Our group has a life of its own: An effective fellowship of older gay men in New York City

The expansion of gay and lesbian institutions in recent years has brought with it the development of organizations specializing in the needs of older lesbians and gay men. The paper reports on one particular SAGE (Senior Action in Gay Environment) group for men whose weekly meetings were observed in New York City over a period of nine months. It offers an oppurtunity to explore the strategies for social accommodation among older gay men in urban centers, the forces that draw strangers together and the dynamics that promote their sociability. That type of voluntary association is being defined as "affective fellowship." Exploration of these phenomena situates our work within the discourse of the changing meaning of the stranger in the modern era most profoundly introduced by Simmel and more recently by Giddens, with his inquiry into the transformation of intimacy. [Gay culture, aging, intimacy, sexuality, New York City].