The Velvet Rage: Overcoming the Pain of Growing Up Gay in a Straight Man's World

Product Information

Toward the end of the book, the author offers ten short lessons to further encourage healthy relationships, such as Lesson #1: Don't let your sexual tastes be the filter for allowing people into your life and Lesson #8: Actively practice accepting your body as it is right now. I’ve tried to explain this struggle to straight friends, to family and never been quite able fo capture the full extent and impact of growing up gay in a straight man’s world. Unfortunately, the second two parts of the book, which recount the "stages" (it wouldn't be pop psychology without "stages" would it?) which out gay men go through becomes far too narrow a descriptive filter, at least in my opinion. I can maybe, maaaaaybe buy the idea that the psychological experience for most (probably not all) guys being a kid and growing up in the closet at least has a few common emotional themes which you could reasonably generalize about. Maybe. But life is just vastly more complicated than his cute little 3 stage schema, and there are profound cultural and socio-economic pressures which obviously can't really be hinted at in a work like this.

Baldwin was open about his homosexuality and relationships with both men and women. However, he believed that the focus on rigid categories was just a way of limiting freedom and that human sexuality is more fluid and less binary than was often expressed in his lifetime. Want to know what other books made Warren’s list? What follows are the literary favorites of some of our country’s most accomplished LGBT writers. What Downs is pointing to in this book is the numerous ways that those dark, deeply embedded emotions can well up throughout a gay man's life (even in the lives of guys who have been out for decades and who have very seemingly happy, succesful lives) in ways which are destructive both to himself and to those around him. To be sure, this is a hopelessly essentialist view of gay life (more on that in a bit), yet, speaking as a gay man, I found that the early parts of the book, which describe some of the major emotional swings which young gay men move through, to be frighteningly and I mean FRIGHTENINGLY accurate, especially describing what it's like emotionally for most males up to the time when they completely realize they are gay. There were moments when reading this I physically shuddered being reminded of what it's like to be deeply in denial and profoundly closeted, as much to yourself as to the world around you. The first third of this is going to probably be a deeply insightful but also deeply unfun trip down memory lane for most young gay men who read it. Special care is given, in this section, to understanding relationship trauma. According to the author, many gay men wish to overcome their feelings of shame to ultimately find a healthy and loving relationship; therefore, the author provides information to guide readers away from dangerous or traumatic relationships.this book gave me chills because i've never felt an author hit so close to the mark with his description of gay male psychological development. i couldn't have read this at a better time and i am eternally grateful to the author. Alan Downs, PhD is a clinical psychologist and the bestselling author of seven books. His work is acclaimed internationally and has been published in more than twenty-seven languages. He is a sought-after conference speaker, workshop leader, and frequent media commentator on the psychology of gay men. He has more than 25 years of experience in working with individuals from all walks of life, and is currently in private practice in Los Angeles, California. Flynn, Paul; Todd, Matthew (20 February 2011). "Pride and prejudice for gay men". The Guardian . Retrieved 28 September 2021. Ledger, Brent (19 March 2011). "Buzzed-about book is just a one-note theory on root of gay problems". Toronto Star . Retrieved 28 September 2021.

As self-help books go (and I will admit that I am not a fan of the genre), The Velvet Rage is actually quite good. The problematic issue with many self-help books is that the underlying philosophy (or approach, or methodology, or treatment, etc.) is based on the assumption that everyone who reads the book is suffering with or struggling with the same condition (e.g., obesity, addiction, unhealthy relationship). This kind of essentializing or pathologizing of a condition usually results in overly generic (i.e., pretty much useless) strategies for correcting the condition. This book, however, is based on a more solid foundation—the belief that most gay men face similar challenges during the course of their development. These challenges result in deep-seated shame that often precludes any ability to maintain healthy, loving adult relationships with other men. And on this point, Dr. Downs pretty much gets it right.

Preview Book

Downs’s argument is that feelings of worthlessness can be created in childhood quite unintentionally, and these lead gay adults to search for an unachievable perfection. “We have created a gay culture that is, in most senses, unlivable. The expectation is that you have the beautiful body, that you have lots of money, that you have a beautiful boyfriend with whom you have wonderful, toe-curling sex every night… none of us have that. To try to achieve that really makes us miserable. The next phase of gay history, I believe, is for us to come to terms with creating a culture that is livable and comfortable.” I can just enjoy things without the pressure of having to excel at them? Or for them to be life changingly amazing? The story of fifty something Chase who lets go of having to live the most glamorous extravagant life and chooses to be an “ordinary chef at an unremarkable restaurant” because that’s just what he actually likes, felt like almost a bit of an epiphany to me.

hour ago Public Corruption Prosecutions Rise Where Nonprofit News Outlets Flourish, Research Finds Study finds prosecutions for corruption rise after a nonprofit news outlet is established within a judicial district. Prosecutions are also more likely in districts where those outlets enjoy greater philanthropic funding. While I initially thought this book was going to be a history of LGBTQ rights/activism in the US, it’s actually more of a self-help book written by a psychotherapist who has a career of working with gay men. It goes through the experience of what growing up gay is like for most of us, as well as the lifelong issues that develop because of that—and how to work on them.

Develop

Equality, Diversity & Inclusion are about people and culture, and is grounded in law by the Equality Act 2010 which covers nine protected characteristics: age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief and sex. Of all the invalidation we will receive in our lives, this is by far the most damaging. The first man that we love - arguably the man we will love the most in our life - is incapable of validating us at a time when we need it most. It is emotional betrayal of the worst sort. The wound created by this betrayal will go on to affect us throughout most of our lives. In an effort to right those wrongs, and to do my part to promote gay cultural literacy in a time of vanishing gay bookstores and vanishing attention spans, I’ve asked some of the country’s most interesting and iconic LGBT writers—including Michael Cunningham, Edmund White, John Waters, and Patricia Nell Warren—to suggest five books that every LGBT person should have on his bookshelf (or Kindle).