Bob Bergeron, LCSW

Happy Holidays.  The new year quickly approaches, have you made the list for what you want to change?

In 2012 I want to:

1. Take better care of myself.

2. Spend more time out of the house interacting and having fun.

3. Find happiness with getting older and stop lying about my age.

Do these sound like areas where you could improve?  How often are we successful in keeping with these decisions?  2012 can be the year to make changes that actually stick.  This time, your self-improvement process has support: the strategies I’ve created in The Right Side of Forty.

In our confusion on what it means to be over forty, we often resign ourselves to thinking that we are old.  This increases our depression and inactivity.  I’ve got a concise picture of what being over forty is about and it’s a great perspective filled with happiness, feeling sexy, possessing comfort relating to other men and taking good care of ourselves.  This picture will get you results that flourish long-term.

To help support your success making changes I want you to start thinking of me as one of your therapists.  You may already have a therapist, and that’s fine.  Our clinical work together has a very clear focus: improving yourself, changing how you relate to other gay men and investing in your happiness. 

Because part of my clinical method includes cognitive therapy, our work together requires that you do homework if you want to change behaviors to improve your life.  My clinical approach towards personal growth includes what I’m talking about in this video: consciously forced actions (here’s the link - New Year Resolutions with Bob Bergeron).

A consciously forced action is defined as a behavior that you are explicitly aware of, that you know why and when you are doing it, who you are doing it towards, and how long you are going to do it for.  There is nothing unconscious about it.  Making behavioral changes cannot be successful without consciously forced actions.

My clinical work helps a man build his proficiency with consciously forced actions, beginning where he can achieve the evidence of success – by starting with smaller, less difficult actions.  Then, when a man has the momentum and confidence that follow success, we move onto the bigger ticket items for change.

The Right Side of Forty is filled with strategies that invite you to take consciously forced actions.  As your therapist, I advise you to start out with the smaller items first.  In the book, I point out to you the examples of what these less difficult actions are.  Because in The Right Side of Forty, we tackle the big-ticket items as well: sex, substance use, and changing your thinking are just a few examples.

I will do my clinical best to help you, my book comes out in early 2012 and here’s a direct link to pre-order it on amazon – The Right Side of Forty.  Are you ready to improve your life?  We’re just about ready to get started making 2012 one of the best years in your life!

Here’s one of the comments I hear most often from my gay male clients over the age of forty, “I’m just not turned-on anymore by guys my own age.”

Is this true for you?  If so – especially if you are single – does this impact your dating and relationship success?  Or if the guys your age who do turn you on ignore you because they’re not turned-on by guys their age, can this partially explain why you are a hot, lonely, older man?

Now what about men in relationships?  If you are paired with a similar-aged partner, are you still turned-on by your mate?  Is it an open sexual relationship where each of you – together or separately – hook up with young guys?  Or is it a monogamous, long-term relationship now rarely sexual, but each of you jerk-off separately to porn.  Does this impact being turned-on by your life partner?  Can this help answer the question, “Why don’t we have sex with each other anymore?”

In this video I’m teaching that if we do not use our visual sense in a strategic way it can become a key factor exacerbating our depression with aging.  As men, visually turned-on by other men, how can we truly be happy with our own aging male looks if we are only turned-on by younger guys?

What can we do about this dilemma?  Plenty.  This predicament is no longer hopeless or unchangeable.  You don’t need to settle for just a piece of happiness, you deserve having it all.

I’ve designed strategies that respect the power of your visual sense.  Regardless your current age as you learn intelligent methods on how to use your visual sense differently you will embrace getting older with increased joy and confidence.  Some of my techniques guide you on how to utilize the fact that you’re visually stimulated for re-programming the brain to expand what turns you on.  It’s shockingly easy to do, a great deal of fun and one of my numerous methods I’ll teach you in The Right Side of Forty to make changes that invest in your future happiness.   Please check out the book section here on my blog to read an excerpt from my book’s introduction and here’s a direct link to order the book on amazon – The Right Side of Forty.

One way that gay men interact with each other includes the action of cruising.  While you’ve cruised for years, here’s news for you – we don’t all use the same method for cruising each other.  I’ve discovered that we have four distinct approaches with cruising, or what I call in fancy clinical terms: sexual attention.

If you think this doesn’t include you because you’re not the cruising type, it does.  Here’s one of the four: not cruising.

