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 Sex Over 40

They say straight men get better with age, but is the same true for gay men? For a community with so many obsessions around beauty and image, the idea of turning 40 can be brutally intimidating. It’s natural for every guy to run through those same lines: “at what age will I stop turning heads?” or “will anyone want to have sex with me in my forties and fifties?”

The idea of aging is scary for most gay guys, and these fears turn up in the way men sexually interact. Often men feel intimidated into misstating their age, hoping that by portraying themselves as younger, they’ll become more appealing and better accepted. Their fears are perpetuated by online profiles of younger men that read “not into old” or “no one over 26.”

Luckily, your sex life isn’t over because some young twenty-something says so. In fact, there are plenty of twenty-something guys who are desperately in search of their George Clooney or Jerry Garcia. You can’t boil sex down to a simple equation of age. Aging is just as complex an issue as sexual taste.

In Sex Over 40, you’ll be able to find content pertinent to the aging gay man. Whether you’ll be 40 in ten years, or you were 40 ten years ago, this section will contain articles, blog posts, and book excerpts to help you navigate sex as a mature gay man. Check back monthly for new content.

This Month:

Erectile Dysfunction

Last Month:

Intergenerational Relationships (relationships between older and younger men)

Future Topics:

Finding Love in Late Life

Am I Too Old to Get Married?

Testosterone Replacement Therapy

Erectile Dysfunction

“As men age, they begin to expand their definition of love making beyond a rock hard erection and ejaculation on demand. Once the focus from that is removed, men become better lovers, refocusing on all the sensual pleasures of love making. The beauty of that is it removes the self-observing qualities that can develop with erectile difficulty. When those pressures are removed, the self-judging is relaxed and erectile performance improves. Men do not experience the equivalent of menopause. They remain capable of fertility across their adult life span. And although some elements of sexuality diminish and change, sexual satisfaction can remain high well into late life.” (Olson, Loren A., M.D. MagneticFire.com)

 The following is an excerpt from Finally Out: Letting Go of Living Straight, A Psychiatrist’s Own Story by Loren A. Olson, M.D.

As the Twig Is Bent

Men typically believe they know far more about their sexual functioning than they actually do. They also fail to admit that they don’t know much, even when they don’t. Drive, vigor, and performance form the core of men’s sexuality. Society dictates that a man must always be ready, always be successful, and never leave a job half finished. A man fails with anything less. Although men learn the basics of sex experientially, they often do not understand some of the common explanations for failure and how their sexuality changes as they age. In order to understand sexual dysfunction, one must first grasp the fundamentals of normal sexual function. Four major “domains” constitute male sexual response: sex drive, erectile functioning, ejaculatory functioning, and general sexual satisfaction. Below are the concerns older men have about each domain.

Areas of concern for mature men regarding their sexual functioning:

1. Sex drive—frequency and intensity of sexual interest
2. Erectile function—the most common area of concern
3. Ejaculatory functioning—usually of little concern
4. General satisfaction with sexual activity—although sex drive, erectile intensity, and ejaculatory function decline with age, those changes do not significantly impact mature men’s general satisfaction with their sex lives

The Massachusetts Male Aging Study (MMAS), a rare random sampling of ordinary men who lived in the community, studied a complex set of sexual variables, both physical (erections, masturbation) and emotional/cognitive (desires, fantasies, satisfaction). The study, conducted from 1987 to 2004, found that older men reported lower erectile function, including less frequent erections, fewer morning erections, and trouble achieving and maintaining erections. Prevalence of erectile dysfunction (ED) increases with age, but it is not an inevitable consequence of aging.

Most of the age-related effects on drive, erections, and ejaculation begin past the age of fifty and increase over time. Although sexual function declines with age, sexual satisfaction often does not. Men do not seem to worry much about ejaculation, even though in older men ejaculation diminishes and sometimes may not even occur at all during sexual activity. In the MMAS, men in their sixties reported levels of satisfaction with their sex life and partners at about the same level as men in their forties.

Aging brings on changes, but not all of the changes are bad. Body changes, hormonal changes, medication, disability or illness, change of sex partner, and changes in life responsibilities may all interfere with sexual function, but they do not eliminate sexual pleasure. In reporting on their work in Sexuality across the Life Course, McKinlay and Feldman cautioned that older men should not be held to a level of interest and performance more appropriate to younger men. Health care providers and therapists must be taught that older men are not only interested in sex but also capable of having good sex. That said, goals must be realistically set.

