The Scene at Home with Significant Others: Intimacy and Inclusion

Abstract

Middle-aged gay men’s lived experience is not limited to the village, the cyber scene, saunas and social groups. It is also constituted by closer relations occurring largely within domestic spaces (Gorman-Murray 2006) where friendship is to the fore. As Rumens has noted, friendships flourish when lived against the (heterosexual) norm (Rumens 2011: 3). Indeed, gay men are closely associated with the home and taste in interior decor (Cole 2000; Gorman-Murray 2006). Yet, apart from Pilkey’s (2014) illuminating study of older gay men living in London, whose home-making strategies challenge the heteronormative nature of home and normalize ageing sexual difference, comparatively little attention has been given to middle-aged/older gay men, the home and neighbourhoods. Whilst I seek to contribute to that particular growing intellectual project, I also contribute to work on gay men’s intimacies with gay and straight others (see Rumens 2008; 2010a; 2010b; 2011), which are central to their thought and practice regarding kinship. I do so not just by factoring in the difference of age enmeshing with sexuality, gender, class, race and so on, but also call attention to the political salience of friendship family to the current generation of middle-aged gay men in Manchester (and probably beyond).