More middle-aged gay men coming out

More middle-aged gay men coming out
Posted in: New Zealand Daily News
By GayNZ.com News Staff - 4th January 2008

11.30AM: An Auckland-based glbt telephone counseling service is noticing an increase in the number of married middle aged gay men looking for help in coming out.

"While a lot of our calls relating to coming out have always been from younger people, we're noticing that a lot of gay men who got married prior to law reform are phoning us recently," says Outline general manager Neil Denney. "These are men who say they got married at a time when they felt compelled by society to do so, but twenty or more years on their children have grown up, times have changed and they now feel free to acknowledge their sexuality."

Many of these men are highly stressed by facing up to issues surrounding coming out, such as how to tell their wives and children and families, also by the fact that, having been out of touch with the gay community, they are 'time warped' in their understanding of what it means to be gay in today's society. "When they married, in the early 1980s, things were very different," says Denney. "But even though New Zealand has in many respects changed regarding homosexuality, their perceptions and fears are still based on what life for lgbt people was like over twenty years ago. They don't know things have moved along"

Denney says some of these men are so stressed that they are making multiple calls to Outline, formerly known as Gayline, looking for advice.

Outline, which is soon to launch a national toll-free phone number, can currently

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[zinzone]

And see this recent news story:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/f ... ge_id=1879

I am curious:

Seems quite a few middle aged or older males suddenly coming into the gay scene.
In Pattaya many like that who have families and grown up kids.

Why is this?

Do not seem to get gay men suddenly turinng straight, or am I wrong on that?

I am curious:

Seems quite a few middle aged or older males suddenly coming into the gay scene.
In Pattaya many like that who have families and grown up kids.

Why is this?

Until the Wolfenden report was published in the UK in 1967 which resulted in a change to the law classifying homosexual activity as a criminal offence, most gays were firmly in the closet and many men married in the fifties and sixties to conform to the social norm at a time when being gay was still punishable by a prison sentence and was a bar to employment in many occupations.

I number myself amongst them and was married until the mid 1970s when I could 'afford' to come out without any detriment to my social life or job (I was fortunately able to file for and get a divorce in 1973 as a result of my wife 'playing away').

It might be that because of personal circumstances it has just taken longer for others to take the plunge and come out or maybe a marriage has taken longer to break down or their wife has suddenly died or moved on.

However, I certainly know two other male acquaintances who are still in the closet. They are happy to lead a double life even though they are married with kids. They both actively frequent the gay scene in London. In fact one maintains his wife and two kids in a house near the south coast but "works in London during the week" and has a flat where he stays Monday to Thursday, complete with live-in boyfriend.

Maybe that's why a lot of older guys (who perhaps came/come out late in life) prefer the company of 18 - 25 yr old guys rather than someone of the same age. Making up for something lost or longed for many years ago..................

Maybe that's why a lot of older guys (who perhaps came/come out late in life) prefer the company of 18 - 25 yr old guys rather than someone of the same age. Making up for something lost or longed for many years ago..................

Do we apply the same principle to men who marry much younger women - Rupert Murdoch and Wendy Deng, for example?

[Dodger]

Sanook

Maybe that's why a lot of older guys (who perhaps came/come out late in life) prefer the company of 18 - 25 yr old guys rather than someone of the same age. Making up for something lost or longed for many years ago..................

That's interesting that you say that, because I fall directly into that category and have asked myself that same question many times before.

I was married in the early eighties, had two children, didn't even consider coming-out until I was middle-aged, and was charged like a lightening bolt to have affairs (sex) with the younger guys.

I sometimes feel like I'm making up for lost time, although, there is the fact that I've always been attracted to younger mates, my x wife being 8 years younger than me. Where ever the root cause is hiding the "effects" are always the same. I have absolutely no interest at all in having sex with, or a relationship with, someone who looks like me standing in front of the mirror...555, thus Thailand provides the perfect lifestyle and environmental conditions for a middle-aged closet queer such as myself. The only difference is that I really don't feel any tremendous amounts of stress as a result of this, and never felt like I needed a crisis hotline.

I came to the conclusion a few years ago - that this coming-out stuff was a bit more drummed up than it needs to be. Reason being, is that I realized, that in all actuality, who really gives a fu*k anyway. Most people, including my parents, siblings and children, all have their own lives to live and don't spend every hour thinking about what I'm doing to begin with. The other factor being the reality that this is my life anyway, and I don't really have to justify "who I am" to anyone, especially those who I've treated with so much love and respect for so many years. So, that's that. Most know by now that I'm either gay, or living some sort of alternate lifestyle living in LOS 4 months per year, and the others are doing what most humans do...staying busy getting stressed out over their own lives...LOL.

So...to all my gay brothers from New Zealand, don't worry about a thing. Just dump the wife, trim those pubes a little (plucking out the grey ones), do a few sit-ups and head for LOS to come-out. Just tell the masses back home that the fishing in Thailand is just great.


mai pen rai

I came to the conclusion a few years ago - that this coming-out stuff was a bit more drummed up than it needs to be. Reason being, is that I realized, that in all actuality, who really gives a fu*k anyway.... Just tell the masses back home that the fishing in Thailand is just great.

So you do care what people think, or you don't?

[Dodger]

Homi...

Quote

So you do care what people think, or you don't?

I guess deep inside I really do care, although I don't let it effect my fishing.