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Innov Aging
Innov Aging
innovateage
Innovation in Aging
2399-5300 Oxford University Press US 

10.1093/geroni/igaa057.2068
igaa057.2068
Abstracts
Session 5695 (Symposium)
AcademicSubjects/SOC02600
Courage to Cobble Something New: Creative Representations of Bisexuality and Aging
Jen Sarah 1 Jones Rebecca 2 1 
University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas, United States
2 
Open University, Milton Keynes, England, United Kingdom
2020 
16 12 2020 
16 12 2020 
4 Suppl 1 Program Abstracts from The GSA 2020 Annual Scientific Meeting “Turning 75: Why Age Matters”611 611
© The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Gerontological Society of America.2020This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Abstract
There are few cultural representations or scripts available for LGBTQ aging. Among bisexual and otherwise non-monosexual (bi+) women, stereotypes of hypersexuality exclude older adults while the contrasting experience of invisibility obscures the existence of bi+ aging. In this discourse analysis, we examined three issues of the Bi Women Quarterly (BWQ) newsletter published between 2014-2019 which were devoted to the intersection of aging and bisexuality. Data include 42 narratives, personal reflections, interviews, poems, letters, advice columns, and photos which were analyzed to identify linguistic tools, visual imagery, and broader discourses used to construct and convey the meaning and experience of bisexual aging. Themes include: 1) lacking a “blueprint” for bisexual lives, 2) significant “turning points,” 3) intergenerational (dis)connections across history, and 4) life-long patterns of discovery and disclosure. More visible and diverse narratives for bisexual aging might better enable bi+ individuals to envision and effectively plan for their own aging futures.