Plenty of studies have shown that many men in their late seventies and eighties are sexually active. As we age, lifestyles and relationships begin to change, but some things actually get better. For older men, frequency of sex diminishes, but when men learn that sensuality, touch, and emotional intimacy are all forms of sexual expression, they discover that sex can be satisfying and can be even better than it was when they were younger and equated good sex only with a powerful orgasm. The younger men I interviewed generally believed that older men emphasize emotional intimacy more than genital sex. They begin to cherish their relationships and put more time into them than younger men do. Although penetrating sex and ejaculation may become less frequent, kissing, caressing, and more prolonged sexual intimacy may contribute to greater sexual satisfaction and quality of life in old age. It may take a little longer to stoke the fire, but the flames may go higher.

For all men, sexual performance consists of a complex interaction of mood, health, thought, and physiological mechanisms. Sexual response occurs in five steps: excitement, plateau, climax, resolution, and refractory period. Sex drive is an innate force that motivates and impels a person toward sex partners and relationships. Often nudity, erotica, or the prospect of a willing partner inaugurate the period of sexual excitement and provoke the thought, “I need to have sex.”

Sexual excitement taps into the memory banks of the amygdala and the hippocampus of the brain, producing arousal. If sex were purely a rational act, we would foresee all of the potential alternatives, analyze and calculate their value, and choose to respond in a way that maximizes our immediate and long-term interests. Instead, when these areas engage the prefrontal cortex to plan the appropriate response, our hormones often show an appalling lack of respect for the logic and reasoning of the prefrontal cortex.

During the excitement phase, a man experiences the sensation that his penis is beginning to swell. Physical touch to an erogenous area enhances arousal. Dopamine, the “pleasure molecule,” floods into the brain. As excitement intensifies and as prospects of success increase, the penis grows in size and firmness according to the degree of stimulation. Increased blood flow to the penis engorges the spongy tissue on the underside of the penis that contains the urethra, which leads from the bladder to the opening in the head of the penis. In response to touch and sometimes to arousal alone, the scrotum pulls the enlarging testicles toward the body. The tension of the muscles in the body increases, heart rate accelerates, and blood pressure rises.

Stages of male sexual response:

1. Excitement—As blood accumulates in the penis, the penis becomes larger and more erect and the testicles may be pulled toward the body.
2. Plateau—The time between the full engorgement of the penis until climax when pre-ejaculate (pre-cum) is released from the opening of the urethra in the head of the penis.
3. Climax—A feeling of “ejaculatory inevitability” is followed by orgasm, which may or may not include ejaculation of semen from the penis.
4. Resolution—A return to the unexcited state.
5. Refractory—A period of time during which restimulation cannot occur.

During the plateau phase, the head of the penis continues to enlarge and the testicles are drawn even closer to the body. A clear lubricating seminal fluid called pre-ejaculate or “pre-cum” begins to flow at varying rates from the head of the penis. A big price is paid for mechanical and indifferent sex. Men who learn to prolong the plateau phase with extended periods of cuddling and body contact greatly increase their pleasure. At first, sexual pleasure does not insist on pushing one toward climax or orgasm, but similar to a tightening spring, the strength of the urge intensifies. Then, like a set mousetrap, the spring seeks to uncoil. This need to release the tension interferes with rational thought and has ensnared countless numbers of men.

As the plateau stage progresses, a man experiences a feeling deep within the pelvis that orgasm is on its way. It is followed by a sense of ejaculatory inevitability, a feeling often celebrated with a verbal announcement. Almost immediately the genital muscles begin to contract, expelling semen with varying degrees of force through the urethra. During the resolution phase, blood leaves the penis in a process called detumescence. The penis shrinks to about half its erect size. Sexual activity concludes with a refractory period during which no amount of stimulation can produce an erection.

Maturity modifies these stages. In adolescence, young men are in a perpetual state of excitement with an almost petrified erection. A young man might walk around most of the day with an erection, even when it is quite embarrassing. As men mature, the excitement phase is longer and less intense; it generally requires richer fantasies and a higher degree of direct stimulation to the genital area. Unfortunately, it is also more easily interrupted.

