From: anderson@macc.wisc.edu (Jess Anderson)
Subject: Re: Age-ism and the gay community
Organization: Madison Academic Computing Center, UW-Madison
Date: Sun, 20 Dec 92 17:21:22 GMT


In article <1992Dec20.123132.19229@reed.edu> nelson@reed.edu
(Nelson Minar) writes:

>I'm glad this topic has come up.  It's something I've
>thought about a fair amount, but I've been uncomfortable
>discussing it until now.  I've been writing this article for
>two years.

Preamble 1: The key concept here, I think, is that every
person is in reality a special case.  Notwithstanding that,
there are valid or reasonably valid generalizations one can
make; perhaps "useful" is a better word than "valid" in this
context.  But many generalizations about age and age
differences are, as people seem to be agreeing, highly
questionable if not outright ridiculous.

Preamble 2: Nelson is a quite special special case, in my
view.  Some of what he's talking about here we've been over
together by email, and some is quite new to my eyes.  So in
part I'm responding to the group fully aware that I've said
some of these things to Nelson himself already.  He will be
able to separate the old (to him) remarks from the new ones.
But as one or two things I say might make him wince, I ask
forgivenness in advance for that.

Preamble 3: The most obvious of all facts on this topic
(hence the most often overlooked) is that people who are
older have been young, while the converse is not true.  On
the other hand, it's also true that it's a very different
world that those 20 grow up in, compared to the world that
obtained when I was 20, so old people don't know
*everything* about being younger.  Nevertheless, old people
know things -- important things -- that young people
literally cannot imagine.  Or so I think, having found again
and again that I had no idea what being old would be like;
it was *definitely* nothing like I thought it would be.
Indeed it's an on-going discovery process.

Preamble 4: Discovery and a sense of adventure and enjoyment
in discovery are, I think, the strongest yet most flexible
of intergenerational glues.

(Whew!)

>(I almost feel like I'm coming out again..)

I hope it's more like discovery mode than falling off a
cliff mode.

>The long message: I've formed friendships with people much
>older than me since as long as I can remember.  Several of
>my closer friends in high school were teachers.  Most of my
>other friends were from a group of people in their twenties
>and thirties.  I only had a few friends of my own age.

Pop sociology suggests that around the time of puberty, kids
experience enormous social pressure to conform.  Some resist
(usually at a high cost in alienation), but most do not.
Within five years, however, many (it seems to me the more
talented ones, but that's a bias I have, not a fact) start
to pull away from this conforming shell and strike out to
discover who they *really* are.

This process often accelerates and concentrates itself to
the point where by 20 or so, everything is a blur.  One
cannot live long with *no* fixed stars in the
constellations, so to speak.  So what do we find?  Older
people, sometimes only three or four years older, not *too*
unlike ourselves, but seemingly more stable, assured, mature
than we ourselves.  (This is in great part an illusion, but
we can't know that yet.)

>I find that the erotic imagery that appeals to me the most
>is usually that of "older men".  I like grey beards.  I
>don't care for cute young twinks with "perfect" muscles.

Permit me to defend both sides of the fence (again).  There
are, one's personal tastes to one side, plenty of things to
admire about people of all ages.  It strikes me as every bit
as silly (sorry) to reject either as to embrace either to
the exclusion of the other.  Hairlessness is in the genes;
why hold someone accountable?  I didn't shave until I was
19, and I have no noticeable thatch of body hair until I was
25.  I object to the term "twink" (Larry Stratton takes this
for a name, of all things) every bit as much as the term
"troll." In terms of physique, there are qualities to the
skin and muscle tone of 20-year-olds that are forever lost
to those past 40.  As the old saying goes, we sometimes
don't miss things until they're gone.

None of these things is an absolute, and I'm certainly not
suggesting that there's anything wrong with liking what you
like.  There *is* something wrong, though, with not liking
what others like, with being pointlessly judgmental.  If we
intend to complain when it works one way, we should be
prepared to complain when it works the other.

>I'm not really interested in "daddy/son" relationships.  I
>don't have problem with people who like that sort of thing,
>but it doesn't fulfill what I need in a romantic
>relationship.  What I want requires an equality that I would
>not label "daddy/son".

A major part of intergenerational relationships (what a
clinical phrase), I think, is bound up with dependencies of
various kinds.  People have every kind of reason under the
sun for what they do.  I've had relationships with people
nearly 30 years younger than me, as well as with people 25
years older than me.  I took up with a lovely 19-year-old
when I was 39; his father, who was three years younger than
I, had just died suddenly.  He needed a fixed star and just
then I needed a hot young star; we matched perfectly, and
for the 3.5 years it lasted it was one of the most loving
relationships I've ever had.