Why does this matter?  Four different approaches mean that you have a one-in-four chance of success with a guy since your own approach may not match his. But even if your approaches are in sync, there’s still the possibility that he might not be attracted to you. Knowing this in advance allows us for the first time, even after decades of cruising men, to reframe indifference and overcome self-debilitating conclusions we can easily jump to when experiencing rejection: the belief that we are not “good enough.” Perhaps you really are “good enough,” even hot enough; that may not be the problem. Rather it could be simply that you have a 25% chance that your approach to sexual attention will be compatible with his.

Doesn’t looking at the situation in this light make dealing with rejection and indifference far easier than assuming that you are not good enough?

Possessing this awareness becomes even more important as we get older because everything changes.  As I mention in this video, we often experience less attention.  The need to feel sexy can often increase as we see it slipping away, leaving us at higher risk of both acting desperate and feeling depressed.  When older men stop getting cruised we frequently begin feeling invisible and start making self-deprecating comments about our aging.  Then in sadness, we actually do disappear because we stop engaging with other gay men and gay subculture.

Well, no longer!  One of my clinical methods includes the updating of cruising for you.  Identifying your approach is the first step.  Come early 2012 in The Right Side of Forty, you’ll determine your style, and then learn how – and why – it needs changing.

Next year, I’m fifty.  I’ve changed how I cruise.  So have my clients.  Now it’s your turn. Through the methods I’ve designed, as you refine your actions with sexual attention you increase your happiness, visibility and confidence when you interact with other gay men.

A new approach towards cruising is one of my numerous strategies to help you.  But clearly with cruising: this is one of my clinical techniques packed with fun! Your identity as an aging gay man is desperate for fun, isn’t it?  The fun I teach you invests in your future versus fun that potentially destroys it.

Are you ready to learn something new and start improving your gay life?  Whether you’re in your twenties, your seventies or somewhere in between, the subject of cruising is just one of thirteen chapters in The Right Side of Forty training you on issues – unique to the lives of gay men – where we never received the teaching we needed before.  Please check out the book section here on my blog to read an excerpt from my book’s introduction and here’s a direct link to order the book on amazon – The Right Side of Forty.

When the NY law on gay marriage passed, the first phone call I received was from my parents in Arizona; their voices filled with joy and desire to celebrate the moment.  This example of love and support for my gay life – an existential connection to my gay identity – left me in tears.

I started wondering, how many other gay New Yorkers heard from parents or heterosexual family members?

So, I began asking my friends and gay clients.  To date: very few – less than ten percent – received phone calls from straight family members commemorating the new law.  Does this make family horrible people?

No.  Does this mean heterosexual family members may need some training in how to treat gays?  Absolutely.

As gay adults it becomes important to train our parents and family in how to support our gay lives.  My parents really blew me away with the support they gave me with that phone call.  This requires that I consistently praise and thank them for it.  I consider it my job to let them know what they are doing that supports my gay life. 

Heterosexuals need training in how to treat gay people.  Some need it more than others.  Here’s one very important reason why.  Beginning with Stonewall, we only have forty-two years as a publicly recognized group.  Why would we possibly think that all straight people know how to support our gay lives?  This doesn’t mean that family members don’t love us or care.  It means that most of them need to be taught how to validate our gay lives.

Do your parents need training in how to treat you?  If so, then let’s start teaching them.   The NY gay marriage law is a good place to begin.

If your parents are still living and you didn’t hear from them, please consider doing the following:

Think of two examples of where you felt gay support from your family (if you cannot think of any proof of their support, then do not contact your parents).  Then, call your parents and ask them if they heard about the law legalizing gay marriage in NY.  If they say that they heard about it – which of course, they must have – ask them the following.

Tell them some gay people heard from their parents after the law passed and their parents congratulated them.  Ask them if they realize the difference it would have made in your own pride and comfort with your gay identity if you had heard from them.  Ask them if they would agree to let you help train them on how to increase their support to your gay life.

If they say no, they don’t want the help and they do not want to talk about this, then tell them the two examples where you felt their support, thank them for that and end the phone call.  You now have more information on how the lack of an existential connection from your family impacts on your gay identity. Do not underestimate the influence this lack of an existential connection is creating in your adult gay life.  If you think you need help, please contact a mental health professional.

If your parents say yes, they would be willing to have the help, try the following.  “I appreciate your support (and give them the two examples) and I do not expect you to know everything that I need to help my comfort with being gay.  Let me spend some time thinking about what I need and then we can talk about it again.  Thanks very much for your willingness to let me help.  I really appreciate it”.

Then after the phone call start thinking about what you need, ask friends for advice.  Let me know how I help you figure out what to teach them.  Please leave me a comment on here.  Suggest to your parents that they read this article on my blog and also the posting titled – I Love Gay Men and NY.  This will give all of you something to talk about it.

