Gay Men at Midlife
Age Before Beauty
Gay Men at Midlife
Age Before Beauty
Alan L. Ellis, PhD
Editor
First published by
Harrington Park Press, an imprint of The Haworth Press, Inc., 10 Alice Street, Binghamton, NY 13904-1580.
This edition published 2012 by Routledge
Routledge
Taylor & Francis Group
711 Third Avenue
New York, NY 10017
Routledge
Taylor & Francis Group
2 Park Square, Milton Park
Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
2001 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, microfilm, and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Cover design by Marylouise E. Doyle.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Gay men at midlife : age before beauty / [edited by] Alan L. Ellis.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 1-56023-979-4 (hard : alk. paper) ISBN 1-56023-980-8 (soft : alk. paper)
1. Middle aged gay menAttitudes. 2. Middle aged gay menPsychology. 3. Middle aged gay menMortality. 4. Self-esteem in men. I. Ellis, Alan L.
HQ76.14.G39 2000
305.244dc21
00-033535
To the memories of Tom Baranauskas, Paul Edward Johnson, Arthur Fisher, Dan Mynear, Steve Gallagher, and the many others who didnt get the chance to experience life as gay men in their middle years.
CONTENTS
Alan L. Ellis
Tom Moon
Alan L. Ellis
Stephen W. Goodin
Alejandro Medina-Bermdez
Kevin G. Barnhurst
Craig Watters
George Pierson
Michael Ross
Frank Wong
Trevor Southey
Michael Segovia
Jeff Siebert
Christopher K. Bramwell
Mark M. Harris
Armand R. Cerbone
Alan L. Ellis, PhD, is the author of several books, including Sexual Identity on the Job: Issues and Services (Haworth), A Family and Friends Guide to Sexual Orientation, and A Managers Guide to Sexual Orientation in the Workplace. He is also the author of numerous articles and chapters, including the chapter on sexual orientation in the just-released graduate-level textbook Psychological Perspectives on Human Sexuality. He is currently co-chair of the Harvey Milk Institute in San Francisco, the largest community-based queer studies program on the planet.
Dr. Ellis is a member of the editorial boards of the Journal of Homosexuality and the Journal of Gay & Lesbian Social Services. He is Senior Research Associate at the Center for Research and Education in Sexuality (CERES) at San Francisco State University. He received his PhD in psychology from the University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign.
Kevin G. Barnhurst, PhD, teaches media studies at the University of IllinoisChicago and serves on the National Research Advisory Board for GLAAD.
Christopher K. Bramwell, MA, is based in Washington, DC, and is an evaluation consultant for international clients. He recently completed his graduate degree at Harvard University.
Armand R. Cerbone, PhD, is a psychologist in private practice in Chicago. He is a recipient of the Distinguished Professional Contribution Award of the Society for the Psychological Study of Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Issues of the American Psychological Association.
Stephen W. Goodin is a Wide Area Network (WAN) engineer for a Fortune 500 financial services organization in Marin County, California.
Mark M. Harris, PhD, is a psychologist. He is senior staff member at the Counseling Service of the University of Iowa.
Alejandro Medina-Bermdez, PhD (candidate), teaches philosophy and literature at Syracuse University in Madrid, Spain.
Tom Moon, MFT, is a psychotherapist in private practice in San Francisco. His popular column, The Examined Life appears monthly in the San Francisco edition of Frontiers.
George Pierson is a television executive. He has worked for ABC, NBC, HBO, and currently leads a creative group for Discovery Communications in Bethesda, Maryland.
Michael Ross, PhD, is Professor of Public Health and Infectious Diseases at the University of Texas (Houston Health Science Center). He is author of nearly 300 publications, including thirteen books, on sexuality, sexually transmitted diseases, and HIV.
Michael Segovia, MA, is a marketing and public relations manager for a publishing firm in Palo Alto, California. He holds a master of arts degree in clinical psychology.
Jeff Siebert, PhD, is a member of the staff and faculty of the Foundation for A Course in Miracles in Roscoe, New York. He has been involved in teaching the course for the past five years.
Trevor Southey is originally from Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and is an artist living in the Bay Area. His media are varied and his artistic direction is rooted in the Italian Renaissance while exploring his own experience within the framework of his time.
Craig Watters, PhD (candidate), is a doctoral candidate at Syracuse University, New York, in Social Science, Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs.
Frank Wong, PhD, a first-generation Asian American, lives with his family (one dog and four cats) in the country, two hours from New York City. Born an activist and trained as a social psychologist, Frank does community-based research that serves ex-offenders as well as the immigrant and refugee communities in New York City.
This book represents a collective effort. I wish to thank each of the contributors for their willingness and courage to explore and reveal the challenges and joys they face as gay men over the age of forty. I also wish to thank David Attyah, David Brightman, Steve Filandrinos, Jonathan Ford, Randy Huff, Warren Longmire, Tom Metz, Robert Mitchell, John Saccoman, and Geoffery Weiss for their comments on various drafts of portions of the book, I especially wish to thank John De Cecco for his ongoing support of this and other similar works.
Alan L. Ellis
Everyone was a God, and no one grew old in a single night No, it took years for that to happen ...
Andrew Holleran, Dancer from the Dance
Dancer from the Dance was published in 1978, and while those of us now in our forties and fifties didnt grow old in a single night, two decades passed, and we did grow older. In those twenty-some-odd years, the gay community matured as well. Considerable progress has been made toward altering many of the negative stereotypes about gay men and other members of the queer community. However, we still live in a homophobic and heterosexist society. When we combine negative biases about homosexuality with similarly negative biases about aging, we are left to confront a societal script for aging gay men that tends to propagate a stereotype of isolated and alienated individuals. It is a script in which isolation, bitterness, and regret multiply with age. One of the choices many of us as gay men face is whether to live out a script that society wishes to impose on us or to empower ourselves to write our own.
Clearly, its not an easy task. Both straight and gay writers have reinforced the concept of the lonely and bitter aging gay male throughout our lifetimes. Andrew Hollerans recent book
