Bob Bergeron, LCSW

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!

Forty-six year-old NY congressmen Chris Lee just resigned over a scandal involving a shirtless pic he sent on CraigsList (CL).  I find this fascinating.

This thirty-four year-old woman is complaining that there are no hot guys on CraigsList.  Her profile reads:  please show me not every man on CL is a toad.

So, Lee sends her a shirtless pic and what’s her reply?  She slams back – you don’t own any shirts? She then ends any future communication.

Interesting.

Let’s pretend for a second that Lee is a gay man and on CL looking for sex with another guy and that he sends that same pic.  Here’s what I think the reply would be from another gay man – don’t you have any pics of your dick or your ass?

Don’t you agree?  Why do you think that is?

Here’s part of what I think explains it.  The sense of visual in males is very powerful and links with our sexual drive.  With women it clearly doesn’t work the same way.  So Chris Lee knows what visually turns him on: a hot woman with a hot body.  But what also factors into this is a woman’s lifetime relationship with objectification, which likely began as a small girl.  Good experiences.  Terrifying experiences.

By the time she reaches thirty-four, has almost a three-decade history with objectification, what turns her on is not likely going to be an online shirtless pic of a man flexing the guns.  That’s likely too cheesy, aggressive, too threatening, especially online: and may remove any amount of visual attraction.  A picture of a guy volunteering at a soup kitchen – which ironically, congressman Lee likely has thousands of – would get into her pants.

For a gay man, the shirtless pic is not enough.  We need more, because it’s all about the visual and our relationships being objectified began when we became openly gay , not in our tweens.  Therefore getting objectified and objectifying other men makes perfect sense to us and is exciting.

With all the challenges we have finding men, sex, love and relating to other men, don’t give up hope.  We have it easier than we recognize.  I stand in awe of how straight couples often find their way to connect.  They can have such different views on what turns them on.

And, by the way, Chris – looking damn good for forty-six.  You don’t have a job now, but keep hitting the gym!

……that is the question. One of the ways gay men often express themselves in gay subculture includes removing our shirts. Not all gay men do it, but plenty of us do. This can happen in bars, clubs and of course with online pics.

There are numerous explanations for why we take off our shirts – to show off our bodies, to compete with the bodies of the guys around us, and to show younger guys how good we still look.  While this explains a few of the many motives, I’m going to focus on a singular reason gay men do this – because it makes us sex objects.

The sex object gets sexual attention. I think it is critical as older men that we continue to be sex objects.  It’s part of what keeps an important spark to our life.  We are very lucky as older gay men that we can actually achieve success still being sexy to other gay men.  This is not the case for older heterosexual women; they do not have that same ability with straight men. But we still require help as hot, sexy older gay men to guide our behavior in this next stage of life.

Here’s a strategy I discuss with gay men over forty.

As older men – no matter how fit or fantastically muscled and ripped our bodies – how can we avoid judgments yet still be sex objects?  I think it depends more on the setting than the beauty of our body.  If an environment is dominated with younger men – meaning over fifty percent of the men are under forty – these are settings where we cannot truly succeed in still being the sex objects. Therefore this instructs us that these are situations to let go of being the sex object.

Here’s the sad reality of the reason why.  Because in settings that are filled with younger men, we end up looking like we are trying way too hard.  This looks desperate.  And with each new fresh crop of hot young guys, we will fail more than we succeed.   This will terrify the younger men as they watch and think, OMG if this older hot guy cannot figure out his aging, then WTF am I going to do when I get older?  That fear will make the younger men mock and judge harshly the older men trying to be sex objects.  This will not make us feel comfortable, confident or happy about being older; especially if we take pride in the amount of time and effort we put into keeping fit.

If you watch Logo, then you know that it’s going to require an exhaustive search to find a man over forty as stunning as The A-list’s Mike Ruiz.  Yet even he was not spared derisive comments from the younger cast members on the episode where they viewed Mike’s Tom of Finland sex object self-portraits at Mike’s gallery exhibition.

It’s important we remain sex objects, and to limit mockery it needs to happen in settings where the majority of men are over the age of forty.  That means over fifty percent of the men are your age and older. In these settings – show off how hot you are.  This is where you can choose to do it and we are so damn fortunate to have these options. Don’t stop filling the need you have to be a sex object; just learn to become selective about the places you do it.

To evaluate your own current behavior, try this out. Look through your pics on social networking sites like Facebook.  If your profile includes pics of you shirtless, then you are sending a message to the entire world of people (friends, family, colleagues) who follow you on Facebook – I am a sex object.

Some gay men think of social networking sites like Facebook as the online equivalent of a gay bar, club or gym.  These are sexually charged environments, but they will likely not always lead to sex.  Now dig further and see if there are also Facebook pics of you shirtless with groups of other shirtless men younger than forty at events like gay prides and Halloween parties.  If that answer is yes, does this mean you are embarrassing yourself trying to compete with younger men?  Not necessarily.  But perhaps it may indicate you are having some difficulty answering the question – how do I remain hot as an older man?

