Brian Heaphy

Ageing in a non-heterosexual context.

There is increasing recognition of the importance of social and cultural differences in shaping the diversity of the ageing experience in contemporary Britain. Various social and cultural factors, such as those associated with class, ethnicity, gender and disability, influence people’s living circumstances and sources of support in later life. While they have been the subject of considerable speculation, ageing in a non-heterosexual context remains remarkably under-studied. This paper examines the difference that being non-heterosexual makes to how people experience ageing and later life. It draws on quantitative and qualitative data gathered for a British study of the living circumstances of non-heterosexuals aged between the fifties and the eighties. Previous work has overwhelmingly emphasised how individuals manage their sexual identities, but this paper focuses on the factors that shape the non-heterosexual experience of ageing and later life. Particular attention is paid to the relational and community contexts in which non-heterosexuals negotiate personal ageing. This not only provides insights into the specific challenges that ageing presents for non-heterosexuals, but also offers insights into the challenges faced by ageing non-heterosexuals and heterosexuals in ‘ detraditionalised ’ settings.

Sexualities, gender and ageing: Resources and social change

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.

Citizenship and Same Sex Relationships

In the UK in recent years, a dramatic growth in media concern with same sex relationships has led to the suggestion that the resulting visibility is indicative of the extent to which the intimate lives of non-heterosexuals are becoming more acceptable. In this article we question this using data drawn from the Families of Choice Project, a qualitative research project based on interviews with over a hundred non-heterosexual women and men, which highlight the ways in which they are prevented from participating as full citizens in civic, political, economic, and legal society. Using Plummer’s (1995) notion of intimate citizenship, we discuss first how respondents talk about the ways in which their intimate relationships are not recognised or validated legally, economically, politically or socially. We then analyse the respondents, ideas about what policy options could be considered to include their ‘families of choice’. Finally, we argue that the family model on which most legislation and policy is based is too narrow, exclusive and inflexible to include families of choice.

Choice and Its Limits in Older Lesbian and Gay Narratives of Relational Life

This article draws from a British empirical study of older gay men and lesbians that explores intimate, family, and community relationships at mid- and later life. The study included a survey of 266 women and men, qualitative interviews with a subsample of 10 men and 10 women, and eight focus groups (with a total of 16 men and 14 women). The article examines how gay men and lesbians over 50 years old structure and negotiate their relational lives and the factors that limit negotiation. Chosen relationships are important to many participants (Weeks, Heaphy, & Donovan, 2001; Weston, 1991). However, focus-group and interview narratives also highlight the limits of choices with respect to relationships. The article argues the case for a situated understanding of the relational options available to older gay men and lesbians. This involves acknowledging how relational choices and their limits are shaped by access to combined economic, social, and cultural resources.

Difficult friendships and ontological insecurity

In this paper we explore some of the negative aspects of friendship. In so doing we do not seek to join the debate about whether or not friendships are more or less important than other relationships but rather to explore precisely how significant friendships can be. Based on written accounts submitted to the British Mass Observation Project, we analyse how friendship, when it goes wrong, can challenge ones sense of self and even produce ontological insecurity. Friendship, it is argued, is tied into the process of self-identification and so staying true to friends, even when the relationships becomes uneven or tiresome, can be a sign of ethical standing. Meeting ‘old’ friends can also become very challenging, especially if one does not wish to be reminded of the self one once was. The paper contributes to the growing interest in relationships beyond kin.

Gay identities and the culture of class

Material queer analyses argue the urgent need to reincorporate class to comprehend sexual (re)formations in advanced capitalism, and some theorists propose a revitalized historical materialism as a framework for doing this. In contrast, this article illuminates the significance of class for late modern sexualities by taking a ‘cultural’ approach to the issue. By analysing gay men’s personal accounts of class (dis-)identification that were told in interviews in Britain, the article elucidates the ways in which class and sexuality were articulated as intertwined, and how class and gay identities were constructed relationally through each other. Specifically, it generates insights into the performativities of classed gay identities; the differential value attached to working- and middle-class identities; and how narratives of (dis)identification often articulate gay and working class identities as relational ‘Others’. Contrary to some theoretical and popular notions of gay identities as classless, my analysis shows that class identities can be centrally important to gay ones. While the relationship between gay classed identities and socio-economic positioning is not straightforward, such identities illuminate how cultural, social and economic (dis-)incentives promote distancing from ‘working-class’ forms of existence and strong attachments to ‘middle-class’ ones and to the idea of gay class transcendence. Such distancing and attachments are also features of sexualities theory and research that deny the significance of class.

Policy Implications of Ageing Sexualities

This article aims to open up debate on the policy implications of ageing sexualities. The article begins by discussing the heteronormative perspective that frames current discourse on older people’s needs and citizenship. It then presents data from an empirical study to highlight the concerns that older lesbians and gay men have about housing, health and social service provision, work and job security, and relationship recognition. The article illustrates how the heterosexual assumption that informs policy making can limit the development of effective strategies for supporting older lesbians and gay men; and raises broader questions about policy making, social inclusion and citizenship.

The sociology of Lesbian and gay reflexivity or reflexive sociology

This article is concerned with sociological conceptualisations of lesbian and gay sexualities as reflexive forms of existence, and identifies core problems with these. Our sociological narratives about lesbian and gay reflexivity tend to be partial in two senses. First, they talk about and envision only very particular - and relatively exclusive – experience, and fail to adequately account for the significance of difference and power in shaping diverse lesbian and gay experiences. Second, they tend to be underpinned by overly affirmative and normative projects, and are often narratives about how lesbian and gay life should be. Our narratives about lesbian and gay reflexivity sometimes confuse analysis with prescription, and actualities with potentialities. Their partiality limits the analytical purchase they afford, and is an inadequate basis on which to analyse contemporary lesbian and gay identities and ways of living. The article proposes an approach to studying lesbian and gay living that is orientated more towards reflexive sociology than the sociology of reflexive sexualities.

Critical Relational Displays

In her original article on the topic Janet Finch (2007) proposes that ‘display’ can extend our understandings of contemporary family practices. Display, she argues, is a characteristic activity of contemporary families, and it is an idea that can usefully be added to the conceptual toolbox for analysing these. Finch invites researchers to debate and refine the concept of family display, and I take up this invitation to evaluate its potential contribution to a critical and reflexive sociology of contemporary relational life. In doing so, I concentrate on the ways in which the concept could be refined to address the situated significance of display as an activity for different kinds of families and relationships; the links between display and the power and politics of contemporary relational life; and how display is bound up with the performativity and scripting of family and ‘other’ relationships.

Sex, Money and the Kitchen Sink: Power in Same Sex Couple Relationships

While there has been notable sociological concern with the themes of power, equality and inequality in couple relationships, the focus has almost exclusively been on heterosexual couples. At an empirical level a large body of work has focused on the intimate and domestic lives of men and women, and this suggests that gender relations, particularly within ‘the home’, continue to be marked and structured by inequalities with regard to labour and status (for discussions of change in this context see VanEvery, 1995; Benjamin and Sullivan, 1996). The limited research available on same-sex relationships emphasizes the difference between heterosexual and non-heterosexual relationships in this regard. In brief, it is suggested that members of same-sex couples are allowed to remain free of the traditional ‘entrapments’ of feminine/masculine stereotypes, and in the absence of conventions and guidelines are faced with the opportunity and possibility of developing more egalitarian relationships (for a review of the literature on same-sex couples see Weeks et al., 1996).