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

Abstract

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.