An older man, if distracted during the excitement phase, may lose some or all of his erection several times, only to regain it again once he experiences a renewed sense of sexual excitement. Often, however, loss of an erection replaces excitement with despair. For an older man, orgasms shorten and they lack youthful insistence. Expulsive force and volume of seminal fluid decrease with age, and detumescence occurs more quickly. The refractory period, during which no erection can occur, lasts longer. One comedian joked that his wife wanted to have sex every day for thirty days to try to get pregnant. He responded, “I’m thirty-nine years old. The only way I could have sex thirty times in thirty days would be with thirty different women.”

Fatigue, work, depression, finances, and illness also undermine excitement. Although at first I didn’t recognize it, pain from my torn meniscus should have been only a temporary distraction. Instead, fears about failure displaced all sense of pleasure. My focus shifted from pleasure to ruminating about my performance failure.

The Blue Magic Bullet

Erectile difficulty happens occasionally to every man. Impotence is the persistent inability to get and hold an erection of adequate firmness to permit satisfactory sexual performance in the absence of any significant psychological problems. Although the term “impotence” remains in use outside of the United States, in America in the 1990s it was deemed pejorative. It connoted weakness rather than just erectile dysfunction. Men began to dread this indictment because it hints at a permanent loss of all masculine capabilities. After former senator Bob Dole became the pitchman for the blue, diamond-shaped Viagra pill, erectile dysfunction—now just ED—generally replaced the term impotence. ED implies reversibility, and the term has attenuated the emotional significance of erectile difficulties.

Fifty million American men bear the diagnosis of ED. While a man who fails to have an erection more than 50 percent of the time carries a clinical diagnosis of ED, a man who fails to have an erection less than 20 percent of the time does not. ED occurs when something interferes with the reflex activation of the system that enhances blood flow to the penis. These are often due to physical changes in the body, such as vascular insufficiency, neurological problems, diabetes, high blood pressure, lack of exercise, medications, hormonal changes, alcohol and drugs, and cigarette smoking. Psychological problems rather than physical ones account for about two-thirds of sexual dysfunction. The negative impact of ED on quality of life is independent of its explanation.

Some reports suggest that ED occurs in as high as 90 percent of depressed people, most commonly expressed as a lack of interest in sexual activity. Unfortunately, many of the medications used to treat depression also reduce libido. Other psychological factors that impact libido include a lack of good sexual information, negative attitudes toward sexual expression, low levels of general happiness, and low self-esteem.

The length and the quality of a relationship are also important psychological factors. Unresolved anger, especially if directed at the partner, can lead to significant problems with ED. People who are passive also suffer more problems. Some struggle with ED because of the lack of an available partner.

Performance anxiety significantly complicates sexual functioning. Men who are preoccupied with performance to the exclusion of emotional intimacy may be devastated by the loss of an erection during sex. Social messages browbeat men into believing that real men don’t fail at sex. When performance is the primary criterion for judging success of male sexual functioning, erectile failure generates considerable anxiety. Anxiety, acting like an anti-aphrodisiac, further blocks the spontaneous flow of sexual thoughts and feelings.

It is not surprising that men sometimes refer to their penises as “tools,” because in male sexuality the emphasis is on instrumentality. Functional measures and frequency count more than intimacy, and the bonds of sexual connectedness dominate social ideals of masculinity. Memories of earlier failures replace excitement with anxiety, causing men to avoid sex and another possible failure. After having erectile failure, men frequently begin to perform sexual autopsies on their performance, and pleasurable sexual interaction becomes virtually impossible. Have you ever been afraid you were about to run out of gas, so you drove faster and faster to get to your destination? It is a counterproductive strategy. Sexual performance anxiety is like putting the pedal to the metal. Many men, after they have that fleeting fear of losing their erection, force sex faster and faster, further compounding the problem. Unless this emotional ambush is resisted, it can lead to loss of self-esteem, relationship discord, and greater sexual dysfunction.

After I tore up my knee having sex, a complex set of factors blunted my sexual functioning. A lack of confidence in being a man formed the bedrock of my difficulties. I experienced both the physical changes of aging along with a preoccupation about the meaning of those changes. My worries expanded beyond the boundaries of reality. Instead of recognizing that my erections could be restored, fear of failure immediately set in. I obsessively analyzed my failures. I focused solely on the difficulty with my physical performance to the exclusion of the joy of emotional intimacy. Everything I did accelerated me toward failure.

