invisibility of the older homosexual is unfortunate for a number of reasons. First, although homosexuals contribute as taxpayers throughout their working lives, they are shortchanged when it comes to publicly funded social services. This has become more apparent as the variety and availability of services for the elderly have increased–services such as day care, bereavement counseling, and nursing home placement.

Consider the older homosexual whose lover of thirty years dies. As we will show later, most homosexuals make special efforts to maintain friendships which may substitute for kin relations in providing support during crises. But for a variety of reasons these friendship supports may be unavailable, or the older man may face special emotional or legal problems that require professional help. Many agencies which serve the elderly recognize these needs for the elderly heterosexual and provide services such as bereavement counseling, widows’ support groups, and legal assistance. However, the presumption that all elderly persons are heterosexual leaves these agencies unprepared to deal with the unique situation of the older homosexual.

Will helping professionals be too shocked or uncomfortable with older homosexual clients to be of help? Will they be familiar with homosexual lifestyles and relationship patterns so that their interventions will be based on knowledge, rather than on stereotypes? Will they be aware of the limited resources available in the gay community for their older clients?

Second, the invisibility of older homosexuals within the gay community itself is unfortunate. As our research and that of others shows, older homosexuals are less likely to be involved in the civil rights organizations, social clubs, bars, and bathhouses of the gay community. Part of this is due to the older person’s desire to disengage from active participation in the community, and part is due to the lack of hospitality afforded to older homosexuals by their younger counterparts who dominate the public gay community. In any case, the results are clear. The gay community does not have the opportunity to take advantage of the knowledge and leadership skills of older people, and younger gays do not have role models of successful gay aging to counter the myths about the horrors of being gay and gray.

Third, older homosexuals are isolated from each other. In organizing a support group for older homosexual men, we became aware of the great need for these men to associate with their peers and of the absence of such opportunities. We met several couples and individuals who had spent years trying unsuccessfully to meet other older homosexuals; they felt they had little in common with the heterosexual elderly and with younger gays at the bars and in political groups, yet they had not figured out how to meet older homosexuals in other settings.

The older homosexual, however, has not remained totally invisible. Unfortunately, where he has been described, stereotypes predominate: he becomes increasingly effeminate with age, he is alienated from friends and family alike, and he lives alone, not by choice but by necessity. At thirty he is old. Since he is no longer sexually attractive to other homosexuals, he is forced to prey on children and to pursue anonymous sexual contacts in public places such as rest-rooms and parks. He is desperately unhappy.

Even within the gay community the older homosexual is despised and feared: “I never knew his name. He lived somewhere on the floor above us, rather anonymously. … I only know a few things about him. He wore too many rings. He liked cats and Mozart. He was gentle-mannered and fastidious, and he scared me half to death. That was because he was everything I was afraid I was going to be: an ‘auntie’” (Kantrowitz, 1976).

These stereotypes serve a social control function. They are a deterrent to selection of a homosexual lifestyle, particularly for young people who have no role models of successful homosexual elders. Saghir and Robins (1973), for instance, found that most homosexual men were apprehensive about aging and did not believe they would grow old “gracefully.” So the elderly homosexual remains a tragic figure, both in the professional literature and in the popular media.

However, in the past few years several researchers have unearthed some startling findings about the older homosexual. Weinberg and Williams (1975), in a questionnaire study of 1,117 homosexual men, found that although homosexuals over forty-five did not differ from younger homosexuals in most aspects of psychological adjustment, in some ways the older men were healthier; they were less worried about exposure of their homosexuality, less likely to desire psychiatric treatment, and had more stable self-concepts. Kelly (1977) found that few homosexual men over sixty-five fit prevailing negative stereotypes, and that most reported satisfactory social and sex lives. A comparative study of older homosexual and heterosexual men and women by Minnigerode and Adelman (1976) showed that these groups did not differ in morale, although homosexual men and women were lonely more often. Minnigerode (1976), asking ninety-five homosexual men of all ages to describe themselves as “young,” “middle-aged,” or “old,” found no evidence that homosexual men perceived themselves as aging sooner than heterosexuals. A similar conclusion was reached by Laner (1978), based on analysis of “personals” advertisements by homosexual men. She also found that homosexuals were no more likely than heterosexuals to seek younger partners.