Now, let’s move beyond your parents.  First, keep in mind how many gay men will not have parents that will be supportive of this training.  Repay this gratitude with kindness towards other gay men.

Second, we have to be prepared there is going to be loads of evident backlash of hate – Hello! Ms. Bachmann – against gays now as fearful heterosexuals think we are taking over the world.  This doesn’t make them horrible people either.  It means they need to be trained how to treat gays. 

Third, let it become your job to train heterosexuals: this is how you treat and support gays.  You will have the most success with heterosexuals that already know you and like you, but may not be aware you are gay.

You are the one who really knows the support you need in your gay life.  Stop wishing for it and start training the heterosexuals to give it to you.  Many of them just need to be taught.  How could we possibly think they know how if no one has taught them?

It’s your job.  It’s our job.  We can do it.

It’s so fantastic to be writing this!  It finally happened here: NY state legislators came to an agreement that legally allows same-sex marriages in my state!  This is a beautifully strong moment for gays and lesbians, both in relationships and single.

What makes this equally important for single guys?  Legalizing same-sex marriage serves a bigger purpose: the new law provides example that our gay lives matter. 

Our new state law represents what I call an existential connection to our gay identity.  I define existential connections to my clients as evidence that our gay lives have value, are important and that being gay has relevant meaning.  For example, when we come out, if our parents accept our being gay, that’s an existential connection.  Gays and lesbians give each other existential connections all the time when we are kind and supportive to each other.

However, getting existential connections from the non-gay public are another story.  We receive very little evidence from the mainstream, non-gay public that our lives matter.  That is what makes the NY law critical on a psychological level for the LGBT community.

You likely heard about all the protections NY’s Republican legislatures insisted be inserted in this document to protect churches and other institutions that do not want to support or perform same-sex marriage.  Sadly ironic their concern, the non-gay public gets proof and support all the time that their lives matter.

Yet, how often do we get evidence that we matter and are protected by our government?  Instead the majority of time we get just the opposite: messages of disapproval and lack of acceptance.  This is a form of discrimination.  Discrimination is an example of: the lack of an existential connection to our gay identity.  This lack of support from non-gays – especially family members and our state and federal government – can have a huge impact on our own path towards comfort being gay.

Because as gays and lesbians we rarely get evidence – particularly from the non-gay public – that a gay life matters, NY’s law doesn’t even come close to giving us all the reinforcement our gay lives need, but it certainly helps move us closer.  When you read about how powerful non-gay men:  Andrew Cuomo, Michael Bloomberg and billionaire Paul Singer (to name a few) orchestrated the strategies to make this happen, we are receiving for one of the first times, a true existential connection to our gay identity from powerful, public non-gay men.

Now, spend some time thinking about how the lack of acceptance from non-gays has impacted your comfort building your gay identity.  If you think that it hasn’t, then here’s another question for you – how profoundly touched do you become when you witness a straight politician or celebrity who publicly voices being completely accepting of gays?

Because that isn’t what we experience from the majority of the non-gay public, it is generally deeply moving when we do.  Now, stop to consider how discrimination may have impacted more negatively and severely on other gay men than it does on you.  With or without discrimination we can all benefit by achieving increased happiness and comfort with our gay identity, even decades after coming out.

Let this inspire how you treat the gay men in your life and especially guys you see everyday that you do not know.  Volunteering and political activism are great options, but if you cannot find the time, here’s a small, but meaningful way to help.  By making eye contact, smiling, saying hi – especially to men you don’t know – you make other guys feel welcome in our gay community.

Belonging certainly increases thinking that we matter.  When we know that our lives as gay men matter: we have just experienced an existential connection to our gay identity.  NY’s same-sex marriage law just gave any of us who live here – and just as important, guys that don’t live here – an existential connection.  Now please go give one to another gay man when you are celebrating this groundbreaking moment in gay history.

In February, I wrote about NY congressman Chris Lee sending a shirtless picture to a younger woman on CraigsList (please scroll back to read it).  Well, it appears that NY congressmen seem to like to show off, because now we’re witnessing the scandal of NY Representative Anthony Weiner’s sexting pics to younger women.

Similar to the Chris Lee situation, the actions of these heterosexual men further my psychological discussion on the gender differences in what turns on men versus women.

My clinical work explores how strong the link is for males between the visual and sexual arousal.  All of us as men know how turned on we can get by a hot picture.  This is easier for us gay men to figure out in the online world because we are visually stimulated by men who are also visually stimulated by other men.

Therefore we have no problem seeing shirtless or naked pictures of other males and are equally willing to share pictures of ourselves if we are proud of what we’ve got.

