Age ain’t nothing but a number. Well perhaps it’s also a deep bias.
There’s a movie that just opened in Manhattan last weekend that you may find very interesting. The documentary "Chris & Don: A Love Story" traces the relationship of two men who started their remarkably public Hollywood romance in the 1950s. But there’s something about the story that’s even more eye-catching. One was 18, and the other was 48 when they met.
The younger man was artist Don Machardy and the older guy was writer Christopher Isherwood. The relationship lasted until Isherwood’s death in 1986. Great story. But I bet that couple would face as much judgment now as they did back then.
Admit it. If you see a couple where there is a 20-something guy and one in his 40s or 50s, preconceptions immediately crop up in your head. The old fogy is a sugar daddy and/or chicken hawk with an insatiable appetite for young flesh and recapturing his youth. The twinkie is a feckless user with a daddy complex who wants to be taken care of.
Now I’ll admit it. If I’m approached or ogled at by a man who’s clearly 15-plus years older, I’m appalled. I want to swat the back of his hand with his AARP Bulletin because I see it as predatory (it’s funny how an aggressive guy my age or younger wouldn’t automatically elicit the same response.). And I assume he just goes after young guys all the time and I don’t want to be his prey.
I dated briefly a divorced man with two children who was in his 40s. He was attractive and I didn’t mind. But once we went to a restaurant and he held the menu, I dunno, eight feet in front of him to read it. And the reality hit me and he suddenly seemed so…old.
A good friend who’s just north of 40 had to deal with a lot of ribbing from me and some of his other friends when he had a string of dating these late-teen, 20s dudes. Please, I beseeched, find someone who can legally drink. And shoot for someone who can legally rent a car by himself.
Age may be the gay community’s strongest bias in terms of dating, maybe even more than race, which is already a biggie. In part, it’s because those who disparage age differences in couples are rarely corrected or admonished. Compare that to the reaction toward a friend or acquaintance who condemns an interracial couple.
Many of us just can’t believe those May-December couples are together without a suspect reason, fetish, or complex we are allowed to sneer at. After all, what can a hypothetical 25-year-old have in common with a hypothetical 45-year-old?
A middle-aged Brooklyn man I talked with recently told me about his boyfriend, 20 years his junior, and said the age difference is not a problem or a real factor in why they got together. He said they have in common hobbies and, more important, values. He considers himself very social and active and appreciates men who can keep up. His boyfriend values maturity and hates the rigors of the club and bar scene.
Besides, the picture can get nuanced. One DC guy just north of 40 actually complains about younger guys who approach him. They always seem to be flaky twinks who look to older men like him for stability and security instead of establishing those things themselves. Another 50-plus DC man feels assumptions about his motives, hobbies, sexual abilities, etc., are instantly made just upon seeing him.
It’s funny how older, straight men going after younger women are hardly ever shamed (although single women their age may resent a shrinking dating pool because of this). It’s probably because they have very visible role models. Jack Nicholson, Michael Douglas, George Lucas, and Warren Beatty have all dated or married women a generation younger. Yet notice how 30-ish T.R. Knight and his 19-year-old beau have raised eyebrows and inspired some guffaws.
I’ve realized that with the older man I mentioned, we had very different lifestyles. I liked to stay out late and go out to different places. He was a low-key creature of habit, and well-retired from the club scene. But I’ve seen men his age who could keep up with me.
And I realized I generalized too much about age, despite how open-minded I thought I was. And if I ever see "Chris & Don: A Love Story," I won’t snicker.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Sex and the Married Man
If many wives out there get annoyed sometimes by their husbands, I also get annoyed – by the gay ones!
Idaho Sen. Larry Craig, who apparently hasn't met a public bathroom he didn't like, is writing a book to be released next year. Apparently, there will be a "little" of the infamous airport bathroom sex sting scandal that led to his not seeking re-election. But he will concentrate more on his dismay at the "dysfunctional and hyperpartisan Senate."
Okay, now that I'm done laughing, I'll concentrate on how Craig is sadly one of those married men who tricks his mind into thinking his tip-toe forays into gay life and gay sex don't count and he's as straight as an arrow (yeah, like the one Steve Martin wore on his head in the 70s).
Now some of you may caution that, technically, we don't know for sure he's gay or bi or DL or whatever. But I'm pretty sure he's done this before as not even Homer Simpson would be so accident-prone as to give the whole list of signs for anonymous sex while taking off toilet paper from his shoe. From my viewpoint, the incident reinforced what the believers and the deniers already thought beforehand.
I know about this married man thing, and not quite in the way you may think. I've been propositioned many times, mostly online, from these men but I never took the bait. One guy I had a moment of weakness for and planned a meeting with eventually stood me up – perhaps wifey came home earlier than expected. Another guy went so far as to declare the love for his wife and his intention of not wanting her to get hurt, as if to assure me he was being not just a regular adulterer but a conscientious one.
But many others saw it as a side trip that has nothing to do with their "real" orientation. And that's where the interesting – and sad – part comes in. I've resisted because I don't like that idea of being enjoyed for my sexuality, than having the other person deny it once it's over. I become something to do or to be messed around with and not acknowledged, even in his own mind, for the physicality that just happened. He's not gay like me, because that's gross. I'm just something to past the time, or so he thinks.
