adult life course and homosexual identity in midlife gay men, The

Sample

A convenience sample of 30 middle-aged gay men was recruited from community newspaper advertisements and social groups, bar postings, electronic list-serves, and word of mouth notice. The cohort was relatively affluent, primarily Caucasian, and well educated, with an average age of 45.6 (SD= 3.9 years). Thirteen men were in ongoing relationships (median duration, 5 years; range 3 months to 19 years). Seven of the men were HIV-positive and three untested; two had fathered children, although neither had played an active role in raising their children.

Results

The cohort was characterized by high levels of commitment to homosexual identity, self-esteem, and life satisfaction, with 11 respondents agreeing with the statement that "these are the best years of my life." When asked in an open-ended probe to identify what is important in their lives, the most frequent response was friendships or relationships, endorsed by 20 of the men, followed by work and personal philosophy about life. Seven men mentioned being "out" or open about their homosexuality as the most important aspect of their lives.

Participants were asked about the meaning of homosexual identity in their lives and gave widely varying responses ranging from "It's just something I do in bed" to "It's like a sweater with loose thread; once you start pulling that thread everything unravels." Many participants described the personal significance of being homosexual as depending on context and circumstance. Thus, several men said that although it had obvious relevance to their social lives, homosexual identity had little bearing on their work lives or political viewpoints. Other men cited the greater importance of nonsexual identities, such as being Black, overweight, or single, or stated that homosexual identity was important only if others made it so. If respondents perceived homosexual identity as changing in importance to them over the years, it was in the direction of decreasing importance as exemplified by one man's comment, "It was a big deal when I was young, now it's nothing horrible but nothing fabulous" and another respondent's observation, "I don't think about it a lot, in a sense now that it's a given."

For many of the 13 men in relationships, the meaning of homosexual identity was inextricably tied to the history and current state of partnerships. Relationships were described as a prism through which sexuality and personal identity were refracted, a facilitator of homosexual self-acceptance in young adulthood, a sanctuary providing solace in the midst of multiple AIDS bereavements, and an exemption from a singles world that required dating finesse or explicit consideration of becoming romantically or sexually involved with HIV-infected men.

Returning to the cohort as a whole, four nonexclusive themes suggested how the experience of homosexual identity organized personal narratives of life experience. First, most men shared the theme of selfrealization of homosexual identity as characterized by a sequence of awareness, acceptance, and disclosure of sexual identity; this theme reflects the widely held notion of always having been homosexual but having to become gay as expressed in the archetypal story of "coming out." A second theme applicable to several participants was that of transformation, in which being different by virtue of being homosexual served as a welcomed model for the expansion of personal identity into other realms of life experience; here, men spoke of parlaying their sense of being an outsider into vocational or personal identities that valued awareness, compassion, creativity, or activism. The third theme of accommodation characterized respondents who viewed their homosexuality with both acceptance and resignation but not regret; these men described meaningful relationships and a sense of life satisfaction as middle-aged men, but also said that if they could live their lives over again, they might want to be heterosexual citing advantages of traditional family life such as parenthood or, more generally, the perception that life would be easier.