Sexualities, Gender and Ageing

Abstract

The issue of sexuality is under-studied in the sociology of ageing. This article advocates placing sexuality at the centre of our analyses of ageing and later life in late modernity, by illustrating the issue of non-heterosexual ageing. The article employs personal narratives of lesbians and gay men aged between their fifties and eighties to demonstrate the importance of material, social and cultural resources in shaping their negotiations of ageing and later life. It indicates how sexuality, gender and age interact in influencing these, and argues that non-heterosexual experience illuminates possibilities that exist for both the reconfiguration and resilience of ‘given’ meanings and practices in relation to gender and ageing. It therefore provides insights into the uneven possibilities of reworking and/or undoing cultural meanings and social practices that shape gendered experiences of ageing and later life.