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resources. . . . Thus heterosexuality, while depending on the exclusion or marginalization of other sexualities for its legitimacy, is not precisely coter-minous with heterosexual sexuality. Heteronormativity defines not only a normative sexual practice but also a normal way of life.
(Jackson, 2006, 107) Normative heterosexuality ‘establishes a heterosexual/homosexual hierarchy’
(Seidman, 2005, 40) which also ‘privileges monogamous coupledom’ (Jackson, 2006, 110) via regulatory frameworks which reinforce biological family and family forms based on the different-sex couple and the nuclear family (West-wood, 2013, 2016a, 2016b and 2017). For example, there is a heterosexist bias in social welfare policy frameworks in many countries, which are predicated upon, and benefit, these particular relationship/family forms while penalising and stigmatising others (Lind, 2004; Harding, 2010). In terms of relationship recognition, heterosexual acts between consenting adults have always been legal; marriage (both religious and civil) has always been available to heterosex-ual couples of the age of consent; different-sex couples have always been able to adopt and to receive whatever fertility treatment has been available at the time. Section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988, the Conservative ban on promoting homosexuality in schools (which was repealed in 2000 in Scotland and 2003 in England and Wales), referred to non-heterosexual families as ‘pre-tended’ family relationships. Now-ageing heterosexual couples were not only immune to this discrimination, they were privileged by it, while being mostly unaware of this privileging.
Despite the binary discourse of heterosexuality and non-heterosexuality, which excludes bisexualities, non-binary and genderqueer lives, in reality there is considerable overlap between the hetero- and the homo- (Kinsey et al., 1948, 1953; Richardson, 1996, 2000; Barker et al., 2012) particularly among women (Kitzinger, 1987; Diamond, 2008; Traies, 2016; Westwood, 2016a). As Adrienne Rich (1980) demonstrated in her landmark paper written over 30 years ago, women (and men) have been compelled into ‘compulsory heterosexuality’
with the alternatives being rendered unthinkable. While alternatives are now becoming more thinkable, heterosexuality still prevails as the primary, privi-leged, default identity in mainstream society (Weeks, 2010).
Recognition in older age: heterosexuality as a (gendered) identity practice
Recognition involves cultural visibility and social status (Young, 1990; Fraser, 1996; Nussbaum, 2010). Recognition is a crucial issue in relation to ageing and social justice. Indeed, Mario Paris and colleagues have argued that the strug-gle for recognition in older age is the ‘next stage’ in critical gerontology (Paris, Garon and Beaulieu, 2013; Paris, 2016). Heterosexuality in older age is unique in that it is always recognised and yet never acknowledged:
Heterosexual ageing 149 Heterosexuality in representations of mid-to-later life is, as always, notable by its unremarkability. It is the sexuality which never needs to be noted or declared as such.
(Marshall, 2017, 6)
Visibility and worth
Older heterosexual people are subject, as are all older people, to the processes of ageism and sexism (Calasanti and Slevin, 2007). They are both buffered by heterosexism – in that their ageing is ‘ordinary’ – and also constrained by it – in that they are required to comply with ‘successful ageing’ within which
‘ “success” is equated with enactments of normative, gendered heterosexual-ity’ (Marshall, 2017, 1) and the promise of ‘heterohappiness’ (Marshall, 2017, 1). Older heterosexual people are more likely to have experienced, and have had validated, the ‘transitions that exist in the normative life course based on heterosexuality’ (Fredriksen-Goldsen and Muraco, 2010, 11), i.e. marriage, parenthood and grandparenthood. Their family forms and later life support networks are most likely to be recognised in older age, with social policies predicated upon the notion of intergenerational biological family support.
Health and social care providers are more likely to assume that an older per-son is heterosexual (Fish, 2006; Jones, 2010), and to engage with them about their lives, life histories and significant relationships accordingly (Simpson, Almack and Walthery, 2016). In this way, people who identify as hetero-sexual enjoy automatic recognition as having lived ‘normal’ lives, i.e. lives which have complied with the privileged heterosexual norm. Their visibility is also less likely to be ‘risky’ compared with older LGB people (Westwood, 2016a, 2016b) whose identity, if made visible, maintains the same risk of opprobrium as in their youth.
Sexuality
There has been a shift in thinking about older people in relation to sexual desire and sexual activity (Gott and Hinchliff, 2003). From previous construc-tions of older people as asexual, there is a growing appreciation that sex remains significant for older people, and has become closely linked to notions of suc-cessful ageing. However, the sex privileged in this discourse is heterosexual:
Sexuality has increasingly been associated with positive and active ageing, and to be continuously sexually active is understood as a way of resisting growing old while ageing. . . . However . . . it is not primarily sex as such that is celebrated as part of the good later life, but rather heterosexual intimacy. . . . By intimacy, I mean something both sexual and non-sexual, a cluster of touch, sensuality, disclosure, and feelings of love and commit-ment that hold particular significance to the heterosexual culture . . . [this]
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intimacy is in turn understood as the ‘vision of the good life,’ and this is increasingly salient also to later life.
(Sandberg, 2015, 26) Similarly, the majority of research on ageing sexualities has focused on older heterosexual people (Hinchliff and Gott, 2008; Hughes, 2011; Fileborn et al., 2017) in normative (i.e. monogamous) relationships. Interestingly, far less attention has been given to less normative heterosexual activities involving
‘older swingers’ (Dukers-Muijrers et al., 2010), sexual fluidity among older people (Bouman and Kleinplatz, 2015) and those older people (predominantly older women) who had previously identified as heterosexual but, quite late in life, no longer do so (Westwood, 2016a; Traies, 2016).
In my own research, for example, with older LGBNL (LGB and non- labelling) people in the UK, one of the participants, Ellen, formed a sexual relationship with a close friend (later her civil partner, now her wife) after 40 years of heterosexual marriage. She had had no prior inkling of any sexual attraction to women:
I mean since I realised that I love Tessa, and love a woman, no one could be more shocked than me, I can tell you. I’ve never fancied a woman in my life. . . . I don’t know if I am a lesbian, I really don’t know. Am I a lesbian? All I know is I love Tessa, I love her to death and there’s a very broad spectrum, isn’t there? Because I lived as a heterosexual all my life, I didn’t know as a child I was different, I didn’t know as a young adult, middle adult, listening to lesbians talking, there’s always been an innate knowledge, a recognition, even if it was denied. I’ve never had that recognition.
(Ellen, aged 64, quoted in Westwood, 2016a, 57) Ellen reflected on the potential for other women to discover the possibilities of same-sex relationships,
I am amazed at how many people we have met, and in [local lesbian group]
who said they had been married – I thought I was the only one who was married, you know. [It’s] fabulous, absolutely fabulous. And then it makes me think, well how many more are out there? Come on out girls! Let’s get them out! Away from the kitchen, get out!
(Ellen, aged 64, quoted in Westwood, 2016a, 198) There is, then, a need for research which: (a) explores with heterosexual-identifying older women, how heterosexuality has shaped and informed their lives; and (b) explores with heterosexuality ambivalent older women how this ambivalence has been experienced and has shaped their ageing experience.
Moreover, research about ageing sexualities must encompass the full spectrum of sexualities, not only heterosexualities, in order to locate heterosexuality in its full context (and challenge what may well prove to be false boundaries).
Heterosexual ageing 151 Heterosexual compliance: the potential pains of mis-recognition
One of the frequent narratives about older heterosexual people is that that they are less likely than older LGB people to have mental health problems in later life due to the absence of sexual minority stress. In other words, being socially marginalised and socially positioned as inferior, even to themselves, damages LGB people psychologically. This damage accumulates with age (Fredriksen-Goldsen et al., 2013) in ways which do not affect older heterosexual people.
However, an area that has not yet been explored is the effects on an individual who has positioned themselves as heterosexual all their lives, when this posi-tioning may not accord with their desires and/or identification. Many older people who have formed same-sex relationships in later life talk about the pain of hiding themselves when in heterosexual relationships and the relief to be free from that hiding (Westwood, 2016a). What we do not yet know is what it is like for those individuals who remain in hiding, never forming a same-sex relationship, or only doing so in clandestine ways. In other words, we need to better understand the penalties as well as privileges of adopting a heterosexual identity/lifestyle with which one is not fully in accord.
The constraints of (ageing) heterosexual compliance
While much has been written about heterosexual privilege, less well explored are the disadvantages of heterosexuality. There is a growing interest in how heteronormative masculinities constrain the possibilities for being and for self-expression among heterosexual men (Lodge and Umberson, 2013). This has particular implications for older age, where older heterosexual men face the prospects of cultural devaluation if they are unable in older age to success-fully comply with the gendered, sexualised ideals associated with ‘‘‘doing’’
masculinity’ (Fileborn et al., 2017, 2097). Similarly, in terms of those women for whom non-heterosexuality has been an ‘unthinkable’ due to compulsory heterosexuality (Rich, 1980) but who might have been open to same sex sexual intimacies option, we do not yet understand how compliance with heterosexism and heteronormativity has constrained their opportunities for sexual fulfilment and/or self-expression. Moreover, in considering the gen-dered inequalities of ageing (see Part One of this collection), there is much to be understood about the place of heteronormativity, compliance with hetero- gender norms, and the enduring significance of patriarchy, in shaping those inequalities.
