Leonard, William

Duncan, Duane

Barrett, Catherine

2013

There's an old joke in gay circles that 30 years in gay time is the equivalent of 80 years in straight time : gay men, it seems, are over the hill by the time they hit 30! The joke conjures, as it parodies, a common stereotype of gay men and commercial gay culture, ageist and youth-obsessed, even as it highlights the ways in which being gay is constituted in relation to a heterosexual norm. However this joke is read, it captures the exceptionalism of being gay that is still part of many gay men's lives: sexual oddities within an overwhelmingly heterosexual, if not heterosexist, culture. This exceptionalism may be waning for a new generation of gay and queer young men, at a time when support for same-sex marriage and equal love is on the rise and gay issues are being mainstreamed in many Western countries (Gardiner 2011; Victorian Government Department of Health 2009). But for many middle-aged and older gay men, feelings of exceptionalism have framed their sense of who and what they are, and their place, or lack thereof, in the culture at large.

Aging Men, Masculinities and Modern Medicine, p. 105-120

9780415699389

9780203081372

https://hdl.handle.net/1959.11/17587

en

Routledge

Routledge Studies in the Sociology of Health and Illness

1

What a difference a gay makes: The constitution of the 'older gay man'

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