Quite in parallel with the sort of judgmental attitudes
Nelson is talking about and the complaints of the original
poster in this thread (Brandon), there is an opposite kind
of prejudice.  When I took up with Steven, everyone who knew
me (a lot of people, I was socially extremely active in
those days) clucked either into my face or behind my back.

>I do not like it when a man (usually older) demonstrates a
>sexual interest in me because I am young.  I hate the term
>"chicken" - I think it is fundamentally demeaning.  I'm glad

Yet you said "twink" yourself.  Not consistent.

>when people think I'm sexy, and if part of the reason they
>think I'm sexy is because I'm young, great.  I do not like
>it when people try to acquire me because I'm young and
>therefore supposedly desirable.  I don't like it: I want to
>be treated with respect.

Being "acquired," at any age, is demeaning, isn't it?  I
might chase you just because you have some pep; most people
my age don't.  Hell, *I* don't!  :-) If it turns out (as in
your case it amply does) that you also have lots to offer,
so much the better.  When I met Steven, I was on the rebound
from a crashed affair, actually quite broken-hearted, and
there he was, being leered at in a bar by a line of (you
guessed it) trolls.  What could I do but rescue him by
asking him to dance?  I didn't do it because he was a
talented artist, or because he had a monster dick, or
because he was like me a druggie, or because we would become
such great lovers (none of which I knew about), but because
he was drop-dead gorgeous, with a lovely full beard and
silken hair down to his shoulders (this was 1974).

>I resent the claim that younger men interested in older men
>are only looking for father figures.  I find this theory to
>be as repugnant as the idea that queer men are afraid of
>women.

And I find it repugnant that people who are older routinely
have to face the claim that we're trying to recover our lost
youth.  Apart from a very few things, I wouldn't trade places
with you for the world, though (since I had such flawless
skin) great skin would be nice, a hard body would be nice,
endless reserves of energy would be nice; but not nice
enough to give up what the intervening 37 years have taught
me that you won't know until your own 37 years have gone by.

>My tastes are not exclusive.  In fact, most of my lovers
>have been about five years older than I, not the twenty or
>thirty I'm talking about in this posting.

The gap tends to be narrower when one is young and wider
when one is old, exceptions notwithstanding.  In part for
demographic reasons.  This is especially so in college towns
like the three I have lived in my whole life, a factor
in your present life as well, apparently.

>I haven't had many opportunities to pursue my interest in
>"older men".  One of the main reasons is lack of
>availability - most of my time is spent on a college campus
>full of people in their early 20s.  I haven't found the time
>to get very involved in the Portland lesbigay community.

Well, I have been involved in the LGB community here for
more than 35 years, and it didn't seem to make *that* much
difference.  Where there really is a difference, I'm sure, is
in cities, large cities.  There, there's a large and varied
set of options centered in every age bracket, whereas a
certain critical mass seems to be lacking in smaller cities
(under 500,000) like mine.  My age peers (somewhere between
40 and death, to quote Auntie Mame) are not especially in
the marketplace of eligibles.

Then too, older people are hard to relate to.  If I didn't
live with me, I surely wouldn't want to.  Too demanding,
won't put up with the least shit from anybody, too quick and
too wise to be swept away by nonsense, and certainly
unwilling to sell out my independence even for a cute butt.
Even less to be jerked around by a smartass.  

Besides, young people have to talk about everything, which
can be very tiresome; later on, understanding is a matter of
glances or wry smiles.  Young people want to *know* things,
whereas anyone who's old knows perfectly well such things
*can't* be known, raises their eyes to heaven and looks
forward to a good dump more than to a good fuck.

>It's much harder for me to tell people that I'm interested
>in "older men".  It's especially hard for me when the person
>I am telling is near my own age.

There's no prude like a youth, unless it's the prudery of
those who've done everything seamy on earth and would be
mortified if people knew about it.

>Presbyphilia (thanks, Steve, for the great word) seems to
>tread across some deep-seated social taboo that I don't
>understand.  What is so titillating about the idea of an
>intergenerational relationship?  They seem perfectly natural
>to me.  Why is it shocking?

It's all about incest, probably, at least in this culture.

>From time to time I'll mention Robert to some of my friends
>at Reed, friends my own age.  When I talk about him, I get
>nervous when personal details are discussed because they
>make it clear that Robert is not my age.  I've actually lied
>about Robert's age to avoid having to deal with a possible
>negative reaction.  I felt bad about it: it seems a lot like
>changing pronouns so someone doesn't think you're queer.