Resources in older age: heterosexuality, material, personal and social capital
In her analysis of resources, Fraser was primarily considering economic resources. However, there is a growing appreciation of the importance of other kinds of resources for equality and social justice, especially the affective resources
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(Lynch, 2010; Lynch et al., 2016) of social networks, health and well-being, and care. These take on particular significance in later life (see Herring, Chapter 18).
Employment and access to material/financial capital
The UK Stonewall-commissioned YouGov survey (Guasp, 2011) compared the ageing experiences, issues and concerns of 1,050 heterosexual and 1,036 LGB people over the age of 55. The study reported that heterosexual people over 55 are less likely to be in paid employment than older LGB people (Guasp, 2011, 6): half of those surveyed aged between 55 and 59 were in full- or part-time paid employment (compared with two-thirds of LGB people in the same age bracket); 93% of heterosexual respondents aged 70 and over were retired, compared with 81% of older LGB people. There are two possibilities for this:
either older heterosexual people are less able to obtain work in older age than older LGB people (which does not seem likely) or they have less need to do so, i.e. they have access to relatively greater financial resources (which seems more likely). There is considerable evidence now of historical heterosexual privilege in employment, which means that heterosexual individuals, particularly those who are now ageing, were more likely (than LGB individuals) to have greater choice in their career-type, to establish themselves within a particular career pathway and to achieve promotion into higher paid roles (van Loo and Rocco, 2009).
However, this analysis is nuanced by gender and by parenthood/non- parenthood status. It is now well-recognised that older women are, overall, poorer than older men (see Vlachantoni, Chapter 2). This is partly due to pay inequalities between women and men, and to the gendering of lower-paid care work (more often performed by women). It is also due to women being more likely to work part-time, due to their informal care commitments, particularly women with children and grandchildren. This in turn impacts upon their abil-ity to accrue material and financial resources in later life.
Childless women are not similarly affected, and are more likely to accrue greater capital by the time they reach older age than women who are parents (Mika and Czaplicki, 2017). Given that older heterosexual women are more likely to have children than older LGB women (see further on in this chap-ter, and also Hadley, Chapter 5) there is then an argument to be made that they are more likely to suffer from the associated financial disadvantages of the
‘motherhood penalty’ (although they reap the patriarchal dividend of a hus-band). A number of authors have argued that this may disproportionately affect lower-skilled low-income women (e.g. Killewald and Bearak, 2014), while oth-ers have argued that they disproportionately affect highly skilled, higher-paid women (e.g. England et al., 2016). However the ‘motherhood penalty’ needs to be understood in its wider context, as married women/widows are often well provided for by their husbands, at least relatively more so than their lesbian counterparts. Moreover, in later life children can add social and financial sup-port, not enjoyed by those ageing without children.
Heterosexual ageing 153 There is a need for far greater understanding of the implications of the motherhood (and fatherhood) penalty in later life, across the sexualities spec-trum, nuanced not only by class but also other significant socio-economic posi-tions such as culture, race and ethnicity (Bowleg et al., 2013; Harris, 2014).
Relationships
The Stonewall survey (Guasp, 2011) also found significant differences in the social networks of older heterosexual and older LGB. See Table 10.1 for a summary of the findings in relation to relationships.
As Table 10.1 demonstrates, older heterosexual people are more likely to be in couples than older LGB people, less likely to live alone, more likely to have children and more likely to see biological family members on a regular basis. Although friendships are important to older heterosexual people (Gray, 2009), as Table 10.1 shows they were less important to those in the survey than to their LGB counterparts (Guasp, 2011, 9). Moreover, as Table 10.1 shows, older heterosexual people are half as likely as older LGB people to expect to rely on formal social care provision in older age (Guasp, 2011, 20). As older people develop age-related care needs, particularly personal care needs, they tend to turn to their spouses/partners and/or children for support rather than friends (Pickard, 2015). Older people with strong intragenerational friendship networks, whether heterosexual or LGB, may find that they are less likely to be able to support one another, if they are all developing age-related care needs at a similar time (Westwood, 2016a).
Older heterosexual people are more likely than LGB people to comply with the assumed heteronormative identities of grandparents and enjoy the associ-ated positive status and its connections to successful ageing.
[the] associations between hetero-happiness and successful aging through the widely disseminated imagery of heterosexual coupledom . . . Success is
Table 10.1 Summary of Stonewall survey’s findings about relationships
People aged 55+ Heterosexual LGB
Single 15% 40%
Live alone 28% 41%
Have children 90% Women: 50%
Men: 25%
See biological family at least
once a week 50% 25%
‘View their friends as family’ Women: 60%
Men: 48% Women: 81%
Men: 69%
Likely to turn to a friend for
practical help if ill Women: 19%
Men: 14% Women: 52%
Men: 42%
Source: Guasp, 2011
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not just illustrated through coupledom, but also portrayed through happy intimacies with grandchildren, pointing to (hetero)kinship as that which makes later life meaningful and positive.
