Homosexuality and biomarkers of aging in the production of gerontological knowledge by American, British, and Brazilian authors.

João Paulo Ferreira,Richard Miskolci

doi:10.1590/0102-311x00222618

Abstract

This study reviewed articles originated in Brazil, in the United Kingdom, and in the United States from 1970 to September 2018 in the Web of Science database. Text mining techniques were used, and a predominantly qualitative analysis was performed, including correspondence analysis and sentiment analysis using the R Software (version 3.5.0) tools. Results show a repathologization of homosexuality in the gerontological knowledge production. This includes studies performed in 51 areas of knowledge in the three countries. That was followed by the depsychiatrization of homosexuality during the peak of deaths caused by AIDS, and its consequent recognition as an epidemiological threat. The article concludes reviewing the collected biomarkers, such as "sexual", "risk", "MSM", and "HIV/AIDS", which prove the progressive impact of sexual panic in gerontology studies and also associates AIDS with masculine homosexuality.

Highlights

Since the late 1960s, studies in gerontology have addressed male homosexuality 1,2,3,4
With the articulation caused by AIDS in the production of gerontological knowledge and in the present maintenance of the emerged representations of the past – mainly in the late 1980s and increasingly from the 1990s, as the data of the abstracts corroborated – this study considered three complementary lines of arguments, which are the following: (a) the continuous and lasting effect of the AIDS panic; (b) the role given to the chronic diseases in contemporary times; and (c) the increasing longevity of people living with HIV/AIDS, based on public and/or private antiretroviral cocktail policies, nutritional supplementation, and prevention strategies
The production that has become gerontological since the mid-1970s already emerges in the context of the depsychiatrization of homosexuality, – purposely or not – not connected to the subject of mental health. This distanced the production of homosexual aging from important themes, such as the consequences of continual exposure to forms of discrimination and prejudice, and – as the data corroborate – brought it closer to an understanding of homosexuality as an epidemiological issue, mainly associated to gender and to the risk of contracting sexually transmitted disease (STD)

Summary

Introduction

Since the late 1960s, studies in gerontology have addressed male homosexuality 1,2,3,4. This study aims to identify sociologically the representations of old age and aging in studies on homosexuality, articulating a historical and comparative analysis from the first publications. Biomarkers – understood as a set of descriptors reproduced and repeated in the publications – enable the understanding of distinguish topics regarding gender, sexuality, health, generation, social class, etc., which may converge in social representations regarding homosexual old age in the analyzed production. The term “gerontology” is a posthumous methodological appropriation, as an “umbrella term”, which brings together studies on old age and aging, converging different areas of knowledge – including studies that were not recognized as gerontological until the mid-1960s/1980s – because the formation of this (sub)area is recent in historical terms, as discussed in the next topic.

Objectives

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion