The Lives of Older Lesbians: Sexuality, Identity & the Life Course

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I meet a guy wearing a very cool custom leather coat, but it’s hot and sticky out, so I assume he’s more interested in looking “cool” than actually being cool. Plus, sexy age-gap couples like Sarah Paulson and Holland Taylor (32-year gap), Rachel Maddow and Susan Mikula (14-year gap), and Tig Notaro and Stephanie Allynne (13-year gap) keep lesbian May-December relationships in the spotlight. At 61, I’ve had my own chronic illness challenges, too, and when I’ve dated women in their 70s, I’ve certainly been aware of both their human fragility and mine.

MSNBC Superstar Rachel Maddow and artist Susan Mikula met in 1999, when Maddow was hired to do yard work on Mikula’s Berkshires property.In other words, not only are lesbian age-gap relationships way more common than heterosexual ones, they’re also possible throughout our community. Check OkCupid and find a new message: “I am (insert high percentage point here) sure I saw you and made eye contact with a smirk on my face last Thursday or Friday, I had a bouquet of flowers it was 1 st and 5 th street and the cops had just razzed me, so the smirk was a combo of them and my fixation on your body…. I know if I followed my heart with a much older woman that I'd just leave her in the end for a younger woman because I will lose attraction when she gets too old. We’ve become friends, though, and traveled together to Alaska, where we got smashed at his favorite strip club, the Great Alaskan Bush Company.

It means she can now attend Queen’s, an all girls boarding school that only accepts the academic elite.A guy I had sex with in 1987 (now happily married with two kids and living in the ‘burbs) shows up and tells me how great I look. As we age, we have more skills with which to navigate our emotional landscapes, and more perspective and wisdom, too. As in any community, sometimes there are divisions between older and younger lesbians and queer women.