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Journal of Homosexuality
ISSN: 0091-8369 (Print) 1540-3602 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/wjhm20
Older Single Gay Men’s Body Talk: Resisting

and Rigidifying the Ageing Discourse in the Gay
Community
Yiu Tung Suen DPhil, MSc, BSSc
To cite this article: Yiu Tung Suen DPhil, MSc, BSSc (2016): Older Single Gay Men’s Body
Talk: Resisting and Rigidifying the Ageing Discourse in the Gay Community, Journal of
Homosexuality, DOI: 10.1080/00918369.2016.1191233
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00918369.2016.1191233
Accepted author version posted online: 18

May 2016.
Published online: 18 May 2016.
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Download by: [Athabasca University] Date: 07 June 2016, At: 13:29

Older Single Gay Men’s Body Talk: Resisting and
Rigidifying the Ageing Discourse in the Gay
Community
Yiu Tung Suen, DPhil, MSc, BSSc
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Department of Sociology, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
Address: Yiu Tung Suen, Department of Sociology, Chinese University of Hong Kong, 4th
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Floor, Sino Building, Hong Kong, China. E-mail address: suenyiutung@cuhk.edu.hk
Abstract
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Previous research saw older gay men as subject to structural marginalisation of ageism but yet
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possessing agency to interpret ageing in diverse ways. I move beyond this duality, drawing on
the theory of ‘defensive othering’ to understand how older gay men live with the ageing
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discourse in the gay community. Informed by grounded theory, I analysed interviews with 25
self-identified single gay men aged 50 or above in England inductively. It emerged that many
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older gay men found it difficult to escape the discourse that marginalises the ageing body. Even
when they argued they were the exception and ‘looked good’, they were discursively producing a
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two-tier system: they themselves as the ‘good older gay men’, as opposed to the other ‘bad older
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gay men’, who ‘had given up’. Such ‘defensive othering’ tactic seemingly allowed them to resist
age norms from applying to them personally, but unintentionally reinforced an ageist discourse.
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(150 words)
Keywords: ageing, body, gay men, homosexuality, LGBT, older, othering, sexuality
1
Introduction
Ageing is increasingly recognised as an embodied experience, and the cross-disciplinary
academic debate from sociology, psychology and gerontology has widely acknowledged that the
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body is an important site through which identity is constructed and negotiated in later life
(Calasanti & Slevin, 2001; Faircloth, 2003; Gilleard & Higgs, 2000; Katz, 2000; Twigg, 2004).
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This presence of the body in the identity construction process is understood as far from being
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solely physiological, but also ‘socially and culturally constituted’ (Twigg, 2004: 59).
Interpretations of the body do not take place culturally unbounded, but against an individualistic
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and consumer culture (Gilleard & Higgs, 2000; Katz & Marshall, 2003) that generally teaches
individuals in society to feel negative about ageing, equating it with loss and decline (Calasanti
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& Slevin, 2001; Marshall & Katz, 2002) and hierarchically arranges youth to be superior
(Woodward, 2003). It has been suggested that women are particularly subject to such pressure to
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stay young (Clarke, 2011). Theorists have argued that women, subject to the male gaze, face a
double standard of ageing, because they are judged more harshly than men are on their
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appearance as they age (Sontag, 1972).

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Gay men, similar to women, are subject to men’s surveillance over their bodily appearance.
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Social ideals about how a gay man’s body should look have changed dramatically throughout
history (Wood, 2004). At the end of the nineteenth century in England and America, the
dominant image of beauty among gay men was that of the dandy: young, soft, aesthetically
sensitive, and effeminate. However, because of increasing persecution of gay men and public
debates about homosexuality, effeminacy became a marker for locating same-sex attracted men.
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Out of fear of being associated with homosexuality, both homosexual and heterosexual men
increasingly masked their effeminacy. The denigration of effeminacy persisted throughout the
twentieth century, eventually leading to the ascendancy of the hypermasculine iconography of
the gay ‘macho clone’ in the 1970s (Signorile, 1997), during which the iconic Tom of Finland
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images were created—and the cultural legacy of that still has influence on gay male culture and
body image today. In the 1980s, the advent of HIV/AIDS did not only kill gay men’s bodies in
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unprecedented numbers, but forever changed how gay men view, experience and manage their
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bodies, primarily but not exclusively in the context of sexual and romantic relationships. All of
these historical developments led to an increasingly rigid archetypal gay male body which is
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generally ‘muscular, athletic, devoid of fat and hairless’ (Drummond, 2010). This results in the
formation of a ‘hegemonic aesthetic’ (Filiault & Drummond, 2007), and gay men’s frequent
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judgement and objectification of each other’s bodies, which has been variously termed ‘body
oppression’, ‘body fascism’ and ‘looksism’ (Signorile, 1997: 27–28) towards gay men’s bodies
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that do not ‘conform’.

