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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 21, 2000)
_ pniiary 31. 2000 » J— — CINEM A 2 1 IIIN W II" 22M S IS No hawks in sight A P o r tla n d m a n Is fig h tin g ageism , o n e m a n at a tim e H H H oooo, Mike, what did you do Saturday fflP night ?” My friend knows full well what this i l P 24-year-old did. “Weeeelll, I had a date.” “Oh, really? With whom?” His feigned ignorance only makes the question more probing. 1 pause a bit before answering. “With Nathan.” Nathan, for the record, is a 41-year-old I’ve been seeing on and off for nearly two years. “You know,” my friend says as he puts on his best poker face, “I read in psychology books that gay guys in their 20s who couldn’t date much in their teens arrive on the dating scene emotionally unpre pared. They never had the opportunity to grow out of their teens. They project this onto older men, whom they see as possessing the emotional maturity they lack.” BY His language is m obtuse, but his point is crystal-clear to me. TUMY Basically, he’s saying 1 should date closer to my age. He’s not the first person to sug gest this. In the past, other people have insinuated the same thing. Certainly, society at large has sent me the same message. Virtually all the messages I receive urge me to find a nice twenty-something. After all, people from your age group are the ones you have the most in common with, right? Maybe, but not necessarily. A glance around my circle of friends reveals that there are only a hand ful in their 20s. The remainder are all thirty- or forty-somethings. Even my friends in their 20s have a maturity and intelligence that belies their age. They all have an “older” quality to which I gravitate. However, while people seem to think it fine to befriend people 15 years your senior, it’s somehow beyond the pale to date them. When the subject of older men comes up, some young gay men rarely make an effort to conceal their squeamishness. Older guys, on the other hand, are sometimes disconcerted holding a simple conversation with me, no matter how innocent the context. It’s as though they can’t believe someone under 30 could have any legitimate interest in them. I can see the question in their expressions and read the suspicion in their eyes: W hat’s he real ly after? Sti what happens when you put a 24-year- old together with, say, a 40-year-old? Outsiders make unfortunate assumptions about both par ties, none of them very flattering. The younger man is usually seen as weak and emotionally °eedy. Other older men, seeking to protect their peers, look down on the young man as poised to become some sort of financial para site. The older man, on the other hand, is seen as a lecherous, predatory creature. We have plenty of words revealing our atti tudes about age and mixed-age relationships. For example, if a young man is a "chicken,” his older counterpart is a “chicken hawk." While “daddy” and “son" have bedroom connotations, “sugar daddy” and “houseboy” are more gener ic, but the implication of sex roles remains. “Troll” is not exactly a term of endearment. Furthermore, attraction to a very young man makes an older guy a “cradle robber,” or worse yet could even brand him as a pedophile. Pre dictably, a cradle robber’s opposite is a “grave robber.” And, finally, young men can be dis missed as “twinks.” Now there’s a word I’ve used a little too lib erally around some of my friends. While it bothers me when people criticize the guys I’m attracted to, it never dawned on me that it might offend when I used ttvink as, well, a slur. Another good friend, who likes young men, has always been supportive of whom I choose to date. I, on the other hand, blissfully kept “...best recalls the ‘My Life As A Dog? -Tom Bliss, IN L O S A N G E L E S Gai-QHcd STRAND RELEASING PRESENTS A FILM BY LUKAS MOODYSSON • / For The Gay Man In Your Life E« : » B 'l i l infftlffW ONE WEEK ONLY: JANUARY 21-27 THE HOTTEST DANCE MUSIC....NOW IN STOCK! w w w s tra n d rp j.c o m “A raw, dynamic rush of a film." Valentine Cards Love Bears (For That Special One) Calendars- (Up to 50% Off) % r ,U*». íe s A N G U fS TIMES "Com pelling...Provocative Explosive...the breakaw ay Indie of 1999.” New Items Such As: Exposed (Hot New Board Game) Intense (Gay Pheromone) Newly-Released Videos 2544 NE Broadway ph 331.1125 Email: info(agaipied. com reiterating to him my romantic disinterest in twinks until he finally told me how sick he was of hearing about it. Not exactly the best way to return my friend’s understanding. “So what did you guys do?” my friend innocently asks as he finishes off his mocha. My instinct is to reflexively say, “Nothing much.” In the past, I’ve literally made people shudder just by talking about a very tame date with an older guy. It’s usually easier not to go into it. But this time it’s different. Instead, I relate my story of a relatively quiet, uneventful Saturday. I tell him about how we went out for Indian food in Northwest Port land, then chatted over drinks, and wound up the evening watching the tail end of the U of O football game he wanted to see. As I speak I notice a slight smile steal over his lips, and I know what it means. It’s a knowing smile, one which tells me that inside he’s shaking his head and rolling his eyes and chuckling, because he knows me and how some things will never change. That, and the fact that he just caught me peeking at the blond, goateed 35-year-old entering the cafe. ■ MlKE T uray is a member of Portland Gay Men Writing. To learn more about the group, call Patrick at (503) 231-8866. Sung in Italian/Sung In Latin and German with translations projected above the stage. February 12 , 14, 16, 19 Portland Civic Auditorium • 7:30 pm sharp! (503) 241-1802 or (503) 790-ARTS S omks Tickets also available at all tssm im ii outlets including GI Joe's, Meier Si Frank, and the PCPA and Portland Opera Box Offices. • www.ticketmaster.com/Oregon Groups of 10 or More SAVE up to 20% Call 241-1407 • www.portlandopera.org E 3 ( VirporatiSS^' A Peha Air Ijn x L - K 141