Abstract

This article revisits the sociological concept of lifestyles from authors such as Bourdieu and Giddens, understood as an organizing principle and identity builder, to think through sexuality among people over sixty years old. Fieldwork was based on brief interviews during the movie exhibition “I Want, You Want...Affections, Old Age, and Desires,” that was held from May 12–18, 2016 at CineSesc, a traditional street theater in the city of São Paulo, Brazil, located within what is locally known as the gay center of the town. Data processing involved recording and transcription of interviews (a total of ninety-nine), which were analyzed by the method of discursive textual analysis, in dialogue with the interpretation of the films presented at the exhibition. The first findings showed a tension between lifestyles prescribed by the media and experts, marked by youth and heteronormative standards, and proscribed lifestyles, pictured in the movies of the exhibition, involving, e.g., homoaffective and intergenerational relationships, which remain socially invisible and condemned, especially for the elderly. In addition, older people showed more positive perceptions of sexuality in old age, while young respondents had the most negative beliefs, associated with physical limitations and proximity to death.