Читать книгу Still Straight - Tony Silva - Страница 18

The men I talked to were skewed toward older ages, reflecting generational and life course dynamics. Many of the men I interviewed came of age between 1950 and 1980, a time that Steven Seidman, a sociologist at the State University of New York–Albany, describes as some of the most difficult years in which to express gender or sexual difference in America.246 This state of affairs affected how they were socialized, what options they felt were available to them, and how they understood their gender and sexuality. About a third of the men I interviewed noted that the time period in which they grew up affected their identification as straight and masculine. Generational factors, of course, affect everyone. So, even though only a third of the men I interviewed specifically noted such influences, all were affected by generational factors to at least some extent. While American society today still expects men to be straight and masculine, today there is much greater social visibility and acceptance of LGBTQ people. Consequently, young men today have more options for identifying and expressing themselves as something other than straight and masculine. This is the case even as stigma and inequality remain.

We cannot dismiss older men’s identification with straightness and masculinity simply as reflecting the era in which they grew up, however, for three main reasons. First, a third of the men I talked to were in their adult teens, twenties, thirties, or forties. This is unsurprising given that men across America are still expected to be straight. Relatedly, while women are increasingly identifying as bisexual, men are not.247 Men are still constrained by expectations of masculinity to identify as straight, even if they are young. Second, some older men identify as gay or bisexual and have for decades—so clearly there are factors other than generational ones at play.

Generational influences affect people of all identities. If we reject older men’s straight identification because of factors in their youth, then we have to dismiss all people’s identities because of factors in their youth. Obviously, we should not do this. For the older men, generation was one factor of many that encouraged them to become, and remain, a part of straight culture. Some of the men I talked to did not have the language in their youth to describe what we now know as “gay” or “bisexual,” whereas others did but did not see it as a realistic option for them. Again, though, many men in America identified as gay or bisexual in the 1960s and ’70s, and many others did not but came out later in life. Gender expression and sexuality are both constrained and enabled in different ways across distinct time periods.

National data also show that some young and middle-aged men who report sex with or attractions to men identify as straight. My analyses of the 2011–2017 National Survey of Family Growth indicate that hundreds of thousands of American men aged fifteen to forty-four have had two or more male sexual partners yet identify as straight. The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health also shows that it is common for young men to have disconnects between their behavior and how they identify themselves.248 The practice of having sex with men yet identifying as straight is not limited to older men.

Third, one main reason the men I talked to had sex with other men has to do with the aging process. About a third of the men, mostly those who were older, began having sex with men or increased the frequency with which they had sex with other men because of the aging process. A handful experienced erectile dysfunction, while the rest reported that their wives experienced health issues or lost interest in sex as they aged. Thus, a major reason why more older men than younger men responded to my research advertisement is that the aging process itself encouraged straight men to have sex with other men. So it is not necessarily that participants identified as straight because they were older. Instead, many had sex with men because they were older. Thus, generational factors and the aging process were both reasons the men I talked to skewed older.249 It is therefore likely that some men who are now young may also turn to men for sex as they grow older. Future research in aging and sexuality should investigate how the aging process itself can actually encourage same-sex intimacy.

Many individuals in their late fifties and older still have sex,250 though the aging process often changes their sex lives.251 A survey called the National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project indicates that men aged fifty-seven to eighty-five view sex as much more important and desirable than do women in the same group.252 While researchers recognize the fact that straight men partnered to women may turn to extramarital sex because of this, few have considered that they may turn to men, as many of the men I talked to did. Other than research on older LGBTQ people, there is little investigation into the same-sex sexuality of older people who are not LGBTQ. Yet perhaps not surprisingly, my research shows that some straight men turn to sex with other men as they age.