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Because younger gay men’s bodies are generally more in tune with these bodily ideals discussed
above, Brotman, Ryan, and Cormier (2003: 198) maintain that ‘ageism, beauty and youthfulness
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are values that reign supreme within most gay and lesbian communities’. Such an argument is
supported by the competitiveness of younger gay men’s bodies in the sexual market. Compared
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to heterosexual men, heterosexual women and lesbians, gay men are the most likely to state a
preference for a younger partner (Hayes, 1995). Research focusing only on gay men has also
repeatedly documented such a preference for younger partners (Heaphy, 2007: 200; Kaufman &
Chin Phua, 2003). In one study, it was found that almost seven times more gay men advertise for
3
younger partners than advertise for older ones (Bartholome, Tewksbury, & Bruzzone, 2000). It
was found that this preference for younger men was more marked among older gay men
(Kaufman & Chin Phua, 2003).
Against such a strong emphasis on the body, and in particular the privileging of younger bodies
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in the gay mainstream culture, how do older gay men evaluate their own bodies? The debate has
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been rather polarised, seeing older gay men as subject to structural marginalisation of ageism but
yet possessing agency to interpret ageing in diverse ways.
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Some research has suggested that older gay men evaluate their bodies negatively due to ageism
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in this rather youth-oriented gay culture. For example, the frequently cited ‘accelerated ageing’
thesis (Bennett & Thompson, 1991: 66) argues that because gay men face more pressure due to
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bodily changes associated with ageing than heterosexual men, gay men think of themselves and
others as middle-aged and old earlier than heterosexual men. Viewed through such a lens, older
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gay men are marginalised and excluded in ‘a world in which being old equates to being
unattractive and being attractive is a precondition for entry’ (Jones & Pugh, 2005: 258).
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Accordingly, research has documented how older gay men spoke of the youth obsession of gay
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culture (Christian & Keefe, 1997) and how they felt about being rendered invisible and excluded
from the mainstream gay community, and having to deal with the ‘negative stereotypes’ and
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‘discrimination regarding ageing’ (Pope, Wierzalis, Barret, & Rankins, 2007). For example, in
the USA, Lodge and Umberson (2013) compared the narratives of 15 gay men and 15
heterosexual men aged between 40 and 60. Although both groups of men discussed the
functionality-related facets of bodily decline, the middle-aged gay men interviewed also
4
highlighted the appearance-related facets of bodily decline and related insecurities, especially in
terms of worry about their appeal in a sexual context.
Other researchers have highlighted that older gay men possessed agency to interpret ageing in
diverse ways. Previous research has highlighted that under such threat of losing their bodies’
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aesthetic appeal, older gay men exercised their agency through employing two strategies:
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working against losing the aesthetic appeal of their ageing bodies, and working beyond losing
the aesthetic appeal of their ageing bodies. Those older gay men who worked against losing
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aesthetic appeal put effort into minimising the evidence of looking old. For example, in the USA,
Slevin and Linneman (2009) interviewed ten gay men in their 60s, 70s and 80s, all of whom had
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a Bachelor’s degree, and seven of whom held graduate degrees. The older gay men could only
understand their bodies with struggle and ambivalence, given that ageing provided new
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challenges and opportunities for reformulating their sense of self, of being a man, and of being a
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gay man. However, although they declared increasing comfort with their ageing selves and
showed increasing acceptance of being gay (490–493), most of them subscribed to negative
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notions of being old and looking old. Almost all gay men in the study discussed the prevalence
of ageism in the gay ‘scene’, such as in gay bars. Afforded by high levels of education and being
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economically secure, the older gay men interviewed in that study, similar to older women
(Clarke & Griffin, 2007), invested in keeping themselves looking youthful, or at least not
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looking old (Slevin, 2008: 40). They actively fought against their ageing bodies (Slevin, 2008:
41), most notably through means of physical exercise and dieting, and some even considered
cosmetic intervention (Slevin & Linneman, 2009).
5
There were also those older gay men who were concerned about the diminishing aesthetic appeal
of their ageing bodies who coped with such worries by seeing their bodies as beyond the
aesthetic. For example, in Australia, the three HIV positive gay men (who were 44, 45 and 53
years old) interviewed by Drummond (2006) identified ‘turning 40’ as a significant turning point
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in their lives, after which they felt that they were not considered to be aesthetically appealing any
more: one of the three men considered himself ‘worthless’ after turning 40 (Drummond, 2006:
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38). The older gay men coped with the loss of the aesthetic appeal of their bodies by reorienting
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their focus on their bodies’ functional capabilities. Drummond found that the older gay men’s
concerns about their bodies’ aesthetic appeal were tempered with the notion of inevitability,
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which ultimately provided a positive outlook for them. Jönson and Siverskog (2012) found that
the older gay, lesbian, bisexual, transsexual and queer advertisers in the two Swedish internet
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dating forums which they analysed made use of humorous and self-mocking comments about
age and age-related appearance to downplay the possible negative perceptions of their age when
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dating. In analysing middle-aged gay men’s involvement in the gay village in Manchester in
England, Simpson (2013) suggested that despite accounts of ageism that prevailed, the middle-
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aged gay men crafted out a more positive notion of their ageing bodies by employing ageing
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capital, which he defined as ‘age-inflected knowledge of self and gay culture’. By drawing on
emotional strength, self-acceptance, age-appropriate bodily display/performance and awareness