Our study intended to examine the situation of the older homosexual male in light of stereotypes of gay aging, and to do this more thoroughly than earlier researchers had. Although a great deal of research has described older people and homosexuals, our intention was to extend this knowledge to people who are both older and homosexual. In addition, we wanted to determine the level of psychological adjustment of this group, and to identify factors associated with good adjustment.

In order to gain a comprehensive understanding of older gay men, we used two methods to collect information. We asked 112 men to complete an extensive questionnaire, and from this group we selected ten men to be interviewed. In selecting these ten men we attempted to reflect the wide diversity of backgrounds and lifestyles which characterizes this group. The questionnaire findings provided us with statistical information from which we drew generalizations about older gay men. While these data are certainly important, we chose to go beyond a questionnaire so that we could examine the depth and complexity of gay aging, bringing to life the uniqueness of each man we came to know in the course of this study.

Part I presents the findings of the interview study. Chapter 2 describes the interview process and summarizes what we learned by comparing and contrasting interviewees. Chapters 3 to 8 contain the life stories and perspectives of six interviewees, again chosen for their diversity. Each man is unique, yet these stories are tied together by the common theme of a lifelong struggle for self-acceptance in an unaccepting world. The stories are reproduced for the reader much the way they were told to us. While details are altered to guarantee anonymity, the respondents’ own words are used throughout.

The questionnaire study and its findings are the subject of Part II. Chapter 9 describes the questionnaire as well as the procedures used to recruit respondents, while and 11 contain a detailed presentation and discussion of the questionnaire findings. focuses on describing older gay men in terms of demographic information and a range of social psychological variables such as sexual orientation, living situation, relationships, psychological adjustment, and concealment of homosexuality. Within the perspective of societal reaction theory and earlier research on homosexuality, Chapter 11 attempts to identify personal characteristics associated with positive adaptation to aging for gay men. Chapter 12 summarizes our findings about gay aging and discusses their implications in relation to the diversity of this group, prejudice, adaptation to aging, psychosocial problems, and service and policy considerations.

PART I: THE INTERVIEW STUDY

CHAPTER 2

The Interview Respondents

I would be very frustrated if I were perpetually young. It would be boring to stay the same, just as it would be boring if it were summer all the time.

I was working out every day to get my figure back in shape. One day my son said to me, “Daddy, what good is it going to be? Who wants to have an eighteen-year-old body and a sixty-year-old face?”

The best thing about growing older is all the special privileges you get. Instead of being blamed, you are excused.

This chapter presents our findings from in-depth interviews with ten older homosexual men. My research assistant and I conducted the interviews individually in 1978, in locations selected by the interviewees. We listened to the stories of these men while sitting on stools at a gay bar that had not yet opened for business early one Sunday morning. We recorded conversations in lovely homes and humble apartments; we met in the privacy of a small university office, and in a meeting room of a local gay organization. The interviews lasted from one to one and three-quarter hours. All sessions were tape recorded, and a brief introduction was read to each interviewee to explain the purpose of the interview and to give assurance of anonymity.

Many of the questions on the interview schedule also appeared in similar form on the questionnaire, which is discussed in Part II. However, in the interview, the respondent was asked to elaborate on the question. For instance, both the questionnaire and the interview schedule asked him to describe his current social life, but the interview schedule also asked him to discuss how he felt about his social life and to explore ways in which it might be different.

The interview schedule consisted of open-ended questions grouped into fourteen clusters, each cluster relating to one topic (such as “coming out,” or involvement with family). The least personal question clusters (concerning social life, involvement with homosexual community) were generally presented first in order to establish rapport, while more personal questions (about coming out and sex life) appeared later in the interview schedule. However, the order of questions varied in each interview, since the interviewer followed topics as they were introduced by the respondent, in order to maintain the natural flow of the interview. Questions asking the interviewee to evaluate his life and to share his thoughts about the aging process came at the end and provided closure.

