Respect Authority

Under the slogan “Because there is no expiration date on a full, active life,” Services and Advocacy for GLBT Elders (SAGE) is launching a $350,000 ad campaign featuring, you guessed it, GLBT elders. The ads, which will be used on subway metro cards, in print ads, in phone kiosks and on bus shelters, are designed to give a voice to the greatly underserved segment of society, and to help eliminate the stigma that the elder gay population isn’t just as down for a good time as their younger counterparts.

The ads, which you can see here, are evenly divided in terms of age, sexuality and overall creepiness. It’s not that I have any issue whatsoever with middle-aged or older people being gay or transgendered, it’s more that I have an issue with knowing about the sex lives of anyone I’m not actively having sex with — and a more specific issue with knowing about the sex life of anyone old enough to be my parent (that I’m not actively having sex with).

Listen old lesbians, although I find photos of you just as endearing as the next person, I once again object to the perception that anyone cares what people do after they hit age 50. And personally, I consider adult diapers a pretty fair indicator that someone’s full and active life has indeed expired.

“Professionals call it elderspeak, the sweetly belittling form of address that has always rankled older people: the doctor who talks to their child rather than to them about their health; the store clerk who assumes that an older person does not know how to work a computer, or needs to be addressed slowly or in a loud voice. Then there are those who address any elderly person as “dear.”

According to the New York Times, which appears to have some sort of inside track on the elderly population, old people are pissed off. And not about Social Security, or hooligans or “the blacks,” but about the fact that everyone just keeps talking to them like they don’t know anything. Newsflash old people: you don’t. Read More ›