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of the relations constitutive of gay culture (and wider society), he argued, the older gay men were
able to open up a space to go beyond focusing on rather superficial interpretations of their own
ageing bodies, by emphasising their authenticity.
6
In highlighting older gay men’s efforts in working against or beyond losing their aesthetic appeal,
such previous research has accepted the diminishing aesthetic appeal of older gay men’s bodies
itself as an incontrovertible fact. The negativity that older gay men showed towards their bodies
was not counterbalanced by the suggestion that older gay men’s bodies may be positively valued
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and embraced. Possible positive typifications of older gay men’s bodies were ignored.
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Theoretical perspective: defensive othering
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In this paper, I want to move beyond the duality in the research literature, drawing on the theory
of ‘defensive othering’ to understand how older gay men live with the ageing discourse in the
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gay community.
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‘Othering’ is a process through which a dominant group defines into existence an inferior group
as morally and/or intellectually inferior (Schwalbe et al., 2000: 423). The inferior groups, as a
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result, carry with them certain ‘stigma’, attributes that are ‘deeply discrediting’ and which can
reduce a whole person into only one overriding characteristic of their being (Goffman, 1963).
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Such ‘oppressive othering’ is a central dynamic through which the dominant and inferior groups
are framed and produced—as suggested by Gramsci’s idea of hegemony—through cultural

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osmosis, negative stereotypes and ideologies disseminated as taken-for-granted knowledge in

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society (Pyke, 2010: 556–558). As such, it can be argued that older gay men carry an ‘ageing
stigma’ in the gay community that is youth-oriented and are subject to structural marginalisation
of an ageist discourse.
7
Seen from a symbolic interactionist perspective, however, social realities are constructed in
specific interactions and through meaning assigned by individuals. As Foucault (1978) argues,
cultural dominance is never complete, and ‘where there is power, there is resistance’. When
individuals are subject to stigma, they embark on different ‘moral careers’ (Goffman, 1963: 45),
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using Goffman’s term, to negotiate with their stigma. This is why the literature showed that older
gay men possessed the agency to interpret ageing in diverse ways.
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However, structure and agency are not two separate entities; instead, they are mutually
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constitutive. The negotiated order perspective (Strauss, 1978) and structuration theory (Giddens,
1984) argue that social structure is formed through recurrent patterns of joint action. Empirical
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research has pointed out that when some marginalised groups engage in resistance, they may be
complicit with, rather than challenging, the dominant status-quo. Their redefinition of self may
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be carried out at the expense of denouncing members from their very same group. As Goffman
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(1963: 130) described:
The stigmatised individual exhibits a tendency to stratify his “own” according to the degree to
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which their stigma is apparent and obtrusive. He can then take up in regard to those who are
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more evidently stigmatised than himself the attitudes the normals take to him.
In other words, the attitudes taken by the dominant group or the ‘normals’ can be used as the
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standard by the marginalised group rather than challenged. Such ‘self-betraying kind of
stratification’ of ‘fellow sufferers’ (Goffman, 1963: 137) is a type of identity work ‘employed by
subordinates who seek membership in the dominant group or attempt to distance themselves
from the stigma linked to their status’ (Schwalbe et al., 2000: 425). ‘The process, in each case,
8
involves accepting the legitimacy of a devalued identity imposed by the dominant group, but
then saying, in effect, “There are indeed Others to whom this applies, but it does not apply to
me”’ (Schwalbe et al., 2000: 425). As such, the dominant hegemony does not get challenged but
is even reinforced. The marginalised group can unintentionally legitimise the stigma applied to
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them.
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These intra-group stratification actions have been empirically observed among many sexual
minorities. Gay Asian men create ‘others’ among themselves who are ‘smaller, submissive and
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effeminate’ (Poon & Ho, 2008); gay Christian men engage in ‘compensatory manhood acts’ that
symbolically position them as superior, as compared to those who are ‘promiscuous, self-
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centered, and effeminate’ (Sumerau, 2012), for example. These concrete examples provide
poignant opposition to ‘the stock stories [that] convey the message that gays and lesbians,
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because they are members of an oppressed group, are incapable of oppressing others’ (Han,
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2008).
Seen through such a lens, when older gay men exercise their agency to challenge the ageing
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discourse in the gay community, there is the potential that they are unconsciously reinforcing an
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ageist culture.
Method
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The data in this article were drawn from a larger study of older gay men’s experiences of
singlehood. The research was interested, from a constructionist perspective, in the meanings that
the research participants attached to, and their subjective interpretations of, being single and
9
growing older. In-depth life story interviews lasting between two and six hours—allowing the
recapturing of much longer periods of history and reporting of meanings and feelings (Giele &
Elder, 1998: 26)—were conducted with 25 self-identified gay men over the age of 50 who lived
in England and who self-identified as having been single for most of their lives. All the names
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reported below are pseudonyms.
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Although often used in daily conversation, the meaning of the term ‘single’ is ambiguous and
contestable. Most problematic is that at the time of the research, gay men were not entitled in the
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UK to get ‘married’ and the uptake of civil partnership was uneven among gay men in different
regions of the country (Ross, Gask, & Berrington, 2011). At the same time, ‘assumptions about
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relationships based on the values and experiences of heterosexuals may not necessarily apply to
gay and lesbian couples’ (Peplau & Cochran, 1990: 323). It has been argued that gay men who
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consider themselves as part of a couple have more relaxed attitudes towards sexual non-
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monogamy than their heterosexual counterparts. Peplau and Cochran (1990) therefore argued
against using cohabitation as the criterion when defining heterosexual and homosexual couples.
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Taking the above into consideration, I asked the participants to self-identify as having ‘spent
most of their lifetime not in a relationship’ as the definition of singlehood.

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The participants were recruited through different organisations that worked with older lesbian,
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gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people and through online recruitment, supplemented by
snowballing. Of the 25 participants, an overwhelming majority—20 (80 per cent) of them—were
recruited through social groups that work either with gay men or LGBT people. Two participants
were recruited through snowballing; one was recruited through posting on a general classified
10
website; one was recruited through an organisation that works with men; and another through
word of mouth. It can be argued that as most of the participants were recruited through social
groups, the sample may be more socially active and connected than average. However, the
participants showed a wide spectrum in terms of satisfaction with their social life. It may indeed
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be the case, though, that those older gay men who were more closeted or felt less strongly about
their gay identity would not have been connected through the social groups and therefore did not
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take part in the research.
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In the achieved sample, the youngest was aged 52, the oldest was 73. Twelve of the participants
were in their 50s, eleven were in their 60s, and one was in his 70s. The participants were all
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white, and although much effort had been put into advertising through various channels, none of
the research participants were from ethnic minority groups. More than half of the participants (n
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= 15) had received education up to at least undergraduate level. Most of the participants lived in
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the south-east of England. Further research is needed to explore the intersectionality of older
single gay men’s experiences with race and education levels (Cronin & King, 2010).
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The interviews made use of the funnelling approach of ‘grand tours and mini tours’ (Plummer,
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2001: 145), sequencing the questions to start deliberately broadly at the beginning. The interview
started by inviting the participants to share their life story with an open ended question: ‘Would
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you mind telling me a bit about your life story?’ Then I began to introduce questions on topics
such as relationship history, aspects of singlehood the participants had or had not enjoyed, and
the meanings they attached to being single and growing older.
11
Ethical issues were considered for the research. First, there were ethical considerations in
ensuring that diverse voices were included in the sample. As all the participants in the sample
were over the age of 50, a few of them experienced mobility problems. The researcher travelled
to where those who were physically impaired lived to ensure that their stories would not be
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excluded on the grounds of their physical disability. Although the participants were not paid for
participating in the research, travel expenses incurred in relation to the research were reimbursed.
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That was to ensure that some potential participants, especially those who were retired or on a low
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income, would not be deterred from taking part in the research for economic reasons. These
considerations made it possible for the research to include older gay men who were living with
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different forms of disability, and with low or no income, who had generally been marginalised
and often silenced in research.

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As mentioned, every effort was made to ensure that the information shared by the participants
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remains confidential. The researcher was the only person who had access to the recorded
interviews. They were stored in the form of digital audio files on the hard drive of the
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researcher’s personal computer at university, access to which was password protected.

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The researcher saw it as a moral responsibility to make sure that the participants were
comfortable talking about such a personal sphere of their intimate lives and that they felt that
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their feelings were respected in the interviews. It had been anticipated that the research would
involve retelling some difficult episodes in a participant’s life. It did turn out that a few of the
participants wept during the interviews when recalling previous relationships, deceased partners
and traumatic life events. The researcher always consulted them as to whether they would like to
12
take a break in those instances, but the participants all wished to continue. In fact, some
participants even found it therapeutic to talk about difficult experiences. Many emailed to say
that they had enjoyed the interview and would like to keep in touch.
To address the sensitive nature of the topic, participants were constantly reminded and reassured
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of anonymity regarding all interview content. The researcher explicitly reiterated that any
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identifiable names, places and other details would be removed.
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The analysis of this paper focused was on how the older gay men talked about their bodies as
sexual bodies. Guided by the grounded theory approach (Glaser & Strauss, 1967), the themes
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were derived inductively from repeated readings of the participants’ narratives. The technique of
constant comparison (Glaser, 1965) was employed to seek out differences as well as similarities
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among the participants’ views about dating. The process of analysis involved the following
stages: first, open coding of the data line by line, exploring emergent concepts; secondly,
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collapsing similar concepts and highlighting contrasts between the concepts; and thirdly, axial
coding through which categories were linked and connections were made among the data.
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Analytical memos and concept maps were used throughout the process to aid the analysis, noting
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reflections and other remarks. Coding of the data was facilitated by the software NVivo, a
computer programme for qualitative analysis.

