A comparative demographic and sexual profile of older homosexually active men

Journal of Sex Research, Fall, 1997 by Paul Van de Ven, Pamela Rodden, June Crawford, Susan Kippax

(a) F(4, 2572) = 30.44, p < .00005

(b) F(4 2574) = 4.99, p < .001

(c) F(4 2500) = 7.65, p < .00005

When the scores on the social attachment scale were used to divide the sample into two groups, gay community attached (GCA; social attachment [is greater than] 4) versus non-gay community attached (NGCA; social attachment [is less than or equal to] 4), 62.9% of the older men (significantly less than for younger groups) were classified as GCA, and 37.1% were NGCA, [chi square] (4 df, n = 2580) = 61.37, p [is less than] .00005 (contrary to Hypothesis 4).

Older men were the least likely to have named the gay press (11.8%) and cards/posters (1.2%) as the source of information about the current survey. Conversely, they were the most likely to have named mainstream papers (11.4%) and mail order video and other catalogues (36.2%), [chi square] (44 df, n = 2571) = 158.77, p [is less than] .00005. About 1 in 10 older men (10.2%) named a local newspaper, a rate similar to men in other age groups.

Sexual Relations and Practices

Sexual relations. As shown in Table 3, about half of the older men had casual sex only. They, as well as men under 25 years, were more likely than the other age groups to be in a monogamous relationship and less likely to be in a regular plus casual relationship.

Table 3
Sexual Relations at Time of Interview by Age (Percentages)

Partnership           Under 25    25-29      30-39
                      n = 527    n = 512    n = 765
None                    11.4        9.0       10.1
Monogamous              24.3       17.6       17.4
Regular plus casual     15.0       20.1       20.7
Several regular          2.5        3.5        3.5
Casual only             46.9       49.8       48.4

Partnership              40-49      50 or over
                        n = 516     n = 255
None                      4.3        7.1
Monogamous               14.7       21.6
Regular plus casual      24.0       16.5
Several regular           4.8        6.3
Casual only              52.1       48.6

[chi square] (16 df, n = 2575) = 56.38, p <.00005

Numbers of partners/frequency of sex. Not unexpectedly, older men had more male sexual partners in their lifetime than younger men, [chi square] (32 df, n = 2573) = 251.09, p [is less than] .00005, but there were no significant age differences in the number of male sexual partners in the six months prior to interview, [chi square] (20 df, n = 2578) = 28.39, p = .10 (confirming Hypothesis 5). Almost three quarters of the older men had either 1 (28.5%) or between 2-10 (44.9%) partners during the preceding 6 months. For the older men, the modal range for number of male sexual partners ever was 101-500 (21.6%); 2.7% had had sex with 1 partner only; and between 10.2% and 15.7% reported having had sex with the number of partners indicated by each of the following ranges: 2-10, 11-20, 21-50, 51-100, 501-1000, or [is greater than] 1000.

In terms of female partners, 42 of the 256 older men (16.4%) had never had sex with a woman, whereas 50 men (19.5%) had had sex with a sole female partner. A further 97 men (37.9%) had had between 2 and 10 female partners ever. The older men (including those 40-49 years of age) were likely to have had more female partners in their lifetime than their younger counterparts, particularly so when compared with those under 30 years, [chi square] (24 df, n = 2579) = 133.42, p [is less than] .0005. However, the older men were no more or less likely than the men in the younger age groups to have had sex with a woman in the six months prior to interview: 29.0% of the entire sample, and 28.5% of the older men, had, [chi square] (16 df, n = 2576) = 23.83, p = .09.