Older Single Gay Men’s Body Talk: Resisting and Rigidifying the Ageing Discourse in the Gay Community

• In Event: 525 - Regular Session. Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender 2

Abstract

Previous research saw older gay men as either subject to structural marginalization of ageism or 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 discourse in the gay community. Informed by grounded theory, interviews with 25 self-identified single gay men aged 50 or above in England were analysed inductively. It emerged that many 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 two-tier system: they themselves as the ‘good older gay men’, as opposed to the other ‘bad older 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.

Author

• Yiu-Tung Suen, Chinese University of Hong Kong