So when Craig made the interview rounds last year and declared he was not gay, I believed him insofar as that's what he's likely been telling himself all these years. I'm confident Craig cruised and dallied but I'm sure he rationalized it as an occasional impetuous hobby. For him, having sex with his own gender was not gay even though the main definition of gay is having sex with your own gender.
It didn't "count" because eventually he went home to his wife and three children, and he loved his wife and had sex with her and he went to church and he condemned the "lifestyle." So how could he be gay? Besides, he never saw "Sex and the City" (the movie or the series) and he doesn't know Marc Jacobs from Marc Anthony.
Craig and many others can somehow step outside of their gay sex and see that as different than what they supposedly are. And the consequence is that they demean and trivialize gayness even as they gain pleasure from it. It's amazing that Craig hasn't even been pushed to answer how this entrapment – as he likes to declare from his shaky tower of so-called innocence – may be unfair to real gays who seek consensual sex in a public place but find themselves posing for a police station camera instead.
I thought it was interesting that soon after the news hit, Dina McGreevey, soon-to-be-ex wife of former Gov. John McGreevey, also a married man who liked men, released a statement about this trend of husbands sneaking out. She knows a rat when she smells one. And she knows that pretending to be someone you're not hurts everyone involved.
For me, the jury's still out on the complicity of Craig's wife. She could be a too-trusting spouse who takes her husband's word as bond. Or she could be one of those wives, just like Dina, who knows in her heart that something is amiss but takes the cue of her husband and turns away from the music. After all, he pays the bills, works hard, and takes the whole family on nice vacations. All that "other stuff" doesn't really matter because he comes home at the end of the day.
People now are guffawing over Craig's book as much as his induction into the Idaho Hall of Fame months after he was arested. He'll likely polish up some talking points for the inevitable Larry King sit-down to sidestep "the other stuff" and talk about the life he wants people to believe he lives.
It's too bad there's a "wide stance" between who he says he is and what he really is.
Idaho Sen. Larry Craig, who apparently hasn't met a public bathroom he didn't like, is writing a book to be released next year. Apparently, there will be a "little" of the infamous airport bathroom sex sting scandal that led to his not seeking re-election. But he will concentrate more on his dismay at the "dysfunctional and hyperpartisan Senate."
Okay, now that I'm done laughing, I'll concentrate on how Craig is sadly one of those married men who tricks his mind into thinking his tip-toe forays into gay life and gay sex don't count and he's as straight as an arrow (yeah, like the one Steve Martin wore on his head in the 70s).
Now some of you may caution that, technically, we don't know for sure he's gay or bi or DL or whatever. But I'm pretty sure he's done this before as not even Homer Simpson would be so accident-prone as to give the whole list of signs for anonymous sex while taking off toilet paper from his shoe. From my viewpoint, the incident reinforced what the believers and the deniers already thought beforehand.
I know about this married man thing, and not quite in the way you may think. I've been propositioned many times, mostly online, from these men but I never took the bait. One guy I had a moment of weakness for and planned a meeting with eventually stood me up – perhaps wifey came home earlier than expected. Another guy went so far as to declare the love for his wife and his intention of not wanting her to get hurt, as if to assure me he was being not just a regular adulterer but a conscientious one.
But many others saw it as a side trip that has nothing to do with their "real" orientation. And that's where the interesting – and sad – part comes in. I've resisted because I don't like that idea of being enjoyed for my sexuality, than having the other person deny it once it's over. I become something to do or to be messed around with and not acknowledged, even in his own mind, for the physicality that just happened. He's not gay like me, because that's gross. I'm just something to past the time, or so he thinks.
So when Craig made the interview rounds last year and declared he was not gay, I believed him insofar as that's what he's likely been telling himself all these years. I'm confident Craig cruised and dallied but I'm sure he rationalized it as an occasional impetuous hobby. For him, having sex with his own gender was not gay even though the main definition of gay is having sex with your own gender.
It didn't "count" because eventually he went home to his wife and three children, and he loved his wife and had sex with her and he went to church and he condemned the "lifestyle." So how could he be gay? Besides, he never saw "Sex and the City" (the movie or the series) and he doesn't know Marc Jacobs from Marc Anthony.
Craig and many others can somehow step outside of their gay sex and see that as different than what they supposedly are. And the consequence is that they demean and trivialize gayness even as they gain pleasure from it. It's amazing that Craig hasn't even been pushed to answer how this entrapment – as he likes to declare from his shaky tower of so-called innocence – may be unfair to real gays who seek consensual sex in a public place but find themselves posing for a police station camera instead.
I thought it was interesting that soon after the news hit, Dina McGreevey, soon-to-be-ex wife of former Gov. John McGreevey, also a married man who liked men, released a statement about this trend of husbands sneaking out. She knows a rat when she smells one. And she knows that pretending to be someone you're not hurts everyone involved.
For me, the jury's still out on the complicity of Craig's wife. She could be a too-trusting spouse who takes her husband's word as bond. Or she could be one of those wives, just like Dina, who knows in her heart that something is amiss but takes the cue of her husband and turns away from the music. After all, he pays the bills, works hard, and takes the whole family on nice vacations. All that "other stuff" doesn't really matter because he comes home at the end of the day.
People now are guffawing over Craig's book as much as his induction into the Idaho Hall of Fame months after he was arested. He'll likely polish up some talking points for the inevitable Larry King sit-down to sidestep "the other stuff" and talk about the life he wants people to believe he lives.
It's too bad there's a "wide stance" between who he says he is and what he really is.
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