For clarity in the following discussion, the question clusters appear as follows. First we present some general observations and demographic data on age, marital status, presence of a lover, current living arrangements, retirement status, and health. We then discuss the coming-out process, explain the variety of definitions attributed to this term, and review events such as the first sexual experience, self-realization, and being open with others. Involvement with immediate family (parents, siblings, spouse, and children) is explored next, followed by a description of involvement in gay organizations, bars, and other aspects of the public gay community. Discussion of social life focuses on the extent to which the interviewees socialize with heterosexuals versus homosexuals, and with age peers versus younger people. We then look at their current sex lives: relationship to partner or partners, changes brought about by age, and level of satisfaction. Next we examine feelings about younger gays and beliefs about how young and old regard each other. We describe instances of discrimination based on both sexual preference and age. Finally, we present life-review material: how these men evaluate their lives, how they view the aging process, and how they beMeve gay men can adapt more easily to that process. (See Appendix B for a copy of the interview schedule.)

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS AND DEMOGRAPHIC DATA

Each older man we interviewed was singular in some way. Each had a unique perspective or life experience to share, and each contributed to our understanding. The case histories presented in the next six chapters allow us to share with readers the uniqueness and complexity of human experience. These stories add depth to the questionnaire study findings presented in and 11.

Some of the men shared fascinating stories. Most shared feelings. Some concentrated on the present; others chose to speak more of the past. Although all were asked the same questions, we allowed each to set his own pace. Each respondent was encouraged to focus on and elaborate on those aspects of his story which were most significant to him. As a result, some interviewees omitted or glossed over topics or events that would have provided a more complete picture. For instance, one man who left his wife for a male lover provided little detail on his wife’s reaction. It is impossible to determine whether this omission was due to the issue’s unimportance to him, or to painful feelings associated with the separation. In defense of our method, we believe that by allowing each man to tell his own story we produced a highly accurate account of how older homosexual men view themselves, thereby fulfilling the purpose of the interviews. More systematic study of selected issues was left to the questionnaire study.

In the interviews we appreciated the ways in which these men helped us to understand their innermost feelings. This was often done by reminiscing. One man recalled, “Let me see if I can help you understand. When I was young and I’d go to a movie involving a girl and a fellow in love, sometimes I’d come out crying like a fool … and not because it ended sadly. It was because I was as much in love with that handsome man on the screen as Bette Davis was. So I wasn’t crying for her. I was crying with her.”

Some statements by the same person may appear contradictory. That should not hamper our understanding, however, if we keep in mind the aspects of our own lives about which we ourselves may not be completely clear.

One frequently expressed thought was that homosexuality was accepted when a man operated from an internal feeling that loving another person could not be bad. The culprit was not his love, but society’s lack of love. No doubt all would have agreed with the observation of a soldier dishonorably discharged for being a homosexual: “The army gave me a medal for killing a man and threw me out for loving one.”

The men we interviewed ranged in age from forty-four to seventy-two years. Seven had never been married, and two had experienced lengthy and difficult divorces in their attempts to assume gay lifestyles after years of marriage. In one case the decision to live a gay life was made when the individual was in his forties; the other was in his fifties. One man was currently married and chose to keep his gay life separate from his family life–neither his wife of thirty years nor his young adult children knew of his homosexuality. But none of our other respondents felt the need to manage identities in two different worlds, as suggested by some stereotypes of homosexual men. Most of them would probably agree with one man who said, “I don’t feel a need to show other people I’m gay. But if anyone asked, I’d tell them right out!”

The interview study illustrates that the stereotype of the lonely, unwanted, and isolated older gay man is inaccurate. Half of the men we interviewed currently had lovers of long standing. One man boasted that, the day after the interview, he and his “mate” would be celebrating eighteen years together. All five of these men lived with their lovers–one on a part-time basis, since his lover had to be in another city for business regularly. The remaining five did not currently have lovers, but all except one had had a lover for at least a year, and often for many years. In some cases lovers had drifted apart, separated for personal reasons, or died. The one man who had never had a male lover was heterosexually married and limited his contacts to brief relationships so as not to threaten his marriage.

Living alone was not the norm. In fact, none of our interviewees could really be described as living alone. Four lived with a lover on a regular basis, and one did so on a...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Gay and Gray: The Older Homosexual Man
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword
• Preface to the First Edition
• Prologue: Gay and Gray Revisited
• Chapter 1. Introduction
• PART I. The Interview Study
• PART II. The Questionnaire Study
• PART III. Additional Perspectives on Gay Aging
• Appendix A. Advertisements
• Appendix B. Interview Schedule
• Appendix C. Questionnaire
• References
• Index