ABSTRACT
Studies indicate that one-third of gay and lesbian relationships are intergenerational. This love style is of profound traditional importance to queer love, from the ancient worlds to the present. In what can sometimes be perceived as a mentoring process, the younger partner is given access (social, political, financial), guidance (moral, spiritual, practical), role modeling, and education of traditional queer life and history. The senior partner is given vitality and invigoration, access to the new generation’s perspectives and culture, opportunities to parent and of benefaction, and to sow seeds for a healthy and vibrant future queerdom. In a personal conversation with Don Bachardy about his thirty-year tempestuous relationship with Christopher Isherwood-thirty years his senior-I asked Don, “What made your relationship work?” He explained that it worked because they were of such different positions, there was no competition, a common stumbling block for many male-male relationships.