Anthony Weiner is a visually stimulated male and he’s proud of what he’s got.  For a guy in his forties, he’s looking pretty good.  Even Jon Stewart on The Daily Show mentioned the shirtless pic of Weiner’s chest and was impressed with how ripped he was.

Differences in how men and women are sexually aroused from the visual complicate Weiner’s dilemma.  Part of the problem here is that women do not appear to be visually stimulated in the hormonal way that men experience.  And, Congressman Weiner is attracted to women, at least to the best of our knowledge, that’s the case.  So, when he’s showing off and sending pics of his goods to women, he is clueless of how a woman is going to respond.

Since Weiner would be turned on by a pic of a woman, he’s going to think a woman is going to be turned on by a pic of him.  But if women are not sexually aroused by the visual in the same way as males, then that’s not going to happen.

She’s going to be threatened from the sexual assertiveness of the picture and that’s not going to arouse her one damn bit.  And her anger and fear will lead to her decisions to expose the creep to the media.

Until men, especially heterosexual males in political office, understand more about these gender differences in sexual arousal from the visual, it’s likely we’re going to continue to hear about more online scandals like this recent one.

Perhaps the next one………..might even be outside NY state!

June is gay pride month.  What does this mean for older men?  For many, being older symbolizes, “I’m done and finished with gay prides, I went when I was younger.”  Or, “I’ll be the oldest one there, why would I want to bother with that torture when I can stay home and putter in my garden.”

There remain few large-scale events in gay subculture that still include a variety of age ranges of gay men.  But gay pride events are one of the exceptions and usually bring out large numbers of older men.  If you choose to attend this year, let me give you an opportunity to do some research.

Devote at least 30 minutes at your gay pride events watching the crowds of men to gain information on three questions:

1.  How often do you notice men over the age of forty making eye contact with each other?

2.  How often are men over the age of forty smiling at each other?

3.  How often do you see men over the age of forty making each other feel like we are still hot and sexy men?

When you finish your research, ask yourself the same three questions.

Why is it important? Because we go out less now it means we know fewer men.  Therefore how we interact with similar-aged men has never been as critical.

What explains our lack of interaction with each other?  There can be a variety of reasons.  Here are two that my clinical work explores.  First, since the visual links to our sexual arousal, I believe it impacts on how we treat other older men.  And second, because we are visual, when we make eye contact with men it generally includes a sexual intent.  Therefore a guy thinks it becomes very important NOT to make eye contact with men that do not turn us on so that the other man doesn’t confuse this conveying sexual interest.

Think about this for a minute.  Because of aging’s impact on our confidence and security -during this time in our lifespan of potentially feeling more vulnerable – we are not only going to be ignored by the large crowds of younger men, but also be dismissed by other gay men our own age.  Not so great, is it?

During your research at this gay pride, if you notice numbers of older men all ignoring each other, don’t despair.  This doesn’t make us cruel.  But it does prove we need specific training to support each other in sexually charged environments, especially settings where the majority of men are younger.

By watching how older men treat each other it may provide you the evidence that we can do a far better job supporting one another.  My book will show methods for doing that, but it won’t be out until January.  How about getting a head start?

Begin with observing the actions of other gay men your age.  Let gay pride 2011 be your opportunity to start making a difference in the lives of other aging gay men.  For now, all you have to do is watch men and ask yourself my three questions.  If unhappy with what you see in how we treat each other, in January, my book guides you to realizing your potential to change that.

All five senses impact on sexual pleasure.  Current research on the human brain suggests how specifically the visual sense enhances sexual arousal, especially for males.  When I began studying this research, I was fascinated, but not surprised.  It made perfect sense to me.  I recognized decades ago how visually stimulated I can be.  But, I’m not a researcher.  I’m a clinician.  Since a male’s visual sense appears to powerfully influence his sexual stimulation, here are a few of the questions – specific to gay men – it leaves this clinician asking:

1. What elevated burden does this place on a gay man’s looks?
2. Can this partially explain why gay men get criticized by others – and by our own community – as being superficial?
3. How does possessing a strong visual sense impact on the ways gay men treat each other when our looks begin to change with age?
4. Does the link between the visual sense and sexual stimulation explain part of why men over forty start describing as invisible in crowds of gay men?
5. How does our strong visual sense impact on our ability to stay turned-on in long-term relationships?

My clinical mind is driven to teach men how to utilize our powerful visual sense for making life easier.  And, specifically for gay men who lack this training: our visual sense potentially creates more trouble.  We are men, visually stimulated by other men, who are also visually stimulated by males.  Is there a way to prevent this from creating some extraordinary challenges when we get older?

