Lisa R. Miller

Heterosexual women are less likely than heterosexual men to experience pleasure in partnered encounters. However, because most research on women's sexual pleasure focuses on adolescents and young adults, little is known about how processes associated with aging may change heterosexual women's sense of sexual subjectivity and entitlement to sexual pleasure. Relying on 60 life story interviews with single, heterosexual women between the ages of 18 and 91, we ask how women's experiences with sexual pleasure change across the life course. We find that aging enables some women to develop self-focused motivations for partnered sex that, in turn, help them access more sexual pleasure. The mechanisms that link aging with greater opportunities for sexual subjectivity and pleasure include increased self- and body acceptance, the accumulation of sexual experience with new partners, and improvements in sexual communication. Our findings shed light on social processes that may reduce the gendered pleasure gap among heterosexuals and pinpoint a need to study pleasure trajectories.

The legal treatment of and attitudes toward sexual minorities has changed considerably over recent decades in the United States, highlighting the role of historical context in the unfolding of human lives. Yet, a full application of the life course perspective to the topic of structural inequalities faced by sexual minorities is missing from the scholarly literature. Through synthesizing and analyzing research findings from the past 15 years, we explain how the five tenets of the life course framework apply to sexual minorities, including (1) the interplay of history and human lives, (2) the timing of lives, (3) linked lives, (4) human development and aging as lifelong processes, and (5) human agency. In doing so, we argue that a life course perspective is crucial for understanding the nature and consequences of prejudice and discrimination faced by sexual minorities. We end with discussion of the need for additional research and methodological innovations regarding distinctive aging experiences, cumulative inequality, and intersectionality.

Research on aging and sexuality has proliferated in recent years. However, little is known about the gender-specific effects of aging on dating and sexuality. Using survey data from the 2014 wave of Singles in America (SIA), a comprehensive survey on adult singles' experiences with dating and sexuality, we examine whether age differentially affects heterosexual women's and men's dating and sexual attitudes and behaviors and whether gender differences persist across the life course. We find that men remain active in the dating and sexual marketplace longer than women. Although main effects of gender differences are documented in dating and sexual attitudes and behaviors, the results show that gender does not operate the same across the life course. Notably, gender differences shrink or are eliminated in attitudes and behaviors surrounding partnering in midlife and late adulthood, suggesting that age is integral to understanding gendered heterosexuality. •The authors investigate whether aging differentially impacts single women's and men's dating and sexual attitudes and behaviors•The authors find that aging has greater effects on women's than men's dating and sexual attitudes and behaviors•Gender differences in dating and sexuality are only found in specific stages of the life course•Age is central to understandings of gendered heterosexuality

Most research on women's sexualities focuses on a single event or developmental period, often failing to document romantic and sexual trajectories over time. Moreover, life course studies of sexuality have not exclusively examined single women, including major life events that may alter their sexual attitudes and behaviors. Using life story interview data with 60 single, heterosexual women between the ages of 18 and 91, I document five common pathways through romantic and sexual life, including opting out of marital relationships, the development of sexual subjectivity, sexual exploration and maintaining independence, sex positivity and increases in sexual communication, and a maintenance of sexual conservatism. The findings also reveal the role of domestic violence, sexual abuse, relationship dissolution, sexually transmitted illnesses, and menopause in altering sexual attitudes and behaviors. This study has several implications for life course studies of intimate relationships and sexuality.

Prior literature on aging and sexuality primarily portrays narratives of sexual decline, often leading to a pathologization of older adult sexuality. Further attention needs to be paid to the positive consequences of aging on people's romantic and sex lives. Using life story interview data with 39 single women ages 35-91, I examine how women's romantic and sex lives change over time. The major barriers that middle-aged and older adult women report are a small dating pool and caregiving responsibilities, but women also highlight improvements in their sex lives as they age. Notably, women report an increase in comfort with sex, sexual assertiveness, and sexual satisfaction. The findings further highlight the need for aging, gender, and sexuality scholars to supplement their discussions of aging as a problem with investigations of the advantages of the aging process.