This you must resist with all your might; it's an awful
self-distortion no matter how practical and analgesic it
may be to shade the truth.

>In contrast, no one on motss has ever been obnoxious to me
>about the difference in the ages between Robert and me.  No
>one said a thing at the con, nothing negative on motss,
>nothing in mail.  If people even notice, it seems they don't
>care.  I find this acceptance to be wonderfully refreshing:
>it makes it much easier to post this article.  Thank you.

Give some credit in these things, if you please, to
yourself.  You are a very winning person.  As you know, we
have many times disagreed, but never disagreeably.  Contrast
that to examples abounding hereabouts for people half again
your age.

>Why is so little written on this topic?  Most of the writing
>I've seen about older gay men is depressing ageist crap.  I
>haven't seen anything at all about intergenerational
>relationships.  There are lots of issues: how can it be that
>no one has written about them?

I believe this *has* been written about, but I've not read any
of it.

>For that matter, why is all porn about 20 year old boys with
>no body hair and perfect gym muscles?  *Boring*.  

Not at all boring to the people it doesn't bore.  The
majority of 20-year-old men are incapable of having body
hair in any great amount; this makes the exceptions quite
special, indeed.  There's no doubt the consumers of gay male
porn go more than a bit overboard with bodies and bare
chests, not to mention shaved balls and waxed assholes.

>Bear
>magazine seems to have a few models who are over 30, but
>still nothing like what I'm interested in.  There has to be
>erotica/porn featuring "older men" - but where?

You could supply it, maybe.

>Now, a few bits of response:

>In article <1992Dec18.021033.13179@bsu-ucs>
>00bbharris@leo.bsuvc.bsu.edu writes:

>>Nor are my interests solely within the generation i just
>>happened to be born in.

>This is one of the nicer things about soc.motss for me, the
>fact that I can interact with queer people of all ages.
>It's not so much that our ages don't matter: they certainly
>do.  But it only matters for those things that it should
>matter for: what we've experienced, what our perspective on
>the world is, etc.

This is a very wise response, I think.

>>Why is the criteria for gay men over the age of 21 is to
>>find a man over the age of 21?

>Some people make the mistake of assuming that the sheer
>number of years you've lived is more important that
>age-related characteristics of your personality like
>maturity, experience, etc.  It's stupid, but then again a
>lot of people act dumb.

Yes but.  While it may be paradoxical (old people deal with
paradox much more easily than young ones do), the sheer
number of years you have lived *is* important, important
enough that the comparison implicit in your remark misses an
essential point.  Quite often, and in many departments, time
*alone* is the seer, the teacher, the mentor, the revealer
of all.  Maturity, personality, and experience are very
important things, but they are not the *only* things.  To
compare the incomparable is folly.

>Another issue I've run into is that some gay men are very
>uncomfortable associating with people under 21 because they
>are afraid of serious legal or social reprocussions.  This
>is an unfortunate fact of life.  It gets even more
>complicated when the person is not quite yet 18.  A lot of
>people who are almost 18 are mature enough to be having
>sexual relationships, but the law often forbids it.  This
>can be bad news.

It's a risk I'm prepared to run.  :-) Actually, I'm not.
But it isn't the age issue so much as the more typical lack
of a common basis in interests and experiences.  I don't
have many years left on this planet and that fundamentally
changes one's perspective about what counts.

>>I just really want to know why this sort of Age-ism exist
>>within the gay community.  As oppressed as we are as a
>>whole, why would we in turn suppress another group for
>>something we cannot help.

>Maybe for the same reasons other prejudices exist in the gay
>community, because as "oppressed" as we may be we are still
>human?

I'm sure ytou don't mean to excuse it, however.

>Ageism is peculiar.  Age is a reasonably valid way of
>judging people.  Personality is partially maturity, and
>maturity is frequently dependent on chronological age.

(No wonder I like you!)

>But there's a lot of room for equal relationships between
>people of differing ages.  I'm glad for this.  Still,
>intergenerational relationships seem to have societal
>baggage associated that I really could do without.

You and me both, dear Nelson.

<> Sanity is a cozy lie. -- Susan Sontag
-- 
[Jess Anderson <> Madison Academic Computing Center <> University of Wisconsin]
[Internet: anderson@macc.wisc.edu <-best, UUCP:{}!uwvax!macc.wisc.edu!anderson]
[Room 3130 <> 1210 West Dayton Street / Madison WI 53706 <> Phone 608/262-5888]
[---------> Discrimination, Bigotry, and Hate are not Family Values <---------]