Dating as an older man can be difficult, but it is important not to limit yourself to the “gay ghetto” areas of gay bars and cruising areas. You may have only dated women before, and chances are good that it didn’t go well if you were dealing with same-sex attractions at the time. You may find that in mid-life you’re still an adolescent when it comes to dating.

Support groups can be helpful, not only in meeting prospective men to date, but in developing a network of supportive relationships which may be helpful – even necessary – especially as you get older. My first step into the gay community was in a fathers’ support group (and there should be a lot more of them.) That was 25 years ago, and many of those men remain my friends today.

Many communities have coming out support groups, and you may be surprised to find out how many older men there are in the same place as you are. Because you’re dealing with similar issues, you will find it easier to connect with them. If there isn’t one, put an ad on Craig’s list or the local paper, and start one. You are probably not alone.

Clubs and organizations can be helpful, even if not “gay.” Breakfast clubs exist in a number of cities, and because they meet early in the day, aren’t usually “cruise-y.” Although churches can be difficult places for gay men, there are many churches which are open and affirming and have programming especially for the LGBT community. Many larger communities have dinner clubs like Prime Timers World Wide that also has independent memberships and AARP Online LGBT Community. Many of these organizations have annual meetings so if discretion is important you can travel and meet people there. Some of the cruise lines have Gay Cruises exclusively for gay men; although most are promoted with pictures of young, hot men, often times it is older men who can afford these vacations.

Although not all men involved in the arts are gay and not all gay men are interested in the arts, these are often good places to meet other men with similar interests. The theatre can be difficult because there is not much chance for social interaction, but gallery openings and other activities sponsored by museums and galleries can be rich venues to network with other men, many of whom may be gay.

Check out the local LGBT resource center for activities in your area. Often they sponsor fund raising or political events and frequently have a mix of older and younger men, again with similar interests. Some professional organizations have LGBT groups within the organization.

Many men meet other men through social networking on Twitter, Facebook and MySpace and on dating web sites. The Internet is particularly useful for those who live in rural areas or in socio-politically or religiously conservative places without an open gay community. Although many use these sights for “hook ups,” there are men looking for long term relationships too. If you are interested in younger/older relationships Seeks Older, Love Old, Caffmos Community, and Silver Daddies are a few places to look. If you want a serious relationship, visit with men who respond to your profile and perhaps arrange a meeting when sex won’t be the focus of the meeting. One man told me he only meets another man if he has talked with him for about a year on-line. While this is unusual, you must be careful.

Chances are not good for meeting the man of your dreams in the underground cruising areas; each person has to make their own decision about whether or not to frequent them. Because they may be associated with very promiscuous sexual activity, there is a high risk, and one must always use safe sex practices to avoid exposure to HIV and other STDs.

In gay relationships, how do the partners decide which one takes which role sexually?  I’m inexperienced and don’t know whether or not I’m a “top,”  ”bottom”  or “versatile.”

The response to this question was taken from the following: Top Scientists Get to http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=gay-male-sex-roles&print=true”>the Bottom of Gay Male Sex Role Preferences: “Tops,” “Bottoms,” “Versatiles“ and others in the study of gay male self-identity, by Jesse Bering.

Several years ago, a team of scientists led by Trevor Hart at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta studied a group of of 205 gay male participants. Among the group’s major findings—reported in a 2003 issue of The Journal of Sex Research —were these:

(1) Self-labels are meaningfully correlated with actual sexual behaviors. That is to say, based on self-reports of their recent sexual histories, those who identify as tops are indeed more likely to act as the insertive partner, bottoms are more likely be the receptive partner, and versatiles occupy an intermediate status in sex behavior.

(2) Compared to bottoms, tops are more frequently engaged in (or at least they acknowledge being attracted to) other insertive sexual behaviors. For example, tops also tend to be the more frequent insertive partner during oral intercourse. In fact, this finding of the generalizability of top/bottom self-labels to other types of sexual practices was also uncovered in a correlational study by David Moskowitz, Gerulf Reiger and Michael Roloff. In a 2008 issue of Sexual and Relationship Therapy, these scientists reported that tops were more likely to be the insertive partner in everything from sex-toy play to verbal abuse to urination play.

(3) Tops were more likely than both bottoms and versatiles to reject a gay self-identity and to have had sex with a woman in the past three months. They also manifested higher internalized homophobia—essentially the degree of self-loathing linked to their homosexual desires.