Empirical research has documented that contact with lesbians and gays is associated with more positive feelings toward and greater support for legal rights for them, but we know less about whether these effects extend to informal aspects of same-sex relationships, such as reactions to public displays of affection. Furthermore, many studies have assumed that contact influences levels of sexual prejudice; however, the possibility of selection effects, in which less sexually prejudiced people have contact, and more sexually prejudiced people do not, raises some doubts about this assumption. We used original data from a nationally representative sample of heterosexuals to determine whether those reporting contact with a lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender friend or relative exhibited less sexual prejudice toward lesbian and gay couples than those without contact. This study examined the effect of contact on attitudes toward formal rights and a relatively unexplored dimension, informal privileges. We estimated the effect of having contact using traditional (ordinary least squares regression) methods before accounting for selection effects using propensity score matching. After accounting for selection effects, we found no significant differences between the attitudes of those who had contact and those who did not, for either formal or informal measures. Thus, selection effects appeared to play a pivotal role in confounding the link between contact and sexual prejudice, and future studies should exercise caution in interpreting results that do not account for such selection effects.

Do people attribute emotions differently to members of various social groups? If so, do these differences have any bearing on formal and informal forms of social recognition? Using data from a nationally representative survey experiment, we examine whether American heterosexuals differentially attribute love to lesbian, gay, and heterosexual couples. We also examine the relationship between how in love lesbian, gay, and heterosexual couples are perceived to be and attitudes toward (1) granting them partnership benefits (formal rights); (2) the acceptability of their public displays of affection (informal privileges); and (3) marriage. Three main findings suggest that heterosexuals differentially attribute love to different types of romantic couples and that these differences are related to willingness to grant social recognition. First, gay couples are viewed as less loving than both heterosexual and lesbian couples; lesbian couples are seen as equally loving as heterosexual couples. Second, perceptions of love are related to willingness to grant social recognition. Third, perceptions of love matter more for gay and, to a lesser extent, lesbian couples than for heterosexual couples regarding informal privileges and marriage. In contrast, love matters equally for same-sex and heterosexual couples regarding formal rights. The results show that gay couples are penalized most in terms of perceptions of love and social recognition, whereas lesbians occupy a liminal space between heterosexual and gay couples. Collectively, these findings suggest that sexual identity and gender shape emotional attributions, which in turn play a key role in explaining inequalities that same-sex couples face.

Research suggests that transgender people face high levels of discrimination in society, which may contribute to their disproportionate risk for poor health. However, little is known about whether gender nonconformity, as a visible marker of one's stigmatized status as a transgender individual, heightens trans people's experiences with discrimination and, in turn, their health. Using data from the largest survey of transgender adults in the United States, the National Transgender Discrimination Survey (N=4,115), we examine the associations among gender nonconformity, transphobic discrimination, and health-harming behaviors (i.e., attempted suicide, drug/alcohol abuse, and smoking). The results suggest that gender nonconforming trans people face more discrimination and, in turn, are more likely to engage in health-harming behaviors than trans people who are gender conforming. Our findings highlight the important role of gender nonconformity in the social experiences and well-being of transgender people.

Attitudes toward gay rights have liberalized over the past few decades, but scholars know less about the extent to which individuals in the United States exhibit subtle forms of prejudice toward lesbians and gays. To help address this issue, we offer a conceptualization of formal rights and informal privileges. Using original data from a nationally representative survey experiment, we examine whether people distinguish between formal rights (e.g., partnership benefits) and informal privileges (e.g., public displays of affection) in their attitudes toward same-sex couples. Results show that heterosexuals are as willing to extend formal rights to same-sex couples as they are to unmarried heterosexual couples. However, they are less willing to grant informal privileges. Lesbians and gays are more willing to extend formal rights to same-sex couples, but they too are sometimes more supportive of informal privileges for heterosexual couples. We also find that heterosexuals' attitudes toward marriage more closely align with their attitudes toward informal privileges than formal rights, whereas lesbians and gays view marriage similarly to both formal rights and informal privileges. Our findings highlight the need to examine multiple dimensions of sexual prejudice to help understand how informal types of prejudice persist as minority groups receive formal rights.