invisible men | timalderman

I was lying in bed recently listening to an audiobook, part of a gay series, revolving around the staff in a gay cafe in Cornwall, England. One of the younger waiters had just met, and was having a “thing” with an older cafe patron, who was in a relationship that was just no longer working. They were having sex in the waiters home, and the author described their lovemaking in such a realistic, but romantic way that I found myself contemplating my current solo life.

I had to stop the story for a bit. W…T…F was this all about! The fact was that while listening to the lovemaking description in the book…in my head I was thinking…will this ever happen to me again…will I, at this stage of my life, ever have sex with another man again…and no, I don’t think I ever will…and I really miss it…both the sex…and the intimacy!

You see, if I had to write a formula for this stage of my life, it would be; ageing+gay+hiv=invisible!

At 71, I’m probably a bit harsh with my self-assessments!HIV+ (and undetectable)…severely vision-impaired, and with mobility problems stemming from huge doses of AZT in the early 90s, mixed in with AIDS in 1996. I no longer have my own teeth, and the proud owner of one prosthetic eye. I keep myself relatively fit, but have a bjt of fat around the middle, brought about by HIV meds, and which I can’t seem…despite some pretty intensive attempts…to get rid of.

I live in a world that is ostensibly driven by vanity, an obsession with body image, and if you’re male… looks! I can’t get away from it! It follows me around, mocking me. It’s on Facebook, It’s on Instagram, it’s in every magazine I pick up, every television show, movie, advertisement, and gym visit (in past years). At my age, I’m supposed to be past all this, but should I be? I do question the apparent notion that I’m “past it” and if I want to have an ongoing sex life…and I laugh hysterically here…I should be labelling myself as a “Bear” or a “Daddy” or a “Silver Fox”! This is stereotyping at it’s very worst, telling me that to be desirable I have to give up being “me”.

Ageing is a bit of a convoluted thing, in my experience. One minute you are desirable…then you get hit by that reality stick whereby you go out, and no one pays attention to you, or approaches you. Guys walk past you like you just don’t exist. You sink into the wallpaper and furnishings. As a gay guy who was active on the scene, I found ageism to be rife, and was often thrown in your face by younger guys. You were made to feel that you WERE old, and thus no longer desirable. And you were often just in your 40s, so not old at all in the real world.There has always been the joke…that is not a joke on the gay scene…that once you hit 40 you are considered too old to be desirable any more! Well trying hitting 50, 60 or 70! I remember being at the bottom bar in The Midnight Shift one night with a guy who had bought me a drink. We were chatting away, and I mentioned I was HIV+. He just stood up and walked out. One of the few times I have ever felt “unclean”! It is not a nice feeling!

The one thing that drove home to me the real impact of ageism, invisibility, and HIV stigma was the sex apps…euphemistically referred to as “dating” apps! When my 16-year partner and I called it quits in 2014, these apps and web sites were new territory for me. I approached them positively, thinking…foolishly, as it turned out…they would assure me an ongoing sex life. I was totally honest in my profile…both my age (at that time), and my HIV status Well, maybe if I lied about my age, didn’t reveal my HIV status, and uploaded a not-recent flattering profile photo I may have scored a sex life! If you want to feel degraded and humiliated, these are the places to go! Honesty doesn’t reap rewards on these sites! I waited for the messages for fun times to roll in…and waited. Evidently the appeal of sex with a 60-year old didn’t appeal to many, especially someone with HIV!

As well as not going the way I planned, it was my introduction to the language of stigma…phrases like “are you clean?” and “I want you to breed me!” left me feeling deflated! Were these really gay men interacting with me! Did they not know about HIV! Or just choosing to live in ignorance! This is not language you would use with non-HIV guys, so what is it that makes HIV+ guys “unclean”…and have you never heard of undetectable viral loads? Has the entire U=U campaign gone right over your head! Gay men putting other gay men down is not cool!

So I gave up on the apps, after only one contact. And I got tired of guys lining up dates, then just not turning up…not even a message. I don’t need things that put me down!

So 10 years later, I’m living alone with my dog. I have a great social life, but I’m 71 now, and a lot of guys have their own assumptions about that. At this stage, I’m not interested in a relationship…I’ve had enough of those over my time on the scene. As mentioned earlier, it’s not the sex I miss, so much as the intimacy, the sensations of touch, the security of a cuddle. My vision is pretty bad, as is my mobility, and I live on my own…all things I can live with (curtesy of both HIV and AIDS) which brings about certain insecurities in the dating game. I would not want a stranger knocking on my door for “fun times” these days Having disabilities means I am aware of my vulnerability., that if someone attacked me, or tried to take advantage of my situation to, say, rob me, I would have put myself in great danger, and could end up beaten up…or worse! It is a scenario I’m too aware of! Already the odds of meeting people aren’t good!

So let’s drop the assumptions…I am still sexually active! I don’t feel “old”, nor do I look or dress “old”. I’m pretty well adjusted to modern living. Yes, my social circle is quite different these days, as tags such as “gay” and “HIV+” no longer define who I am. It isn’t denial…if anyone asked I’d be quite out about it…it’s more that first and foremost these days, it’s more about just being a person, an individual! Funny how things that used to be important, become less so as time passes.

However, there are still those moments where to be enveloped in another man’s arms, the squeeze, the contact, just the feel and smell of another man would be a nice way to be rocked to sleep. So let’s stop defining people by how they look, or stigmatising them because of their age, or their status, or even their sexuality. We are visible! We are thriving, vibrant, engaging, life-experienced beings, still capable of everything that once made us young and desirable, with a breadth of experience, and life, that suffocates all predetermined notions of being the person YOU think we are. Push our boundaries, and expand your own! To finish with a cliche… there is treasure to be found.