The aesthetic(s) of eroticism in later life

Abstract

In chapter 4, Ricardo Iacub and Feliciano Villar explore how negative aesthetics of old age contribute to or even construct a stigmatized sexuality that arouses feelings of disgust or else prompts ridicule. Such stigma naturalizes and limits critical and political thinking about the mechanisms of social control over eroticism in later life. In addition to examining how older-body-selves are desexualized, this chapter also discusses images of more recent vintage that defy conformity to traditional ageing stereotypes  and which have emerged especially in the gay world such as ‘Bears’ (older, bigger/fatter hairier men), ‘daddies’, mature men, and grand-daddies. Essentially, this chapter critically examines the mechanisms that regulate the aesthetics of erotica as they relate to old age from fragments of historical accounts, exploration of social trends and by using insights from psychological studies, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, of younger people’s perceptions of young and old people about sexuality and older bodies. Such a focus enables an analysis that accounts for in-depth understanding of the ‘politics of age’ (Iacub 2002) and how the ‘aesthetics of the erotic in old age’ can work differently for different individuals and social groups (Iacub 2002).