The motion of invisible objects: aging queer desires

ABSTRACT

This exploration takes a critical erotic/a approach to understanding how queer desires change and disrupt over the course of aging. I explore aging gay sexuality as a text of the body that is performed within exchanges. I situate my sex within the contexts of the HIV epidemic, gay liberation and sex work. This is composed of three movements: discovering sex in the early 1990s Bay Area; changing discourses of HIV prevention and treatment; turning fifty in the gay community and its accompanying invisibility. Finally, the use of sex work is brought forth as a tool to manage these transformations.

KEYWORDS:

• Critical erotica
• gay sex
• HIV
• gay aging
• sex work

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the editor and anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful feedback. This piece emerges from exchanges with Robert Vazquez-Pacheco, Roddrick Colvin, Ruth Morgan-Thomas, Alex Garner, Kevin Williams, José Romero, the dancers at Club 69, and the now late Jeffrey Escoffier. Martin French, Gloria Pindi, Ceclia Uy-Tioco, and Robert Guiterrez-Perez all provided key editorial advice at various phases of this manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).