Where are all the lonely gay men?

Contents:

• HOW TO COPE WHEN YOU'RE GAY AND LONELY
• GAY LONELS IS THE SILENT EPIMIC FACG THE QUEER COMMUNY
• I’M 43 – BUT I’M MA TO FEEL LIKE A DOSR BY YOUNGER GAY MEN
• A GAY MAN AT MIDLIFE PONRS BEG LONELY AND ‘INVISIBLE’
• WHERE ARE ALL THE LONELY GAY MEN?
• JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS ASSISTANT KEV MAXEN BE FIRST MALE ACH MAJOR U.S. PRO LEAGUE TO E OUT AS GAY
• GAY, MIDDLE-AGED, AND LONELY AS HELL
• SAVAGE LOVE: I AM A LONELY, AGG GAY MAN; WHAT SHOULD I DO?
• JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS ASSISTANT COACH KEV MAXEN MAK HISTORY AFTER COMG OUT AS GAY

HOW TO COPE WHEN YOU'RE GAY AND LONELY

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.

GAY LONELS IS THE SILENT EPIMIC FACG THE QUEER COMMUNY

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.

I’M 43 – BUT I’M MA TO FEEL LIKE A DOSR BY YOUNGER GAY MEN

“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.

A GAY MAN AT MIDLIFE PONRS BEG LONELY AND ‘INVISIBLE’

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.

WHERE ARE ALL THE LONELY GAY MEN?

“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 .

“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. “When you ask them why they tried to kill themselv, ” he says, “most of them don’t mentn anythg at all about beg gay.

“The trma for gay men is the prolonged nature of , ” says William Elr, a sexual trma rearcher and psychologist.

JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS ASSISTANT KEV MAXEN BE FIRST MALE ACH MAJOR U.S. PRO LEAGUE TO E OUT AS GAY

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.

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.

GAY, MIDDLE-AGED, AND LONELY AS HELL

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. 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. 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.

SAVAGE LOVE: I AM A LONELY, AGG GAY MAN; WHAT SHOULD I DO?

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. The send reason the gay muny acts as a unique strsor on s members is not about why we reject each other, but how.

In the last 10 years, tradnal gay spac—bars, nightclubs, bathho—have begun to disappear, and have been replaced by social media. Usually when you hear about the shockg primacy of hookup apps gay life—Grdr, the most popular, says s average er spends 90 mut per day on —’s some panicked media story about murrers or homophob trawlg them for victims, or about the troublg “chemsex” scen that have spng up London and New York. But the real effect of the apps is quieter, ls remarked-upon and, a way, more profound: For many of , they have bee the primary way we teract wh other gay people.

JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS ASSISTANT COACH KEV MAXEN MAK HISTORY AFTER COMG OUT AS GAY

The worst thg about the apps, though, and why they’re relevant to the health dispary between gay and straight men, is not jt that we e them a lot. In terviews that Elr, the post-trmatic strs rearcher, nducted wh gay men 2015, he found that 90 percent said they wanted a partner who was tall, young, whe, mcular and mascule. Walt Ots, a psychologist who’s been wrg about social isolatn sce the 1980s, says that gay men ed to be troubled by the bathho the same way they are troubled by Grdr now.

The gay men I terviewed talked about the datg apps the same way straight people talk about Comst: It sucks, but what are you gonna do? “We often live our liv through the ey of others, ” says Alan Downs, a psychologist and the thor of The Velvet Rage, a book about gay men’s stggle wh shame and social validatn.

PPerry Halkis, a profsor at NYU, has been studyg the health gap between gay people and straight people sce the early ’90s. He has published four books on gay culture and has terviewed men dyg of HIV, reverg om party dgs and stgglg to plan their own weddgs. “At the same time, I was watchg a ton of gay porn, where everyone was super ripped and sgle and havg sex all the time.