Wider Slider Bars: Navigating Sexuality for Older Queer Women in the Bay Area of California

• In Event: 1569 - Sexual Body Politics (Cosponsored with Section on Body and Embodiment)

Abstract

Research has shown that queer (lesbian and bisexual) women, specifically lesbians, experience more body satisfaction and less drive for thinness than most heterosexual women. However, most research on older queer women has been focused exclusively on body image rather its intersections with sexuality and has also been primarily conducted with White women. This study sought to fill those gaps by exploring what queer women of size over age 40 think about their bodies and their embodied sexualities in particular. It also asks what community, cultural and medical norms may influence these perceptions. Drawing participants from a larger health program study, 28 qualitative, in-depth interviews were conducted from 2014-2015 with cisgender women over age 40 who identified as lesbian, bisexual, or queer. The sample of women was more diverse than previous studies in terms of race (53% White, 47% women of color) with a median age of 53 (range 43-70). Participants described the push and pull of body size norms with the lesbian community specifically. While community norms dictated increased acceptance of larger body size, broader social norms and shifting health realities of aging made women desire and pursue smaller bodies for themselves and for their romantic partners. This push and pull may indicate a shift in queer women’s culture away from blanket body size acceptance and the protections of body size norms described in previous work on this community.

Author

• Natalie Ingraham, California State University-East Bay