‘In gay years, you’re rather past your sell-by date, aren’t you?’ the person ont of me said, raisg an eyebrow.
Contents:
- GAY, MIDDLE-AGED, AND LONELY AS HELL
- I’M 43 – BUT I’M MA TO FEEL LIKE A DOSR BY YOUNGER GAY MEN
- HOW TO COPE WHEN YOU'RE GAY AND LONELY
- SAVAGE LOVE: I AM A LONELY, AGG GAY MAN; WHAT SHOULD I DO?
- THE LONELS OF BEG GAY A STRAIGHT MARRIAGE
- A GAY MAN AT MIDLIFE PONRS BEG LONELY AND ‘INVISIBLE’
- GAY AND CAN'T FD A PARTNER?
GAY, MIDDLE-AGED, AND LONELY AS HELL
* i'm a lonely gay man *
In our lifetime, the gay muny has ma more progrs on legal and social acceptance than any other mographic group history. As recently as my own adolcence, gay marriage was a distant aspiratn, somethg newspapers still put sre quot. Still, even as we celebrate the sle and speed of this change, the rat of prsn, lonels and substance abe the gay muny rema stuck the same place they’ve been for s.
Gay people are now, pendg on the study, between 2 and 10 tim more likely than straight people to take their own liv. In a survey of gay men who recently arrived New York Cy, three-quarters suffered om anxiety or prsn, abed dgs or alhol or were havg risky sex—or some batn of the three. Dpe all the talk of our “chosen fai, ” gay men have fewer close iends than straight people or gay women.
“Marriage equaly and the chang legal stat were an improvement for some gay men, ” says Christopher Stults, a rearcher at New York Universy who studi the differenc mental health between gay and straight men. In the Netherlands, where gay marriage has been legal sce 2001, gay men rema three tim more likely to suffer om a mood disorr than straight men, and 10 tim more likely to engage “suicidal self-harm. TTravis Salway, a rearcher wh the BC Centre for Disease Control Vanuver, has spent the last five years tryg to figure out why gay men keep killg themselv.
I’M 43 – BUT I’M MA TO FEEL LIKE A DOSR BY YOUNGER GAY MEN
I am a gay man my late 50s and have never been a relatnship. I am so lonely, and the paful empts I feel is beg absolutely unbearable. * i'm a lonely gay man *
“But now you’ve got lns of gay men who have e out of the closet and they still feel the same isolatn. By the late 2000s, he was a social worker and epimlogist and, like me, was stck by the growg distance between his straight and gay iends. When the dispary first me to light the ’50s and ’60s, doctors thought was a symptom of homosexualy self, jt one of many maniftatns of what was, at the time, known as “sexual versn.
” As the gay rights movement gaed steam, though, homosexualy disappeared om the DSM and the explanatn shifted to trma. “That was the ia I had, too, ” Salway says, “that gay suici was a product of a bygone era, or was ncentrated among adolcents who didn’t see any other way out. The problem wasn’t jt suici, wasn’t jt afflictg teenagers and wasn’t jt happeng areas staed by homophobia.
He found that gay men everywhere, at every age, have higher rat of rdvascular disease, ncer, ntence, erectile dysfunctn, allergi and asthma—you name , we got . In Canada, Salway eventually disvered, more gay men were dyg om suici than om AIDS, and had been for years. “We see gay men who have never been sexually or physilly asslted wh siar post-trmatic strs symptoms to people who have been bat suatns or who have been raped, ” says Alex Kroghlian, a psychiatrist at the Fenway Instute’s Center for Populatn Rearch LGBT Health.
HOW TO COPE WHEN YOU'RE GAY AND LONELY
To be a gay man a straight marriage is to be disnnected om self. Let's read my iend Andrew Reid's story. * i'm a lonely gay man *
Sce he looked to the data, Salway has started terviewg gay men who attempted suici and survived. “When you ask them why they tried to kill themselv, ” he says, “most of them don’t mentn anythg at all about beg gay.
SAVAGE LOVE: I AM A LONELY, AGG GAY MAN; WHAT SHOULD I DO?
Advice on how to nont ageism the gay muny spe earlier loss and how to avoid beg alone. * i'm a lonely gay man *
“The trma for gay men is the prolonged nature of , ” says William Elr, a sexual trma rearcher and psychologist. By the time he got to high school, Adam had learned to manage his mannerisms so well that no one spected him of beg gay.
THE LONELS OF BEG GAY A STRAIGHT MARRIAGE
And I kept nyg was a problem bee I had always told myself, ‘I’ve e out, I moved to San Francis, I’m done, I did what I had to do as a gay person.
For s, this is what psychologists thought, too: that the key stag inty formatn for gay men all led up to g out, that once we were fally fortable wh ourselv, we uld beg buildg a life wh a muny of people who’d gone through the same thg. “It’s like you emerge om the closet expectg to be this butterfly and the gay muny jt slaps the ialism out of you, ” Adam says. You go om your mom’s hoe to a gay club where a lot of people are on dgs and ’s like, this is my muny?
“I me out when I was 17, and I didn’t see a place for myself the gay scene, ” says Pl, a software veloper. It got so bad that I ed to go to the grocery store that was 40 mut away stead of the one that was 10 mut away jt bee I was so aaid to walk down the gay street.
A GAY MAN AT MIDLIFE PONRS BEG LONELY AND ‘INVISIBLE’
Every gay man I know rri around a mental portfol of all the shty thgs other gay men have said and done to him.
Several studi have found that livg gay neighborhoods predicts higher rat of risky sex and meth e and ls time spent on other muny activi like volunteerg or playg sports.
A 2009 study suggted that gay men who were more lked to the gay muny were ls satisfied wh their own romantic relatnships. “Gay and bisexual men talk about the gay muny as a signifint source of strs their liv, ” Pachankis says.
GAY AND CAN'T FD A PARTNER?
The rearchers I spoke to explaed that gay guys flict this kd of damage on each other for two ma reasons.
The first, and the one I heard most equently, is that gay men are shty to each other bee, basilly, we’re men. Acrdg to Dane Whicker, a clil psychologist and rearcher at De, most gay men report that they want to date someone mascule, and that they wished they acted more mascule themselv. Or maybe ’s ternalized homophobia: Feme gay men are still stereotyped as bottoms, the receptive partner anal sex.
A two-year longudal study found that the longer gay men were out of the closet, the more likely they were to bee versatile or tops. Rearchers say this kd of trag, liberately tryg to appear more mascule and takg on a different sex role, is jt one of the ways gay men prsure each other to atta “sexual pal, ” the equivalent of gog to the gym or pluckg our eyebrows. So, his sophomore year, he started watchg his male teachers for their flt posns, liberately standg wh his feet wi, his arms at his sis.