There is now!  One of the issues my counseling, workshops and my book, specifically address is our strong visual sense.  I mention the power of the visual in this video and I discuss the brain research in detail in one of the chapters of The Right Side of Forty.  When you read my book, you will begin to understand more about why your own powerful visual sense contributes to what turns you on and potentially more importantly with aging: what doesn’t turn you on.

If you are already aware that you can be visually turned-on, I’m going to show you where it may be actually creating increased sadness with your aging.  The Right Side of Forty is filled with action plans I designed to help our aging because of the unique dilemmas gay men encounter.  One of these challenges: possessing a strong visual sense.  In January, you begin to learn techniques for lowering your sadness resulting from your own aging.  Several of my methods respect the powerful visual sense in males and teach you how to strategically exploit it for successfully achieving more happiness.

Right now is an unprecedented moment in our gay history.  Today: we are the first large group of openly gay men to deal with the issues of getting older.  How is that possible?  The earlier generation, the Stonewall men: were decimated in numbers by AIDS in the 80’s and early 90’s.

Think about how monumental that makes what we are going through now.  I turn forty-nine this year and I cannot even imagine the added security and comfort I would possess with getting older if I saw packs of older gay men in their sixties, seventies and eighties.  If they were still around, it does not guarantee I would be inspired by how they were aging.  But because there would be so many examples of older gay men: it would assist my decisions building my own list of the do’s and the don’ts with getting older.  I am painfully aware that I am forced to figure out my version of success and failure being older without this help.

In the beginning of this video, I have just finished asking how many gay men have been openly gay for over thirty years.  There were very few raised hands because there are very few of these men remaining.

Gay men:  this is a big deal.  The normal everyday challenges with our aging process are exacerbated from a lack of older role models.  Without this large group of gay male elders, how will we learn what it means to be older and gay?

Here’s my answer to that question: by helping each other’s aging.

Whether you like it or not, if you need support with getting older: all we have is each other.  We need help and it’s going to have to start with how we treat each other.  The just-released findings from California’s State Health Survey support this moment’s impact: in gay men, ages 50-70, there exists higher rates of mental illness and living alone than with similar-aged non-gay men.  And, please let’s not forget:  we are the generation to teach today’s younger gay men about getting older.

For all these reasons a component of my clinical work includes training gay men in how to support each other with getting older.  Building your motivation to help becomes easier as the magnitude of this stage in gay history begins to sink in.  Do you realize that future generations of gay men will likely never endure what our aging currently includes?

The Right Side of Forty is the first book on aging for the gay men of the twenty-first century that are struggling through this watershed moment.  With its release in January, my book mobilizes us for taking on our next crucial assignment: helping each other’s aging.  There’s a role for you to make a difference, my book is filled with thirteen chapters of options on how to get involved supporting other gay men while increasing your happiness about your own aging.

It’s up to us.

When I ran my past workshop at the amazing LGBT Center in Los Angeles, it was a sold-out room filled with a variety of ages: from younger guys in their late twenties all the way up to seniors in their early eighties.  Perfect!  My clinical message on getting older is for gay men of every age.

Then why does my work talk about the age forty?  It’s an interesting moment in our life span.  We start experiencing midlife.  Moving out of one phase and into another.

Because we are entering new territory this will be frightening.  And, give yourself a break: it should have some level of fear attached to it. Life after forty is major.  It means we are no longer in the youngest phase of our life cycle.

Regardless your age, you are either going to have to deal with forty or you have already dealt with it.  How you handle this transition can have a huge impact on the decades that follow.

If we react to midlife with fear, resignation and sadness:  our lives as older men can be filled with increased anxiety, depression and isolation.  Well, that won’t work for me.  I want to keep having fun and help other older men do the same.  If we react to midlife with a plan that acknowledges we are moving into a new phase and therefore require new strategies: our lives can be filled with increased happiness and confidence.

For any man in his late forties or older, the number 40 no longer terrifies, we have moved on.  But this doesn’t mean we have created the most effective action plans to get the maximum happiness from our lives as older men.  For men in their twenties and thirties, the number 40 gets scarier the closer it gets.

Midlife is a big deal.  Whether it’s creeping up or far behind. Do you have a plan to get you through?  I do.  I quickly approach forty-nine and I’ve never been happier.  It’s not by chance or magic.  Keep checking in with my blog as I share the methods I’ve created to help my clients and myself.

In January 2012 my plan to help you goes further.  My book, The Right Side of Forty: The Guide to Happiness For Gay Men Beyond Midlife releases where I provide you 13 chapters of strategies I’ve created to help all gay men get the most out of getting older.  Very soon you get the chance to start trying them out!