(4) Versatiles seem to enjoy better psychological health. Hart and his coauthors speculate that this may be due to their greater sexual sensation seeking, lower erotophobia (fear of sex), and greater comfort with a variety of roles and activities.

One of Hart and his colleagues’ primary aims with this correlational study was to determine if self-labels in gay men might shed light on the epidemic spread of the AIDS virus. In fact, self-labels failed to correlate with unprotected intercourse and thus couldn’t be used as a reliable predictor of condom use. Yet the authors make an excellent—potentially lifesaving—point: 

Although self-labels were not associated with unprotected intercourse, tops, who engaged in a greater proportion of insertive anal sex than other groups, were also less likely to identify as gay. Non-gay-identified MSW [again, “Men Who Have Sex With Men”] may have less contact with HIV prevention messages and may be less likely to be reached by HIV-prevention programs than are gay-identified men. Tops may be less likely to be recruited in venues frequented by gay men, and their greater internalized homophobia may result in greater denial of ever engaging in sex with other men. Tops also may be more likely to transmit HIV to women because of their greater likelihood of being behaviorally bisexual.

Beyond these important health implications of the top/bottom/versatile self-labels are a variety of other personality, social and physical correlates. For example, in the article by Moskowitz, Reiger and Roloff, the authors note that prospective gay male couples might want to weigh this issue of sex role preferences seriously before committing to anything longterm. From a sexual point of view, there are obvious logistical problems of two tops or two bottoms being in a monogamous relationship. But since these sexual role preferences tend to reflect other behavioral traits (such as tops being more aggressive and assertive than bottoms), “such relationships also might be more likely to encounter conflict quicker than relationships between complementary self-labels.”

I am a 30 year old Indian, married and have one son.  I am sexually attracted to older men, but  I love my wife and do have sex with her.  How can I make this stop? 

I have heard variations of the story over and over.  Obviously, I cannot give medical advice, but I can share some of my own experiences and thoughts. 

Many of them love their wives, but struggle with loving her enough or in the right way.  There may be a physical attraction, but often it just doesn’t feel strong enough.  They may have had a satisfying sexual relationship, but often these men say they find something missing.

Because of their failure to be the husband they desired to be, hiding these feelings or committing infidelity, they are plagued by a sense of guilt and shame.

When the secret is revealed, spouses often feel there is something wrong with themMany spouses have found support through Straight Spouse Network.

Other family and friends are often less sympathetic.  “You’re an idiot and have wasted her life.  Selfishly, you are humiliating and causing anguish to everyone but yourself.  You are living in sin, and the Christian thing to do would be to tell your wife the truth.  You only got married to run from you homosexuality.  I would be ashamed to have a son who is QUEER.”  No one needs to say these things to him because he’s already said it all to himself, calling himself those names and more.

 What to do?  In any difficult situation when a person appears to be faced with no good options, there are only three possible choices:

1. Change it
2. Put up with it
3. Leave

That’s it; there are no other possibilities.  Most will agree that when a man experiences sexual attractions to other men, those feelings will not go away.  There is no evidence that any treatments can effectively change that and attempts to change it can be harmful, enhancing blame and guilt, and in some cases leading to depression, substance abuse and even suicide.  (See below)

Putting up with the situation is one possibility but the persistent attraction to men will continue to consume the individual.  This frequently leads to clandestine sexual encounters in secret, sordid locations.  In these locations, safe sex is often not practiced, and they serve as a reservoir for HIV. 

The final choice is to get out.  Often the price seems too high, not just economically but more importantly in the damage to those important relationships, particularly with the children.  Although often the price of leaving seems even larger than it is, the costs are real.

Each man must make his own decision.  Those of us who have been through this need to be available to support these men, whether they are working to change, struggling to put up with it or considering leaving.  They will not find much support anywhere else.

I was with a man who after we had had sex tasted his own cum stating it was good for his health? What are the consequences?

Ejaculated semen is primarily a protein based secretion and when swallowed is digested just like any other food substance. It is not harmful to swallow it, whether or not it is you own or someone else’s.
Some people don’t like the idea of having cum in their mouths and would never swallow it.

Others seem to find the idea of having it ejaculated directly onto them or into their mouths quite sexually exciting. It is largely a matter of personal taste – pun unavoidable. There could be risk of HIV if the partner performing oral sex has any open sores or lesions in his mouth, and there are oral condoms that can be used.