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13
Findings
Four themes emerged from the interviews: (i) internalising an ageing body as unattractive; (ii)
idealising younger gay men’s bodies; (iii) ageing body as attractive; (iv) ageing body as
unattractive, but that only applies to others, not me.
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Internalising an ageing body as unattractive
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Many of the older gay men in this study accepted and internalised ageist values in the gay
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community. The central focus of their negativity towards their ageing selves in relation to
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meeting sexual partners was on appearance. Many older single gay men in the study thought that
the body is the overriding, sometimes even the only, criterion in finding a partner among gay
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men (Sergios & Cody, 1986). They described their own ageing bodies as associated with decline
and wearing-out, and hence unattractiveness when it comes to meeting sexual partners. They
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were worried how their bodies would be judged or evaluated. For example, Adam (54) said: ‘It’s
all about how you look. People are judging you immediately on how you look and whether they
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want to get into bed with you…’ He said a gay club is like a ‘meat market’, and is characterised
by shallow, quick, and short-lasting encounters. He said he did not like going to a gay pub
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because he thought he would be perceived as ‘this chubby thing sitting in the corner’ and that he
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would not get served or noticed.
These older gay men who internalised negativity about ageing felt that other men, particularly
younger men, would not be interested in them. Adam, for example, said he was pessimistic: ‘I
don’t really feel I have much to offer someone who is younger because they would want
14
someone of their own age, which is quite reasonable.’ Richard (56) also said that as he got older,
he began to think ‘it’s never going to happen again’: ‘That’s really hard to come to terms with—
losing hope of being in a relationship again. I don’t find guys who look like me at my age
particularly attractive and I never expect anybody else to…’ Adam thought that his appearance
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was unappealing and that he would need to use money to lure someone younger into a
relationship:
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You normally have to have something which kind of draws them in. And that probably is money
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at the end of the day. When you can take them for a meal, buy them some… that’s probably a bit
shallow but it’s gonna be more difficult to engage a younger person.

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As such, some older gay men felt that to meet a partner was almost like chasing ‘an impossible
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dream’. A majority of the research participants believed that their possibility of entering into a
relationship diminished with age. For example, Norman (53) claimed that
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‘the age thing is mega on the gay scene. I don’t know whether it is on the straight scene. But the
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age thing is absolutely mega on the gay scene.’ This led some older gay men who internalised the
age norms to give up the idea of finding a partner. As Ben (62) said, he felt he was ‘too old for
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that now’. Among these men, the loss of self-esteem, in particular sexual self-esteem, was
evident.
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Extending this evaluation of their own bodies to the bodies of other men, they dismissed the
desirability of meeting other men of their own age, let alone men who were older than them, as
potential partners. For example, Nic (59) said:
15
I am very ageist. I don’t like men of my age. (Laughs.) I tend to go for a 30 year old man as
opposed to a 60 year old one ... I met a man in his early 60s... I don’t think he was interested in
me sexually but he asked me to go to a play... and I was hoping he’s not interested in me…
This rather honest account showed that not only was Nic not welcoming someone of his own age
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as a potential partner, but a move from someone older than him was to be resented. To be with
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an older man was portrayed by some participants as compromising, ‘settling for less’, or entering
into a ‘second-class relationship’:
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I have had relationships with people who are older. But I thought I was compromising, you know.
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[In what ways?]

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Because I felt I probably would have preferred someone who is physically more attractive, and
therefore younger… (Laurence, 54)