Preoccupation with erectile functioning has not gone unnoticed by the health products industry. One young man, writing on a health blog about the blue Viagra pill, praised it as a “wonder drug.” He said that it has brought about a change in sexual morality and sexual behavior throughout the world. “This isn’t just another drug; it’s the magic bullet we’ve been waiting for.” Drug representatives detailing Viagra have even been robbed of their samples. Following its introduction, the brand name, Viagra, immediately became a part of our sexual lexicon.

Viagra was a drug marketer’s dream. With its promise to allow men to have sex anywhere, anytime, and with anyone, the use of Viagra exploded. With the iconic image of the Marlboro man fixed in our brains, men began to use the blue magic bullet not only for ED but to guarantee a world-class erection every time. The promotion of sexual enhancement products burgeoned as industry played upon our fears. Pharmaceutical companies added Cialis and Levitra to the formularies. The Federal Drug Administration mandated that product information contain a precaution about priapism (a continuous and painful erection). Clever marketing converted what is seen as one of the risks of these products to an apparent strength. Men began to hope they might be the one to have an erection that lasted three hours and fifty-nine minutes. According to Dr. Abraham Morgentaler, a urologist, the frequency of priapism “is vanishingly low.” As use of Viagra expanded beyond ED to sexual enhancement, some men have conditioned themselves to believe they cannot have an acceptable erection without it.

(Dr. Loren A. Olson, is a Board Certified Psychiatrist, a blogger on PsychologyToday.com and HuffingtonPost.com, and the author of Finally Out: Letting Go of Living Straight, A Psychiatrist’s Own Story. In addition to TV and radio spots, Dr. Olson can be found on his blog for mature gay men: MagneticFire.com.)

For more information about Dr. Olson or his book from which this excerpt came from, please visit www.FinallyOutBook.com.

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Intergenerational Relationships
(relationships between older and younger men)

Excerpt from “Finally Out: Letting Go of Living Straight, A Psychiatrist’s Own Story” (inGroup Press, 2011) by Loren A. Olson, M.D. This excerpt discusses intergenerational relationships, particularly those involving mature gay men.

One tall and handsome lean young man told me about his sexual attractions. He said he is only attracted to heavier men with big bellies and hairy chests. Unconscious forces operating in his brain “thin slice” his sexual attractions only to older men with mature bodies; younger men hold no appeal. What both may fail to recognize is that their own physical appearance may be exactly what will show up in the other’s thin slices.

Fifteen years separate the ages of my husband, Doug, and me, but we rarely talk about it. When we first started seeing each other more than twenty years ago, I was quite certain that he would sooner or later dump me for a younger man. One day I mentioned my concerns to him, and he replied, “I’ve always been attracted to older men. As a kid, I wasn’t attracted to my friends; I was attracted to their fathers.” At first I had trouble believing that, but I rarely thought about it again, at least until recently as I approached retirement.

Getting older magnified the age difference. Dormant and patched-over fears of abandonment crept back into my mind. Would Doug jump ship for a younger man? If I became physically unable to be his lover, would he find what gentle folks call a “friend with benefits,” but what gay men often call a “fuck-buddy”? Would his loyalty shift to this new playmate? If I need care that I could not reciprocate at some point, would he begin to resent me? How would we deal with the financial problems if I were to retire sooner than he did? Could he find a job in his mid-fifties? Would he be able to manage both a job and any care I might need? What if he died first? In Tim Turner’s play Out Late, Charles says to the much younger Evan, “I sure wish I’d met you thirty years ago,” to which Evan responds, “Thirty years ago, you would have been too young for me, and I wouldn’t have been born.” Intergenerational relationships (IGRs) are relationships between two men whose ages are separated by a difference of at least fifteen to twenty years, and the younger man is at least the age of consent. There are really no meaningful statistics about how often IGRs occur between men. Most in the straight world don’t know that intergenerational gay relationships exist, and many in the gay community don’t understand them.

Almost daily, younger men question me, “Why do I find myself only attracted to men who are older than me?” Young men who prefer older men are often backed into a corner to defend their choice, but they don’t understand their attraction either. Frequently they have looked for an answer in their relationship with their father or their grandfather, just as I had done for an explanation of my attraction to men. Sometimes they say, “My relationship with my father (or grandfather) was so wonderful; I just want to try to recreate that with a man.” At other times, they say, “I had no relationship with a father figure, and I think my attraction to older men is to fill that void.” When there are two contradictory hypotheses for the same phenomenon, looking for the explanation in their relationship with their father is too simplistic.

