Paizões,tiozões, e tias e cacuras

Abstract

This ethnography examines the intertwining of social markers such as aging, middle age, old age, sexuality, homoeroticism and intergenerational relations. The central goal is to understand how the experiences of aging and sexuality later in life are narrated by men who use websites that provide homoerotic interactions. To this end -and based on a qualitative methodology involving in-depth interviews, "on line" and "off line" informal conversations as well as participant observation -the following questions were explored: a) the management of social categories associated to mature men with homoerotic sexual practices; b) the narrative construction of temporal and generational sensibilities; c) the ways in which positive models of aging among men with homoerotic sexual practices and / or that identify themselves as homosexual have been gestated; d) the perceptions concerning the socio-spatial transformations regarding homosexual practices and identities in recent decades and, finally, e) the management of the social support networks in the aging processes of these individuals. The universe studied is composed of men who, in most cases, considered themselves as middle class, white, with a moderately high educational background, deeply involved in on line interactions, which have between 45 and 70 years old and live in São Paulo. For these men on line interactions have impacted in a positive way. These interactions were narrated as enabling significant new friendships and erotic relationships. Moreover, in contrast to some authors of the so-called LGBT Gerontology -who tend to overemphasize victimizing and disempowered scenarios as years go by -this work has foregrounded some relevant forms of agency throughout the lives and aging processes of the men who made part of my research.