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In sum, these older gay men internalised the age stigma based on the ageing discourse in the
wider gay community. They evaluated their bodies negatively and hence perceived that they
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would be dismissed as potential partners. Using this standard, not only did they look down on
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their own bodies, but also upon members of their own group—other older gay men—as potential
partners. They described interest shown by other older gay men as something to be resented.
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Internalised ageism was prevalent.
Idealising younger gay men’s bodies
16
In contrast, many older gay men in this study showed a strong preference for younger men as
potential partners. The attractiveness of younger men was often naturalised. The equation of
youth with beauty was referred to as ‘natural’ and ‘given’, taken for granted and unquestioned.
For example, Laurence said: ‘Well I think younger people are more attractive physically. That’s
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just a given.’ [Emphasis added]. While attracting an older man was to be resented, to be able to
attract a younger man was seen by older gay men as an ‘achievement’ and something to be proud
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of: ‘And you know it’s always a bit of an ego massage when a fit 20 something or 30 something
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wants to play around with a 50 something. So there is satisfaction when it happens…’ (Victor,
54). For Victor, to be able to attract a younger gay man would be proof that he is still able to
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attract. He gained satisfaction, as if he had climbed up through the hierarchy. As Ben said:
‘there’s always something quite horny if a nice lively young man happens to take a shine to you
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and you think… hello? (Laughs.)’ Though filled with humour, what Ben showed was a clearly
defined boundary about intergenerational attraction in his mind. To have a ‘nice lively young
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man’ attracted to him was seen as surprising and out of the ordinary.
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Their naturalising and essentialising discourses of youth were noteworthy. The older gay men
emphasised that getting older ‘naturally’ meant becoming less attractive, while younger men
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were ‘naturally’ more attractive and ‘that was a given’. The ageist culture was left unquestioned.
Their preference for younger men could be seen as ‘out group alignment’ (Goffman, 1963: 139).
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Such desire for sexual partners from an ‘outgroup’ has been found among other groups who are
sexually stigmatised. For example, it has been suggested that Asian gay men who have been
subject to racist stereotypes and hence have negative feelings about themselves may idealise
white men as potential partners (Poon & Ho, 2008). Without a conscious awareness of doing so,
17
the older gay men justified the ageist culture in the gay community through a belief in their own
inferiority (Baker, 1983).
Ageing as attractiveness
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In contrast, a small minority of the older single gay men argued that they became more attractive
with age. For example, Justin (53) felt that more people found him attractive at the time of the
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interview compared to when he was in his 40s: ‘[when you are in your 40s] you’re not old
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enough for people to see you as a mature guy… (Laughs) and there are some guys who like
mature guys. It feels like you are invisible in your 40s.’ Nic also said that in his 50s he realised
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that there was a ‘market’ for gay men of ‘different shapes and sizes’:
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I just suddenly, in my early 50s, realised that there are quite a lot of quite young gay men who
really liked older men. And were really turned on… and that even in gay films you will see an
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incredible range of different types… One of the things I discover now getting to this age is in the
gay world, there is a market for everybody. But I didn’t realise that. When I was in my 30s, I
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thought you had to look a particular way. But now I know that there are some men who like
older men and it’s not just the money, they just like older men. There are some people who like
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hairy men. There are some people who like smooth men. I didn’t realise that, but that is the case.
Ac
Nic’s argument above highlights that although many older gay men in this study perceived that
younger gay men would not be attracted to them, such a perception may be an
overgeneralisation, because younger gay men’s age preference in finding a partner may be more
diverse than they believed. Adam (2000) analysed, as a part of a larger study on safer-sex
18
decision-making, the age preference among 102 gay and bisexual men who have sex with men in
Canada. He found that there was considerable diversity among the gay men in terms of their age
preference. Some younger gay men stated a decided preference for older men—and the reasons
such younger men cited include maturity, stability, skills and appreciation, among the other
t
ip
positive attributes that they found desirable in older men. In another study of dating
advertisements posted by gay men, it was found that 35 per cent of gay Asian men, 27 per cent
cr
of gay Hispanic men, and 20 per cent of gay Black men requested older partners; whereas one
us
third of white men requested younger partners, less than one sixth of gay ethnic minority men
requested younger partners (Kaufman & Chin Phua, 2003: 225). Many participants also argued
an
that they became more attractive with age, especially for younger gay men of other ethnicities.
For example, Henry (62) said that although he felt that younger gay English men might not find
M
him attractive, he was confident that meeting gay men from other cultures would not be too
difficult:
ed
I have this belief that as you get older, you become less attractive. But at this party my friends
pt
threw for me, there was this couple, and the younger, very attractive Brazilian guy, said great,
you are looking great… I said I can’t look at my belly, I’ve got a belly. He said it’s gorgeous,
ce
you could put a bit more weight on. I said you are winding me up. I am getting older, I am
getting fatter, I am feeling less attractive. He said better and better. He’s not kidding. I mean
Ac
there are men in… let’s say Chinese… a lot of guys in Malaysia or Thailand, China, I suppose,
where seniority is an attraction.
19
Quite a few older gay men in the study also spoke of having been a tourist in Asian countries and
receiving a warm reception from younger gay men there. It is difficult to determine whether the
older gay men were relying on implicit Orientialist assumptions, often infused with class and
racial disparities between themselves and the younger gay men in the Asian countries visited,
t
ip
when they discussed the younger gay men’s sexual interest in them.
cr
In a way, the older gay men argued that there is an ageing erotic capital that they possess.
Particularly, when it is capitalised with the bargaining power afforded by their ethnicity as white
us
men on the unequal sexual market as compared to men of other ethnicities, their ethnicity trumps
their age in terms of defining their desirability as sexual partners.

an
Defensive othering
M
It was also found that a significant proportion of the older gay men argued that the negative
ed
characteristics attributable to being old applied only to other older gay men, but not to
themselves. For example, Kevin (60) said:

pt
The person that I enjoy going to bed with is somebody who is younger and who is sort of in good
ce
physical shape. It is not directly that I want them to be younger, but I like the physical attributes
which tend to apply to younger people more than to elderly people. You know older people get
Ac
overweight and they get sort of old grey hair and things.
A few things are noteworthy in this paragraph above. Kevin was talking about older people as if
he was referring to others, while he himself was not included in that group. Older people get
overweight and old grey hair, but not him. Kevin was positioning himself over and above other
20
older gay men, as he thought that, unlike them, he was physically attractive. He said: ‘I actually
think of myself as pretty fit, and I am healthy, I am not on pills, not on medication or any other
problems.’ He was claiming the status of the dominant by describing himself as having traits or
behaving in ways similar to the dominant group—younger men.
t
ip
Similarly, Malcolm (64) said that other older gay men were not physically attractive, but not him.
cr
He said he went to saunas regularly, where he occasionally attracted older men in their 50s, but
he would not want to have sex with them, ‘because their bodies are out of shape and they are
us
kind of sexually inept’.
an
So far, Kevin and Malcolm have described older gay men as physically unattractive and sexually
inept. Tom (66) went even further, saying that older gay men have got a smell about them. He
M
said there was a man ten years older than him who went to his place, and was ‘all over him like a
rash’. They eventually had sex but he did not really enjoy it that much:
ed
For some older people, there’s something in the pigmentation of their skin. When they get older
pt
there’s a certain smell. I don’t know if you have ever noticed that… it’s not that they don’t
wash… but there’s an old smell… and this guy had that… after he sort of got me excited I
ce
couldn’t stay hard. I still couldn’t get this out of my head, you know…
Ac
In the above quotes, Kevin, Malcolm and Tom did not only point out that they are different from
older gay men, but that stereotypically negative characteristics—being overweight, having grey
hair, being on pills, being sexually inept, being ‘smelly’ (typically associated with older
people)—were at the root of that difference. The three of them, Kevin, Malcolm and Tom, were
21
sending a message that other older gay men could not ‘live up to’ the standards they set—and
these standards were similar, if not the same, to the ones set by the gay culture privileging youth.
They were basically sending a message that although they were also older in terms of
chronological age, they were better than other older gay men because they were able to meet the
t
ip
standards set by the youth culture.
cr
It was also interesting that many older gay men whom I approached for the study were reluctant
to be called older gay men. Either in email exchanges or at the beginning of the interviews, many
us
of them used humour to manage their engagement in discussions on the topic of ageing, which
they claimed to be irrelevant to them and something that they did not think about until being
an
asked.
M
Some of the interviewees in this study discursively divided older gay men into ‘good older gay
men’, who were themselves, and ‘bad older gay men’, who were the others. The central
ed
distinction between the good and the bad was based on physical attributes. The ‘bad older gay
men’ were those who had ‘given up’. Those older gay men who do not try to stay young are
pt
blamed for their personal misdeeds:

ce
Whether older gay men become invisible after a certain age… I think it depends, of course, on
sort of health and fitness conditioning… it’s how we look and how we look after ourselves, how
Ac
fit we are… I am in my 50s, being able to attract somebody who’s a bit younger… if you are
nice, good shaped and well packaged and what have you, you have a better chance than if you
sort of let yourself go and then wonder why people are not queuing up to have sexual
relationships with you. I’ve never had difficulty there (Victor, my emphasis).
22
It depends a lot on the individual. I see a lot of people of my age who do look like old men
(laughs) and I wouldn’t have any interest in them (Ben).
Victor and Ben put the blame on the individual ‘bad older gay man’ rather than on societal
expectations about the ‘need’ to stay young. Under the regime of a risk society (Beck, 1999),
t
ip
self-care has increasingly come to be seen as an individual responsibility. To look like an older
cr
man is seen as giving up and not working hard enough, as being irresponsible and being lazy,
whereas the resources needed to manage a younger look have been overlooked. In the study,
us
those who perceived themselves as ‘good older gay men’ who were willing and able to meet the
youthful standards suggested that the ‘bad older gay men’ deserved to be treated negatively.
an
By displaying their assimilated status with the young and saying others are too stereotypically
M
old, the older gay men reaffirm the dominant order and ideology privileging youth as legitimate.
Seeking inclusion in this way leads to a reproduction rather than a challenging of the ageist
ed
discourse in the gay community.
Conclusion
pt
ce
In this paper, I have privileged older gay men’s often silenced subjectivity and analysed how
older gay men respond to and shape their ageing experiences in the context of the prevailing
Ac
ageing discourse in the gay community.
It emerged that many older gay men found it difficult to escape the body standard set within the
gay community that marginalises the ageing body. Similar to the observations of previous
23
researches, they judged themselves rather harshly on their physical appearance. Such evaluations
of their own bodies not only affected their self-esteem and sexual esteem, but also affected their
social interactions with other gay men on the gay scene.
That being said, like many other socially oppressed groups, not all older single gay men simply
t
ip
accepted and internalised ageing as negative, but, at the personal level, they actively
cr
reconstructed and recast the meanings of ageing. While previous research has accepted the
diminishing aesthetic appeal of older gay men’s bodies as an incontrovertible fact, this study
us
discovered that a small minority of older single gay men argue that they have become more
attractive with age, which defied the usual negative connotations of ageing among older gay
an
men. This is consistent with the suggestion in the research literature (Adam, 2000; Kaufman &
Chin Phua, 2003) that some younger gay men, particularly those from ethnic minorities, stated a
M
decided preference for older men, due to reasons such as maturity, stability, skills and
ed
appreciation, among the other positive attributes that they found desirable in older men. Indeed,
there are websites such as Caffmoscommunity.com and Silverdaddies.com that are set up for
pt
older gay men and the younger gay men who sexually desire them to get to know each other.
Such age-discrepant desire warrants more research.

