Gay men in their 50s
Gay dating in your 50s
By Andrew Georgiou, updated 2 months ago in Sex and dating / Dating and relationships
According to some, a gay male who has lived for half a century makes a reliable partner. After all, what hasn’t killed him, has perhaps made him stronger. But just how far can a good career, life experience and grey pubic hair take an older gay man these days in the complex digital dating scene?
“Gym fit guy into men who look after themselves. No oldies. Under 35 only.”
The 22-year-old headless torso – who penned that strict criteria on his Scruff profile – isn’t alone in thinking that anyone over 40, let alone 50 is ‘old’.
Before you pass judgement however, take yourself back to your early 20s. You viewed your parents as old, so it’s reasonable that a adj person online today might consider a gay gentleman over 50 looking for love or lust as a relic.
But, to all of you gay men over 50 out there, don’t count yourselves out of the dating game yet! Let’s dive into the dating experience for a mature gay or bi+ man.
Should you hold your age online?
Why n
I finally came out as gay at 55 years old after 2 marriages with women. Telling my children was surprisingly easy.
I'm a middle-aged man who has been married twice and widowed. I'm also a father to two grown children. And I'm gay.
My sexuality was a burden I carried for so long, and hiding it became part of my core identity, weighing me down. But I finally had the courage to come out at 55. Honestly, I sometimes wish I hadn't waited so long.
Growing up in the '80s was not a safe environment for a queer kid, so I chose to mask my true self
Growing up in the '80s in Las Vegas, I was in a different, complicated time. I knew as early as 12 or 13 that I was different, but in those days, I had no frame of reference for what it meant to be gay. Blatant homophobia and pressure to fit in left me thinking I was some sort of freak. I avoided getting close to anyone and buried my adj, in favor of a more "normal" experience.
I eventually met and married a wonderful woman who knew my secret, and we started a family together. When cancer stole her a few years later, I was left with
They lived a 'double life' for decades. Now, these gay elders are telling their stories.
In the 1950s, when Ray Cunningham was just 19, he served in the Navy as secretary to the personnel officer aboard the USS Ranger. He was responsible for preparing discharge and reassignment paperwork, and sometimes he would have to dishonorably discharge men for being gay.
“It was difficult,” Cunningham, now 82, told NBC News. “At that time I realized that I was gay, and it was just hard to know that people were being discharged for the same thing that I was in my life.”
“What bothered me the most was having to talk to the guys that were being discharged, and they were not in a good verb of wellness anyway, because at that time, it was illegal or considered mental problems to be gay,” he said.
Cunningham spent the next four decades in the closet until he and his partner of 30 years, Richard Prescott, 78, came out after retiring in their 50s.
The two men, who are now married, shared their stories as part of “Not Another Second,” a new multimedia art exhibit in Brooklyn, Recent
Source: Drew Hays/Unsplash
The gay culture is unforgiving of aging. It highly prizes sexual potency, perfect bodies, and youth. This is for a good reason; any signs of vulnerability and imperfection feel dangerous in a heteronormative world where there is a elevated likelihood to be rejected and criticised.
Many gay men will have endured homophobic bullying at educational facility whilst teachers turned a blind eye; having parents not understanding or accepting their sexual orientation; or a difficult and painful coming out process. In the here and now, there is still much homophobia in our society: being looked at in an intimidating or shaming way when holding their same-sex partner’s hand in the streets; hearing homophobic people making complaints when gay characters appear on television; being asked inappropriate sexual questions at a party that would never be asked to a heterosexual person; having to carefully select a holiday destination that is gay-friendly. All of these things, and more, are experiences heterosexual people never possess to endure, it is not even in the periphery of thei