About the time I turned 42, my therapist delivered an ultimatum. If I didn’t agree to become sexually and romantically abstinent for a year, he wouldn’t continue to see me. It seems that the compulsions of my midlife crisis were inhibiting my transformation into a mature, middle-aged gay man ― otherwise known among the young as a respectable dead person.
I agonized for a week. Mental health or lots of random dick? Adapting to middle age or lots more crazed adolescent romance? I decided to give abstinence a try and I spent most of my spare time that year in the bathtub with scented candles. But I also enrolled in grad school for a new career in psychology. I spent half my time for two years interning on the West Coast. I wrote three weekly columns, did radio work and conducted workshops. I ramped up my already obsessive workouts at the gym. You need biceps to masturbate.
It really was a time of huge positive change. Childhood shapes much of life, but there comes a time, typically between 40 and 55, when the parts of us that have been denied expression come raging out of the closet of lifelong repression. It’s an opportunity for true transformation…or total lunacy. Usually both.
The typical lunacy is the sexual and romantic stuff that my therapist effectively banned. It would have been hard to find my way into a new career while I was moving a new man into my apartment every seven weeks. No, not everyone who hits midlife needs abstinence. Some of us just go way crazier than others. (And, yes, my therapists’s ban was temporary.)
Gay men really are special in this respect. We grow up hearing that our bodies, the source of the sexual desire that makes us different, are inherently evil. That’s why, in the years of “gay liberation,” having lots of sex was literally considered a self-affirming act of civil disobedience (just as it was among feminists of the time). We appropriated the stereotypical markers of blue-collar masculinity ― jeans, flannel shirts, buzz cuts, and facial hair ― and flooded gyms to get pecs and abs to exhibit on dance floors while we tapped tambourines. It was kinda campy and kinda hot.
This particular aspect of gay culture ― the obsession with youth, masculinity and beauty ― has grown only more intense. Where once gay retirees typically moved into the well-known closet of invisibility, you can now move to Fort Lauderdale or Palm Springs, go on testosterone replacement therapy, pop Viagra, rip your shirt off, and dance to the Village People at 7 p.m. ― just before your bedtime. Personally, I’d rather die prematurely than retire in FTL, but, really, you can live your second adolescence anywhere now, including cyberslums like Manhunt, Adam 4 Adam, Scruff, and – quelle horreur! – Silver Daddies, where old age is a fetish.
Aging does bring health problems and ― in case you forgot ― death. But the healthcare industry has become ever more adept at medicalizing the cosmetic and sexual effects of aging. A couple of weeks ago, I counted 12 ads in David and Fenuxe magazines for services to eliminate those unsightly sags, bags and wrinkles. Meanwhile, I didn’t see a single man who looked much over 40 in the magazines’ candid photos.
There is nothing inherently wrong with struggling to maintain youthful looks and a fully functioning penis, of course. The problem is how common vanity misdirects us. The New York Times told a heartbreaking story in that respect two years ago when it reported the death of Bob Bergeron, 49, a gay psychotherapist, who killed himself just before publication of his self-help book,“The Right Side of Forty: The Complete Guide to Happiness for Gay Men at Midlife and Beyond.”Bergeron’s suicide note included an arrow pointed toward the title page of his book with the words:“It’s a lie based on bad information.”
Sorry to say, but I think his note was correct to a great extent. If you look up videos of Bergeron giving talks on the subject, you quickly realize his book was the result of his own struggle to adapt to losing the status of “pretty boy.”Fine, but his recommendations aren’t really about changing self image, becoming an elder. They’re about how to hold onto the values associated with being hot and young.
An inquiry into what it means to be gay, out and older is finally stirring, but the vast majority of it is motivated by the same thinking. Check out episodes of the Branch TV series, “Golden Gays”or the ongoing web video series,“Old Dogs and New Tricks.” Both, but especially“Golden Gays,”include virtually no self-reflection in their stories of maintaining a desperate hold on youth and beauty. Sure, it’s trashy irreality programming, but would it hurt to add the depth of, say, “Duck Dynasty”?
Les Bouska, a self-styled“total image expert”who owns Atlanta Hair Studio, offers a different attitude toward aging that doesn’t totally eclipse brain function. He’s an advocate of cosmetic work, of course:“There is no need for any man that does not want to look his age to do so. We have countless options available to prevent or erase the visible signs of aging.”
I think that’s a bit of an exaggeration, and it doesn’t mention the high prices involved. But he’s also engaged in spiritual and recreational practices that include sex. He hosts the monthly Atlanta Jacks sex club, for example, where his concern, above all, is creating a space “without judgment” for men to engage in safe sex.“Any man,”he says,“that has the balls to strip down and walk in that room is welcome. Age, race, size, shape, or any other physical trait is secondary to the energy he brings to the group.”Thus sex retains its importance but minus the competitive vanity that can make aging miserable enough to provoke suicide.
There are also alternative social groups around town, like the Atlanta Prime Timers. SAGE Atlanta offers assistance to aging LGBT people.
None of us ― obviously including me ― is immune to the wish to be awash in the fountain of gay youth. But there comes the point when you’ve really got to find a new moisturizer.
Cliff Bostock, PhD, offers workshops and individual work in various personal growth topics, including gay aging. See his websites, cliffbostock.com and gayaging.wordpress.com.
‘Golden Gays’
www.slice.ca/video/#golden-gays/video
‘Old Dogs and New Tricks’
www.olddogsnewtrickstheseries.com/aboutus.html
Atlanta Jacks
http://ca.groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/atlanta_jacks/info
Atlanta Prime Timers
www.atlantaprimetimers.com