ce
This study also moved beyond the duality that saw older gay men as subject to structural
Ac
marginalisation of ageism or possessing agency to interpret ageing in diverse ways. This paper
has documented that the older gay men’s ‘resistance’ of the ageist culture involved ‘defensive
othering’: instead of challenging the stereotypes associated with ageing as unwarranted or
invalid, they exempted themselves from them and argued that the stereotypes associated with
24
ageing only apply to other older gay men but not themselves . Such ‘resistance’ discursively
produced a two-tier system among older gay men: the ‘good older gay men’ and ‘bad older gay
men’, based on whether they could meet the standards set by the youth culture, and older gay
men can be the very source of oppression towards other older gay men. Such a ‘defensive
t
ip
othering’ tactic seemingly allowed them to resist age norms from applying to them personally,
but unintentionally reinforced the ageist discourse in the gay community.
cr
The analysis in this paper contributes to the ‘stock stories articulated by subaltern groups to
us
marginalise other subaltern groups’ (Poon & Ho, 2008) often overlooked. It highlights how
‘subaltern groups help to maintain social inequality by adapting the language of the dominant
an
group to use against other subaltern groups’ (Poon & Ho, 2008).
M
Oppression can be perpetuated ‘through the daily and apparently innocent actions of well-
intentioned people who may not be aware of the social significance of their actions’
ed
(Hirschmann, 2003: 84). In other words, ‘resistance in one direction can be oppression in
another’ (Pile, 1997: 26). As shown in the findings, when some older gay men claim superiority
pt
over others of ‘their own group’, those older gay men who do not live up to the standards set
ce
over their body can risk being marginalised, even by older gay men themselves. In a culture
brimming with self-surveillance and self-discipline, those older gay men who were perceived as
Ac
‘bad older gay men’ were seen as being lazy and as having given up. In such a case, some older
gay men themselves occupy a contradictory position and act as one of the sources of ageism
towards other older gay men.
25
This paper has implications for the provision of service and practice. Ageism has been described
as ‘a threat to ageing well in the 21st century’ (Angus & Reeve, 2006). This article has
documented how internalised ageism can lead to lower sexual self-esteem among older gay men,
and to lower self-esteem in general. There is a need to change how old age is understood, in
t
ip
particular among gay men. Support groups for older gay men can be set up to assist them to
navigate the challenging issues around ageing and body image that they face. Therapists also
cr
need to be aware of the body image issues that older gay men face (Suen, 2015). The gay media
us
have been criticised for the disproportionate featuring of younger bodies, and there is a need for
a broader range of images to be represented. Intergenerational programmes that bring younger
an
gay men and older gay men together could also enhance mutual understanding. These could
hopefully help to eliminate or at least alleviate both ageism in the gay community and
M
internalised ageism among older gay men.
ed
Acknowledgements: I wish to thank Mr. Christopher Fallon for his continuous support and
inspiration.
pt
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Journal of Homosexuality

ISSN: 0091-8369 (Print) 1540-3602 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/wjhm20

Older Single Gay Men’s Body Talk: Resisting

Yiu Tung Suen DPhil, MSc, BSSc

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00918369.2016.1191233

Accepted author version posted online: 18

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Download by: [Athabasca University] Date: 07 June 2016, At: 13:29

Ageing is increasingly recognised as an embodied experience, and the cross-disciplinary

appearance as they age (Sontag, 1972).

twentieth century, eventually leading to the ascendancy of the hypermasculine iconography of

that do not ‘conform’.

(Kaufman & Chin Phua, 2003).

yet possessing agency to interpret ageing in diverse ways.

terms of worry about their appeal in a sexual context.

cosmetic intervention (Slevin & Linneman, 2009).

emotional strength, self-acceptance, age-appropriate bodily display/performance and awareness

ageing bodies, by emphasising their authenticity.

are framed and produced—as suggested by Gramsci’s idea of hegemony—through cultural

osmosis, negative stereotypes and ideologies disseminated as taken-for-granted knowledge in

gay men possessed the agency to interpret ageing in diverse ways.

(1963: 130) described:

most of their lifetime not in a relationship’ as the definition of singlehood.

snowballing. Of the 25 participants, an overwhelming majority—20 (80 per cent) of them—were

the meanings they attached to being single and growing older.

and often silenced in research.

researcher’s personal computer at university, access to which was password protected.

computer programme for qualitative analysis.

unattractive, but that only applies to others, not me.

would not get served or noticed.

shallow but it’s gonna be more difficult to engage a younger person.

potential partners. For example, Nic (59) said:

into a ‘second-class relationship’:

[In what ways?]

therefore younger… (Laurence, 54)

Internalised ageism was prevalent.

Idealising younger gay men’s bodies

inferiority (Baker, 1983).

where seniority is an attraction.

their age in terms of defining their desirability as sexual partners.

themselves. For example, Kevin (60) said:

behaving in ways similar to the dominant group—younger men.

blamed for their personal misdeeds:

(laughs) and I wouldn’t have any interest in them (Ben).

discourse in the gay community.

ageing discourse in the gay community.

social interactions with other gay men on the gay scene.

Such age-discrepant desire warrants more research.

othering’: instead of challenging the stereotypes associated with ageing as unwarranted or

but unintentionally reinforced the ageist discourse in the gay community.

towards other older gay men.

a broader range of images to be represented. Intergenerational programmes that bring younger

Gay Studies, 6(3), 413–433.

Applied Gerontology, 25(2), 137–152.

all-male personal ads. The Journal of Men's Studies, 8, 309–321.

of Homosexuality, 20, 65–76.

Rowman & Littlefield.

intersectionality amongst older LGB adults. Sociology, 44(5), 876–892.

Psychology Review, 6, 31–41.