Family and friends confront them with their belief that the relationship cannot be based on love but must be based on other ulterior motives. Often fully capable of taking care of themselves, these men are hurt by accusations that they are looking for a “sugar daddy.” As I talked with young men, I repeatedly heard things like, “I don’t need stuff! I want more than an orgasm. I want a relationship with someone who is sensitive, caring, and romantic, self-assured and satisfied with his life.” All stereotypes have validity for some, but not all. While there certainly are young men seeking a sugar daddy and older men seeking an Adonis-like, aggressive sex partner, people mistakenly assume that all IGRs are based on exploitation. Younger men are accused of exploiting the financial security of the older man, and the older man is accused of wanting a trophy.

One young gay man has never been attracted to men of his own age. He explained, “All those guys who are under sixty years old might as well have vaginas because I have no interest in them.” One of my gay friends is in a relationship with a man who is forty years older than he is, and he’s tired of defending his relationship. Although his family has come to accept their relationship, his gay friends are the most critical. One of his friends asked him, “What does a young, good-looking guy like you see in an old man who is well past his expiration date?”

I must confess I have been guilty of asking young men about their interest in older men, too. Even though I am now married to a man fifteen years younger than me, I still had difficulty understanding IGRs. Why would a young man who works hard to achieve that hard-bodied, gay ideal find himself physically attracted to someone who looks like Dick Cheney, politics aside? We demand an explanation from these younger men, but why does it matter? A young man I spoke to said, “I am going through a kind of second coming out and have started psychoanalysis in order to understand my patterns of relationships and my choice of partners, who are always much older than me.” It is unlikely he’ll find the answer. Older men are rarely asked to defend their choice of a younger man. The older man has chosen up; the younger man chose down. The fact is that research hasn’t determined why we are drawn to the people we’re attracted to, and most likely, the explanations are very complex.

When I asked one young man about his attraction to older men he replied, “I like older men because they have all of their corners rounded off.” It brought to mind a class I’d taken on antiques. The instructor suggested that buying old furniture is better than buying new. “You hate to get a new piece scratched, but a mark on an old piece of furniture just adds character.”

David Sedaris, writing in Me Talk Pretty One Day, states, “When asked what we wanted to be when we grew up, we hid the truth and listed who we wanted to sleep with when we grew up. A policeman or a fireman or one of those guys who works with high-tension wires.” The young men I interviewed who are attracted to older men say they have been aware of their attraction from the very first time they recognized sexual attraction of any kind. They say that the attraction persists, even as they become older. One man said, “It sucks because I have buried three of my lovers.” Another older man joked, “I could do all my cruising in a nursing home.”

Older men who are attracted to younger men can’t explain their choice either, although they often say that temperamentally they feel much younger than their chronological age. If an older man is attracted to a masculine man with ripped muscles, it’s reasonable that he would find it difficult to believe that the muscular young man could find his too fat, too short, too wrinkled body attractive. Some older men resist the idea that younger men will find them attractive even to the point of being suspicious of the younger man’s motives. One commented, “I do not need to raise another son. I don’t need a helpless kid to protect.” Other older men express fears of abandonment because they may be unable to satisfy the younger man’s greater sexual appetites. Younger men frequently respond that they find the other essential characteristics of the relationship of more importance than the sexual compatibility.

We project our own attractions and expectations onto a prospective mate, expecting that the things they love and cherish are exactly the same as our own. If an aging man hates the changes in his body, he expects that any potential partner would abhor them just as much. If his sexual drive and potency have diminished, he may not trust that the younger man will find his interest in slow and sensual lovemaking desirable. Why would anyone want a fat, indolent, and decrepit man?

In The Upside of Irrationality: The Unexpected Benefits of Defying Logic at Work and at Home, Dan Ariely writes, “To a large degree, beautiful people date other beautiful people, and ‘aesthetically challenged’ individuals date others like them.” He goes on: “In terms of what they were looking for in a romantic partner, those who were more attractive cared more about attractiveness, while the less attractive people cared more about other characteristics (intelligence, sense of humor, and kindness). . . . The aesthetically challenged people were much more interested in going on another date with those they thought had a sense of humor or some other nonphysical characteristic, while the attractive people were much more likely to want to go on a date with someone they evaluated as good-looking.”

