The authors focus on the special issues involved in providing counseling to aging gay men regarding sex and intimacy. Although the stresses of aging experienced by gay men are similar to those of heterosexual men, older gay men face issues of a stigmatized sexual orientation, invisibility, negative stereotypes, and discrimination regarding aging.
The stereotype of the aging gay man is changing with increased research on this numerically larger and increasingly more important group (Berger, 1982;Kelly, 1977;Kimmel, 1977;Pope & Schulz, 1990). Prior to the mid-1970s, the social stereotype was that he no longer goes to bars, because he has lost his physical attractiveness and his sexual appeal to the young men he craves. He is oversexed, but his sex life is very unsatisfactory. He has been unable to form a lasting relationship with a sexual partner, and he is seldom sexually active anymore. When he does have sex, it is usually in a "tearoom" (public toilet). He has disengaged from the gay world and his acquaintances in it. In short, his life is composed of little intimacy and little sex.
Researchers, however, have given us a totally different picture. Kelly (1977), Kimmel (1977), Berger (1982), and later Pope and Schulz (1990) reported starkly different data from these stereotypes in their pioneering studies on this population. The sex life of the older gay man was, characteristically, quite satisfactory, and he desired sexual contact and intimacy with adult men, especially those near his own age. He continued to both desire sex and to have sexual contact, to have long-term relationships, and to be involved in the gay community. Kimmel (2000) found that what constitutes the beginning of old age in U.S. society is now rather ambiguous and that many chronologically "old" people are active sexually, physically, emotionally, and intellectually. Therefore, how does aging affect the context of people's lives and their self-esteem, intimacy,