Online-sex-sites are different, think of these as the equivalent of a sex club or a sauna.  While Grinder and Manhunt are filled with younger men, we can show it all off there; because this is blatantly about sex and we have a place to be shirtless there, even as older men. But shirtless on Facebook, or in bars and clubs filled with dominant numbers of young guys, becomes more difficult to pull off for men over forty.  Even if your body is better than it has ever been and better than most of the current twenty-eight year-olds.

If you still look great and were the type of gay man that took his shirt off in your twenties and thirties, it is common to now struggle with what to do about it. Being proud of our sexiness as older men involves our actions maturing beyond what we did in our twenties.  It means making changes. It also requires not following or competing with the behavior of what the current twenty-eight year-olds are doing.  When we are over forty and still shirtless in settings filled with a majority of younger men, we are trying to be a sex object in their territory.  And because that risks looking desperate, it increases the potential for other gay men to treat us poorly.

We had our time as younger men to be the shirtless sex objects and show off at the high-profile events.  This helped us gain comfort with our gay identity and increased our ability to meet men not just for sex, but also for friendship. Our needs are different now.  Keep taking your shirt off in settings filled with a majority of men your age and realize how blessed we are as older gay men to have this available option.  Start to increase the times you leave the shirt on in settings filled with a majority of younger men, while recognizing that we are lucky as older gay men to have places where we can still be a sex object; it simply isn’t the spots filled with all the younger men.  Do this as an experiment starting now through the first three months of 2011 – especially if you are a single man over forty and desire a relationship – and see what happens in how other men treat you.

You will act differently and possibly discover something new about yourself when you change any behavior – particularly if you are a hot older man with a decades-old action of taking off your shirt in groups of other shirtless gay men.  In the short term, this may decrease your confidence because you are not letting your body open doors and do the talking for you.  But in the long term it may increase your social comfort as you rely on your intelligence, kindness and personality for meeting new men. It may also make you less threatening and more approachable, providing other men the confidence to interact with you.

At the same time, the good news is, you don’t have to give up being a sex object – or being proud of your sexy body – simply update where you are a sex object.

Start asking yourself – where as an older man is it appropriate to remain a sex object?  Let that help guide your decisions on taking your shirt off and also where you post your shirtless pics.  And let me know your thoughts.  Do you agree that no matter how great you look you need to be strategic and think differently than a twenty-eight year-old on where you show yourself shirtless now that you are older?

On October 26 I presented another workshop on aging to gay men at NY’s The Center.  As I spoke to the filled room of men about making the most out of getting older, I realized that many of the aging messages that attempt to make us more excited about being older are misleading.

This popular concept that 50 is the new 35 is one of those errors.  What does this mean that 50 is the new 35?  How does one get their head around this?  How does this help men know how to behave?

Thinking that 50 is the new 35 potentially leads us to behave inappropriately, instructing men to act like a 35 year-old.  It also sets up the 50 year-old for failure as he tries to compete with 35 year-old gay men because he’s been told 50 is the new 35.  I really don’t see how this helps an older man or assists in bringing him happiness.

Here’s what I think about our aging and what I tell my clients all the time.  I think that the age 40 is the beginning of the final twenty-five years of being young.  I think the age 65 is the beginning of being old.

This is something I can get my head around.  I’m 48, that puts me right in the middle of the final twenty-five years of being young.  That means I have 17 years of being young left.  Wow, that’s encouraging and makes me happy.  17 years is still a lot of time!

But it also provides a wonderfully effective safety check to caution me.  I’ve got 17 years of being young left.  Don’t screw this up and miss out on that remaining 17 years by neglecting my health and not being grateful I’m still young.  It informs me I need to exercise and limit my intake of drugs and alcohol to avoid getting older quicker.

That’s exactly the message I expect from an aging strategy – how can it make me appreciate and get the most out of the age I am now.  50 is the new 35 does not allow men to do that.

Change your thinking to the final twenty-five years of being young and let this help you appreciate that you still have some youth remaining in your life span.

Don’t wait until 2011!  Start now to make changes so that you can get the most out of your final twenty-five years of being young.  Let me know the results you get with my approach.  If you are a gay man over 40 but not yet 65, then you are somewhere in the final twenty-five years of being young. Enjoy and make the most of it!!

On October 26 I had my latest workshop for gay men on how to increase happiness by looking at making changes in how we relate to other gay men.  It is always pleasant for me as a clinician to watch men listen to the information.

But what I find profoundly gratifying is at the end of the workshop when men ask questions which show they are already applying these clinical methods to their own life story of relating to males.  This is when I get to see their opportunities to increase their happiness!

I hope each of you at some point will get the chance to attend one of my workshops.  But until then, here’s some clips from this past workshop.  Let me know if you have any questions I can help you answer after you watch it.