This may not be too reassuring to those who feel “aesthetically challenged,” although Ariely did admit there are significant exceptions as well as a disclaimer: “We are also a scent, a sparkle of the eye, a sweep of the hand, the sound of a laugh, and the knit of a brow—ineffable qualities that can’t easily be captured in a database.”

In 2005, GrayGay.com conducted an online “mini-poll” called “What Attracts You to Older Men?” Although the survey is not a scientific sampling, the results are interesting and informative.

Therapists engaged in efforts to “recover” men from homosexuality exploit the idea that the younger man searches for a father figure, but only 10 percent of the respondents addressed the issue of the father figure. Younger men do analyze their relationships with their fathers to find an explanation for their attraction, but their accounts are contradictory. Common responses are, “My father was a wonderful man, my best friend. I want a man just like he was.” It is also common, however, to hear, “I didn’t have a good father. I want someone to give me what I didn’t have,” or “My father left at a very young age. I never witnessed much of father/son activities. I missed out on so much during childhood.”

The GrayGay.com survey suggests that over 50 percent of younger men are attracted to older men because of their looks—the rounded corners of both their physique and their temperament. Words used to describe them were “lovely, gorgeous, raw beauty, manhood,” or more simply, “They just make me horny.” The older men are sometimes described as “daddies,” a word that connotes the qualities of maturity, stability, and emotional safety rather than some deeply Freudian maladjustment. “Daddies” are seen as nonthreatening, while the sharp edges of their contemporaries are more menacing. Young men perceive older men to be more sensitive, caring, romantic, self-assured, and satisfied with their lives. They want relationships based on emotions rather than stuff.

Humans have a powerful need to attach to a spouse, family, friends, pets, and even objects. Physiological and environmental cues drive us to interact socially. Paul J. Zak, in an article called “The Neurobiology of Trust,” reported that the hormone oxytocin enhances an individual’s propensity to trust a stranger when that person exhibits nonthreatening signals. Oxytocin has been dubbed the “cuddle hormone.” It promotes social interaction, bonding, and romantic love in addition to its key procreative functions including uterine contractions and lactation. As oxytocin rises, anxiety over interacting with strangers is reduced. A safe, nurturing environment may stimulate the release of more oxytocin. Research by Sarina Rodrigues and Laura Saslow has suggested that oxytocin’s effects on empathy and countering stress may be the result of a single gene. Could it be that a single gene impacting the effects of oxytocin accounts for a younger man’s attraction to older men?

Relationships between older and younger men are but one variation in attraction between men. “Chubbies” and “chubby chasers,” “bears” and “cubs,” and “dominants” and “submissives” are others. We excessively analyze the reasons for these choices, imposing an undue emphasis on categorization, rather than accepting the great diversity of homosexual attractions. Explanations for our attractions may be simple but more likely are complex and perhaps unknowable. All research runs the risk of reductionism. It can focus attention on genital sexual activity alone, to the exclusion of considerations of affection and affiliation. Alfred Kinsey, in Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, wrote:

Males do not represent two discrete populations, heterosexual and homosexual. The world is not to be divided into sheep and goats. Not all things are black nor all things white. It is a fundamental of taxonomy that nature rarely deals with discrete categories. Only the human mind invents categories and tries to force facts into separated pigeon-holes. The living world is a continuum in each and every one of its aspects. The sooner we learn this concerning human sexual behavior, the sooner we shall reach a sound understanding of the realities of sex.

Emotions always accompany behavior. Concentrating exclusively on genital sex causes us to miss the real significance in relationships. Sex is a nice, momentary boost, but having someone who cares about you and is there to support you, even as a close friend, is much more valuable in any long-term view. One younger man seems to have gotten it right when he said, “Don’t question the whys. They will be answered in the growth of the relationship. Decisions will be made as we grow together or apart. He likes you, you like him, and you’re both legal. Go for it. Life experience is the issue, not age.”

(Dr. Loren A. Olson, is a Board Certified Psychiatrist, a blogger on PsychologyToday.com and HuffingtonPost.com, and the author of Finally Out: Letting Go of Living Straight, A Psychiatrist’s Own Story. In addition to TV and radio spots, Dr. Olson can be found on his blog for mature gay men: MagneticFire.com.)

For more information about Dr. Olson or his book from which this excerpt came from, please visit www.FinallyOutBook.com.