Some men even enjoy what is called “snowballing,” where the person performing oral sex holds the ejaculate in his mouth, kissing his partner with some expression of the semen into the other man’s mouth. Men who enjoy “water sports” may allow their partner to urinate in their mouth. These practices are considered repulsive and unacceptable by others.

The important thing is that whatever the practice, that both partners agree to the behaviors as acceptable practices in their relationship.

 Can the ex-gay ministries and “Conversion Reparative Therapy” change someone from homosexual to heterosexual?

 “Conversion-Reparative Therapy (CRT)” is any one or a combination of different forms of “treatment” based on religious or psychological concepts, designed to change a person from a primarily homosexual orientation to a primarily heterosexual orientation.  

Ruben Porras

The religious approaches are often called “ex-gay ministries.” Ex-gay ministries generally believe that the Bible proves that homosexuality is a sin and only through total surrender to Christ can homosexuals transform themselves into heterosexuals.  The psychological approaches are referred to as “reparative therapy.”  They are typically psychoanalytically based, but may also include elements of behavioral and cognitive therapies.

Along with the “Reparative Therapies,” ex-gay ministries generally believe:

1. That homosexuality is pathological and/or sinful.
2. That homosexuality is a choice of a “lifestyle.”
3. That a homosexual orientation can be changed to a heterosexual orientation. or at a minimum, suppressed and controlled.

Discussions about CRT are often quite emotional and polarizing, and generally focus on issues of ethics and effectiveness.  Ex-gay ministries have been plagued by the “backsliding” into homosexuality of their leadership, some of whom have gone on to become the most vocal and credible critics of the ministries.  Claims of successful conversion are questionable and don’t stand up to rigorous scrutiny.

They declare their mission is to support those who are unhappy with that “lifestyle” and seek to diminish or eliminate those same sex attractions.  Although most claim they “hate the sin but loved the sinner,” being homosexual penetrates every corner of one’s existence, so often the sin and the sinner are indistinguishable.

The “reparative therapy” movement claims to be dedicated to “research, therapy and prevention of homosexuality,” all of which suggests that they are scientists studying the “disease’ of homosexuality.  It is secular, and because the leaders are a psychologist and a physician, it carries an aura of scientific respectability.  There’s a lot to object to in their “science,” and a lot has been written to refute it.  Most of their reported findings have not been validated and their results are not published in journals where research is reviewed by peers prior to publication.

Reparative therapy has mischaracterized both same sex and opposite relationships, stating that homosexual relationships are brief, volatile and do not possess “the mature elements of quiet consistency, trust, mutual dependency and sexual fidelity characteristic of highly functioning heterosexual marriages.” 

The American Psychiatric Association, the American Psychology Association, the National Association of Social Workers, the American Medical Association, and the American Academy of Pediatrics, all view CRT as unethical because it is based on an unproven theoretical framework, and because the effects of this treatment can be harmful.

Is there such a thing as “non-gay homosexuals?

There is a difference is between being gay and doing gay.  Although gay men are much more than just who they sleep with, most gay men will tell you that being gay means that it forms a central core of a persons identity. 

But there are men who think of themselves as not quite straight enough to be heterosexual and not homosexual enough to be gay.  And there are a lot of them. Harry Stack Sullivan, a psychiatrist, described this as “the good me, the bad me, and the not me.”

Many of these men may define themselves as heterosexual and have sex with both men and women while others define themselves as heterosexual but have sex exclusively with men.  The word “Bisexual” is sometimes used as a label for these men, but the most accurate definition of a bisexual is someone who is sexually attracted equally or nearly equally to both men and women. 

Those in the ex-gay ministries and reparative therapy movements prefer the term “homosexual” rather than “gay,” and by “homosexual” they refer only to eroticized same sex responsiveness; they believe that being gay cannot fixed but doing gay or being a “non-gay homosexual” can be changed.  They use “gay,” often disparagingly, to refer to sociopolitical activists who have “adopted a gay lifestyle’ with all the accoutrements of the gay stereotype. 

The Center for Disease Control (CDC) includes these men with gay men in their category, “Men who have sex with men (MSM).”  They recognize there are far more men who have sex with men that just those who define themselves as gay, frequently living hidden lives and having sex in underground venues.  Some estimate that the number of “heterosexual” MSM is greater than the number of men who call themselves “gay.”

