This is kind of at the intersection of 2 genres I seldom read: non-fiction about LGBT issues, and popular psychology. The former genre is something I've just never paid much attention to, the latter is something I've actively ignored from my own snobby contempt (I still remember rolling my eyes every afternoon as a kid when my mom would put on Oprah).Anyway, the basic underlying assumption of this book-- that gay men specifically have a spate of psychological issues which follow them throughout the full duration of their lives, not from being gay, but from everything around being gay, i.e. hiding a part of yourself, the sense of woundedness and insecurity and shame and confusion and really, just intense anger which that hiding brings on, and which is NOT addressed or remedied or really in anyway even sincerely acknowledged even after most gay men come out of the closet... that basic premise, is in my opinion, valid.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.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.In fact, the socio-economic (really, the generational) issue of this book is probably the strongest mark against it. Downs himself has had a lucrative, deeply successful career, in the corporate world (he's an 80's child, afterall), as a therapist and as a writer, even when in the throws of personal tragedy as he reveals in the books kind of obnoxious pseudo-memoirish final chapter. Downs is a high priced therapist for "powergays;" gay men who have a lot of disposable income to burn, who own multiple houses stocked with nice things and who take regular vacations to exotic locales. This is obviously a cliche, but almost every "story" and example in his book features gay men who are, from the point of view of an educated gay millennial currently struggling to find a career path that will even pay a humane wage, so obscenely well-off as to be almost repulsive, and Downs himself reinforces the idea of this obscene wealth on almost every page. It's almost like he's gloating at the rarified social circles he travels in and the high powered management and exective types that he treats. Obviously, a lot of that is generational; this book feels like it was written by someone for whom the last 10-15 years of socio-economic history in this country simply never happened to. I can't imagine someone in his position even realizing that many young gay men in this country will probably never be able to afford to purchase a single home, much less multiple ones in sheik locales.His sheer inability to consider any outside factor in his analysis of what plagues gay men is of course a necessity of the genre he's writing in, but it's also just so incredibly limited and so patently ignorant of how our countries socio-economic insecurity can contribute to individual insecurity, especially for young gay men (who as he smartly points out, aren't generally the most secure people to begin with) is a depressing omission. Parts of his observations are brilliant and scathing, but enough of it seems so utterly out of touch with modern American socio-economics, really with any kind of material consideration for the generation of gay men who are coming up behind him, and who have a litany of economic anxieties to worry about on top of all the dense psychological baggage of being gay, that the book ultimately fails to persuade very much once it gets past "stage 1." Forget finding the gay Oprah, what we need is the gay Karl Marx.
I'm glad I read this, I did get quite a bit out of this book, but the overly simplified language and sweeping generalizations often annoyed me. I've heard a lot about The Velvet Rage, and after hearing it mentioned again under mixed controversial tones in a gay youth conference last year, I decided to get a copy... I think overall it was a valuable read, it brought a lot of things to the foreground that I think are super relevant and I hadn't thought about in the terms and with the clarity that Downs brings to them. But it's definitely written for Gen-X white gay men, which I understand since Downs is a Gen-X white gay man and he gathered the bulk of his observations in the late 80s and 90s, but that makes a lot of the arches and experiences he explores seem outdated or just a fraction of the experiences that might comprise the life of non-white gay men. Even though the core ideas are still very relevant and important, I think nowadays they come about in different ways then they did 20-25 years ago... Gay men's relationships with their environment/society changed quite a bit in the past decades, to the point that I think a lot of gay men might not relate or agree with Downs' research and observations at all, and given the controversy around the book it seems they really don't... Perhaps I only got as much as I did because I grew up in Brazil which I feel is a generation or two behind on a lot of these social issues compared to US/Canada... Not perfect, could use some more work and insightful updating, but it is still a valuable read.
Do You like book The Velvet Rage (2006)?
Not everyone can afford to see a therapist, but here is a "self help" book that can really help if one reads it with an open mind. It may terrify some people, because this is one doctor who politely pulls the masks off the Oz-like wizards so many of us gay men wear in order to cope with being gay in "a straight man's world." I recognized myself in these pages;perhaps you will too. My only quibble with the book, and it's minor, is that the author uses the umbrella term "shame" in defining the stages that a gay man must go through to become "authentic" and, one assumes,a happier human being. I think of "shame" as a word associated with religion; is it "shame" or is is "differentism", the uncomfortable state of being different from the majority and reactions to this state? (Maybe it doesn't matter what you call it.) Whatever the case,this book makes it clear that emotional and personal growth for a gay man can be a difficult process, and many remain stuck in stage 1 or 2 of what the doc describes as a 3 phase process.I was able to easily identify where I'm at in the process, and from what I see stages one and two are the more crowded rooms. This a book to be read, digested, and reviewed (particularly the easy to follow chart at the end.)Best of all,Mr.Downs shares his personal struggles and makes it clear he's not talking down to us from some pinnacle of perfection, making it easier to be receptive to this insightful book. Best 50 minutes I ever spent with a therapist...
—Steven
While I somewhat relate to his message I had to question (a) his methodology and (b) his not-unrelated narrowness of view and sweeping generalisations. Regarding (a) I think there's a serious lack of statistics to back up his statements - he relies on readers being convinced by the familiar sound of the problems he describes, and on their being disarmed by the idea that they aren't alone in suffering those problems, which I think is quite dodgy. And then (b) yes, he does acknowledge that he can only write knowledgeably about the G in LGBT, and yes he acknowledges that he draws on the experiences of his patients for this... But given that all of the patients who can or will access his therapy seem to be rich, white, college-educated men, can he really claim to have written with any kind of representative insight into 'the gay experience'? What about the isolation, rejection and exoticisation suffered by non-white people at the hands of a gay community that is (for reasons Dr Downs in fact describes but does not connect to this) too often short-sighted and narrow-minded? What about working class or non-college-educated men - how relevant is 'Letting Go of Fabulous' when this notion of 'fabulousness' was only ever accessible to a minority of gay men? Or are we to believe that all gay men sublimate their rage with fabulous parties, high-flying careers at Hewlett-Packard and expensive drugs? Another otherwise-interesting step away from bigotry fails to take into account all but the middle-class white figure (c.f. much feminist writing and activism), and this is disappointing. Still, though, a very important book and in many ways useful.
—Okey
I read this book many years ago and what I remember the most about it is (paraphrasing) not to judge others when going out to a bar and be open to meeting and seeing others. For some reason, that really struck me. I guess it was because I had just started hitting the bars but also, it had something to do with self-protection. I didn't want to be judged by other gay men as I found the whole gay-bar ordeal quite excruciating. As a result, I would end up initially judging them. This book kinda highlighted that point and helped me outta it.
—Kylan
