is 51 too old for clubbing?
On Sunday at Fac251 in Manchester, promoter Paul Cons is reviving Flesh, his famous gay club of the early 90s for one night. As well as raising money for the Albert Kennedy Trust and the Peter Tatchell Human Rights Fund it's going to be a nostalgic night for older Manchester gays.
"When Flesh started we were using slogans like Queer as Fuck and It's Queer Up North and it was all part of the very aggressive and self-confident gay explosion in the early 90s. Very sexually liberated. A very dynamic moment in gay culture," says Cons. "As well as creating an amazing party, I would love Flesh to be the start of a conversation about what it's like to be gay in your 30s, 40s, 50s in 2010. I think it's a good moment to look back at your youth, celebrate it, reflect on it, but also look at where we are now and where we're going."
This set me thinking. I'm a staggering 51 – too old for alcopops yet too young for Midsomer Murders. So I asked my more mature gay followers on Twitter how they felt about middle age and got very different responses, from "It feels shit . . . Hate getting older, thank goodness for Botox, beauty therapists and booze," to "Really nice. I wish I could go back and slap the 17-year-old me though." Others asked why a gay man's experience of middle age would be any different from anyone else's. Well, we'll come to that.
I thought back to my 20s and picked 10 gay men from the circle of my acquaintance and assessed their current circumstances. Back then we were all out and proud and full of frisky fun. What had become of us? Of the 10, six were partnered up, two were single and two were dead. Four had moved to the country, one emigrated to Australia and three remained in London. Four had gone bald. Two had taken cocaine in the last year (and complained that it wasn't as good as it used to be). Three of us had contemplated adopting children or approaching lesbian friends with turkey baster in hand but it had all been talk and no issue resulted. Five had dogs, of which four were small and camp. Three had been out to a gay club in the last year, and two had pulled.
But my unscientific sample group may be way off the mark. I was surprised to read findings from a snappily named 2008 report, Sexually Transmitted Diseases, that there was "no significant differences in sexual behaviour between older and younger gay men. The researchers found gay men in their 50s just as likely as gay men in other age groups to report unprotected anal sex with a gay man who was HIV positive or of unknown HIV status." The randy old trouts, is all I can say. This rather scuppers my theory that middle-aged gays wave goodbye to their promiscuous youth and leave the party while their dignity is intact, then embrace a spiritually and emotionally fulfilled life of monogamy – maybe with a bit of gardening on the side. That's how I've arranged my life: one gentleman caller, two dogs, five chickens, two ducks and a lovely display of dahlias – not necessarily in that order of importance. Maybe I'm just jealous and deep in my subconscious I'd like nothing more than to prowl around Clacket Lane lorry park at midnight rogering strangers in the dark.
drive from www.independent.co.uk
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