Talk about African American men on the “down low” caused quite a stir in recent years when awareness was raised about the existence of this phenomenon in the African American community, but MSM exist in every race and culture, and in particular, those cultures with strong prohibitions against homosexuality.

 Is it possible to be sexually attracted to men but not be gay?

The short answer is yes, but the longer answer is complicated, and the answer largely depends upon who is doing the labeling.  The percentage of all men who have sex with other men is far greater than the percentage of men who define themselves as gay.  Even many mature men who may have sex exclusively with other men do not define themselves as gay.  Most mature gay men believe that being gay is an identity, not a behavior, but society as a whole often lumps all men who experience sexual attraction to other men together as “gay.”

Men who have sex with men may resist the idea of being called gay for a great variety of reasons; some may prefer to think of themselves as bisexual, although bisexual behavior is not the same as a bisexual orientation.

Having a gay sexual orientation means having an enduring emotional and romantic attraction in addition to a sexual attraction.  It involves much more than just have sex with another man; it is who you are, not just what you do.  It involves feelings and how you see yourself. 

If you only think you might be gay, you are probably not ready to accept a gay identity.

Some people experience about equal attraction to men and women and are truly bisexual.  For some, describing themselves as bisexual is a “safe” place to be.  It allows them to incorporate attraction for women while accepting that there is also an on-going attraction to men, yet it does not them to take that final, somewhat irreversible step.

The Center for Disease Control, in recognizing that there are many men who have same sex experiences but do not consider themselves gay, refers to them as “men who have sex with men,” or MSM.  They recognize that there is a large community of men who conceal the same sex experience and resist being labeled as gay.

Gay Marriage

I am married to a woman and when I have sex with her or when I masturbate, I fantasize about having sex with a man.  Is that wrong?

Plenty of people are willing to tell you which of your behaviors are right or wrong, but not here on Magnetic Fire.  Those are questions of values and ethics.  However, you are not required to continue to subscribe to the values you inherited from your parents.  It is possible for you to thoughtfully deconstruct that value system and reconstruct one which incorporates the elements which fit.

Similar questions arise in terms of pornography and internet sex.  Those are personal decisions, but it is important that they have potential consequences.  What will you do if your children find your hidden web sites?  How will you explain your “cam?”

Some men ask, “If masturbation is OK, how much is too much?” To answer this question, ask yourself, “Is it interfering in my primary relationship?”

Some mature gay men are drawn to pornography and internet sex because the prolonged exposure involved helps to compensate some for what may be a waning sexual desire.

What is the nature of gay relationships?

Gay men are often asked, “Who is the man and who is the woman?” in a same sex relationship.  Gay men and women realize that those are gender roles assigned by society and do not apply in their relationships.  Whether in terms of their sexual behaviors or housekeeping, roles are not assigned but chosen by the participants.

Why is coming out of the closet so difficult?

Coming out is difficult because, as economists say, “losses loom larger than gains.” In other words, in our minds we tend to magnify the potential losses and minimize the possible gains.  That is not to say that there are no losses, but frequently the things we fear are much greater than the actual consequences which are experienced.

Can gay men be good parents?

Gay men and women are good parents.  Many LGBT are parents before they come out and they continue to be very committed and engaged parents.  Some in same sex marriages become parents after they are already out, and no research suggests that their sexual orientation has a negative impact on their children.  Gay men and women are just people; some are better parents than others, but their sexual orientation is not the explanation

Why is gay marriage so controversial?

Gay Marriage

Gay marriage is a complex and divisive issue, and one which is often approached emotionally rather than rationally.  It is controversial in religious, secular and political discussions.  Change, or even the possibility of change, in culture is distressing to many, especially if it relates to the structure of the family or sexuality.  In general, younger people and politically liberal people tend to be more supportive of gay marriage, and the trend in the United States is for increasing acceptance of gay marriage.

In general, the arguments in support of gay marriage are it promotes dignity and respect toward a same sex couple, it is an issue of fundamental human rights, and it creates financial and emotional security.  Those who argue against gay marriage say that marriage is a religious sacrament, it damages traditional familes and it is the responsibility of parents to teach their children moral values.

For a much more complete discussion of this subject, see this resource http://www.religioustolerance.org/hom_marr_menu.htm

What resources are available?

Please check out this link to our LGBT Resources page.