(Sandberg and Marshall, 2017, 3) Grandmotherhood and grandfatherhood are still very much framed as heter-osexual identities (Arber and Timonen, 2012; Tarrant, 2013), although this is likely to change in those countries where successive cohorts of same-sex cou-ples are now having children (Traies, 2016; Westwood, 2017). Importantly, heterosexual people with children and grandchildren avoid the ostracising experiences of older people ageing without them (Hafford-Letchfield et al., 2017; Hadley, this collection). In this way, access to children and grandchil-dren is important both as a site of recognition and as a (care) resource in later life.
Health and well-being
Fredriksen-Goldsen et al. (2013) conducted a comparative study on the health of heterosexual and LGB people over 50 in the US. They reported that hetero-sexual older adults had comparatively lower risks for disability, cardiovascular disease and obesity, poor mental health, smoking, and excessive drinking than older LGB people. This suggests that older heterosexual people are privileged compared with older LGB people when it comes to the body as an ‘ageing resource’ (see Hurd Clarke, Chapter 3). They also observed that older hetero-sexual and LGB people have different later-life support networks, with older heterosexual people relying more on partners, spouses and children. They pro-posed that ‘future research needs to investigate how differing types of social networks, support, and family structures influence health and aging experi-ences’ (71).
According to the Stonewall survey, older heterosexual people reported that they drank alcohol less often than older LGB people (31%, compared with 45%) (Guasp, 2011, 3). They were also less likely to take drugs: only 1 in 50 reporting that they had taken drugs in the past year, compared with 1 in 11 LGB older people.
Over a third of heterosexual respondents reported worrying about their mental health, although this was less than older LGB people. Older heterosex-ual women were less likely to have ever been diagnosed with anxiety (26%) or depression (33%) than lesbian and bisexual women (33% and 40%, respectively) (Guasp, 2011, 19). The differences between older heterosexual men and older gay and bisexual men were even more marked. Older heterosexual men were much less likely to have ever been diagnosed with anxiety (13%) or depression (17%) than gay and bisexual men (29 and 34%, respectively) (Guasp, 2011, 19).
This would suggest that heterosexuality involves reduced risk of exposure to certain factors associated with anxiety and depression, and/or acts as a buffer to their occurrence.
Heterosexual ageing 155 This is further nuanced by gender. Older heterosexual women reported higher rates of anxiety and depression (26% and 33%, respectively) than older heterosexual men (13% and 17%, respectively). However, although older lesbi-ans and bisexual women also reported higher rates of anxiety and depression (33% and 40%, respectively) to older gay and bisexual men (29% and 34%, respectively), the gap between the two is far narrower. Such insights could potentially offer important contributions to the debate about the place of het-erosexuality in gender differences, anxiety and depression in later life (Sjöberg et al., 2017).
Other later-life issues affecting older women more than older men (irrespec-tive of sexuality) are: the challenges of ‘very old’ old age (as older women live longer than older men – see Gilleard and Higgs, Chapter 4); ageing into dis-ability (although women live longer than men, they do so with higher levels of disability, Chatterji et al., 2015); and ageing and dementia (women are more likely to have dementia than men) (Erol, Brooker and Peel, 2015). How gender informs these events – for both heterosexual and non-heterosexual women – requires further exploration.
Care concerns
Older heterosexual and older LGB people share many similar concerns about ageing. In the Stonewall survey, just under half of older heterosexual (47%) and older LGB (45%) people reported feeling positive about getting older (Guasp, 2011, 6). Their concerns about ageing (see Figure 10.1) cohered around the following key themes: needing care; independence; mobility; health; housing;
and mental health.
Figure 10.1 Older heterosexual and LGB people’s concerns about ageing Source: Guasp, 2011, 7
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Although older LGB people see formal care provision as a heterosexualis-ing process (Westwood, 2016b), older heterosexual people nevertheless share many of their concerns about care. According to the Stonewall survey, 51%
of older heterosexual people were not confident that social care and support services would be able to understand and meet their needs; 51% of older het-erosexual people were not confident that housing services would be able to understand and meet their needs; and 33% of older heterosexual people were
of older heterosexual people were not confident that social care and support services would be able to understand and meet their needs; 51% of older het-erosexual people were not confident that housing services would be able to understand and meet their needs; and 33% of older heterosexual people were