MetLife Survey: LGBT People More Likely To Age Alone

According to a new survey by insurance giant MetLife (you know, the ones with the cute commercials with Snoopy and Woodstock?) LGBT Baby Boomers expect to put off retirement until age 70 or beyond, fear being overly dependent on others for care, but feel that being LGBT and coping with the associated discrimination, has better prepared them for dealing with life as they age.

LGBT people are more likely to have a chosen family of close friends that they rely on for emotional support and are likely to be more dependent on them in later life. We already knew that, but it's nice that mainstream America gets to find out.

From the survey: Born between 1946 and 1964, LGBT Baby Boomers advanced the U.S. gay rights movement and within one generation succeeded in changing social attitudes from seeing homosexuality as a psychiatric condition to winning same-sex marriage rights and acknowledgment of their civil rights in an increasing number of states. Many unanswered questions emerge as this cohort ages into retirement and beyond and its ability to change the face of aging as much as it has changed attitudes about sexual orientation and gender identity.

Some of the findings of the MetLife survey include:

• 60% of LGBT Boomers fear being unable to care for themselves as they age; 35% fear becoming dependent on others

• Nearly two-thirds of LGBT Boomers say they have a "chosen family," a group of people they consider family, even though they are not legally or biologically related

• Nearly half of the LGBT Boomers and four in ten Boomers from the general population say they don't expect to retire until age 70 or older

• Men in both the LGBT and general population are nearly as likely as women to be giving care to another adult

Click here to go to the MetLife site for a PDF of the full survey results.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Gay Retirees Face Extra Challenges (usnews.com)
• New MetLife Study of LGBT Boomers (eon.businesswire.com)
• WaPo Continues Drum Beat for Gay Rights (newsbusters.org)
• Task Force Asks Congress to Amend Fair Housing Act to Protect LGBT (lezgetreal.com)

AARP Can Kiss My Ass!

If it's true that you're as young as you feel, age is just a number and it's not the years left in your life, but the life left in your years, why is AARP stalking me?

When my partner Paul got his AARP membership card seven a few years ago, I teased him about it, but he was thrilled. The travel discounts alone were well worth it for him. Paul is the consummate discount shopper and if it means revealing his age to get 10% off on "Senior Tuesdays" at the grocery store, he'll do it. When he added me to his AARP membership and attempted to hand me a card of my own, I refused to even touch it.

But now those wrinkly old bastards sending membership applications to me!

At 49 years old, though I haven't been to the gym in a few years, I'm in better shape, more energetic and more creative than I've ever been. At work, I run circles around people that I could have fathered (accept for that whole "not liking girls" thing).

Given the state of the economy, the American Association of Retired People (AARP) should probably change their name. Who can afford to retire anymore? A more appropriate name would be The "American Association of People Who Would Like to Retire Some Day, But With This Shitty Economy Will Have to Work Until They Drop Dead" (AAPWWLRSDBWTSEWHWUTDD).

Paul and I have discussed our "final dispensation" plans. In granting him Medical Power of Attorney, I've included a clause that says before he can pull the plug, he's got to clock me out and clean out my locker.

Personally, I've always liked older men, but but at my age, I'm going to have to start digging them up. I can't look at Internet porn any more. Most of the guys featured on the "Daddy" sites I used to love are only 35!

Ten years ago I went for a check up. My doctor told me he wasn't going to do the prostate exam because I was only "just beginning middle-age". Apparently, over the course of the next year I had gone through some kind of rapid aging process, because at my next exam he insisted on it.

As I dropped trou and assumed the position, he put on the rubber glove and lubed up, saying, "this may be a little uncomfortable."

Looking back over my shoulder with a cold stare, I replied, "I don't think so."

"Oh... yeah", was his awkward reply.

So, with the big 5-0 just a few months away and no end to my working life in site, I say a heartfelt, "Fuck You, AARP!"

I will not now, nor will I ever carry your membership card! I will defiantly pay full price for everything, park further from the mall entrance and eat dinner after 8 pm just as I always have, just to spite you! Kiss my 49-year-old-but-still-hot ass!

On the other hand, I am really looking forward to all the fuss on my 50th birthday. I hope Paul gets me a better gift than I got him on his 50th. (I got him a 26 year old.)