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

Product Information

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.

This book certainly has its flaws: it’s a little outdated on monogamy and commitment (no space for healthy and considerate consensual non-monogamy) and a bit sweeping about parental figures and their influences on our lives. It’s very 00s in that sense. 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). The book is well structured and focus many sensitive matters that should make the reader meditate about many issues with which one might feel identified with. From the problematic of assuming sexuality to others and to oneself, the identity crisis with which gay men have to struggle, often through their entire lives is well explained. Other issues arasing or persisting, even after the voluntary public revelation of sexuality, e.g. alcohol and other substance abuse, sexual promiscuity, unreasonable risk taking, fictation on body image, fashion and career and the ephemerity and instability of relationships, are well linked to the initial problematic in the way they both are its biproducts and yet refeed its severity. Unlike the believe in a good portion of the gay community that such behaviours are normal and acceptable, the message about their significance as mere signs and symptoms of the disease that worsen the whole picture is evident.

This groundbreaking and empowering book examines the impact of growing up and surviving as a gay man in a society still learning to accept all identities. We have pioneered the largest worldwide conversation about what it means to be a good man in the 21st century. Downs outlines how feelings of worthlessness can be created in childhood quite unintentionally, and these lead gay adults to search for an unachievable perfection. However—with further reading I realized that Downs��� exploration of some of these tropes (I’d say stereotypes, really) had more to do with his theory that many gay men are plagued with the same challenge of a past rooted in internalized fear and shame. He does a beautiful job of unfolding the way those can affect a person and how they drive us to run from negative feelings and seek external validation. Honestly, I think many people could benefit from the lessons taught in this book, gay or not. minutes ago The Avoid-Avoid Dance: Overcoming Attachment Fears for Deeper Connection The path to dismantling the avoid-avoid dance isn’t without challenges, yet the reward of a profound, more intimate relationship justifies the effort.

To be clear, the experiences of Downs and his clients are certainly relevant and legitimate, but that they're the only examples used to extrapolate and arrive at a generalized theory of gay male self-actualization is laughable (and pissed me off endlessly). I've wondered if the book is simply outdated, but as it was published in 2005 and updated in 2012 I'm not willing to give it that out. hours ago Reflecting on the Extreme Differences Between Righteous Protest and Terrorism and the Points Between Raping, torturing, maiming, killing, and kidnapping are not in any realm of “protest”! 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.

The book was first published, far as I can tell, in 2006 so we don't get much discussion in the way the modern LGBTQ+ movement has affected overall attitudes. And again this is a very white, very affluent, middle class view on gayness.

Of all the gay books on the shelves of A Different Light Bookstore in San Francisco, I’m not sure why I left with Larry Kramer’s Faggots . Stage three begins for most gay men with a vague sense of freedom and vacillating awareness of confusion. Everything that is familiar feels somewhat foreign, and there is a growing awareness that life must be slowly redefined in all aspects. His secret he cannot reveal, not even to himself, for fear that it will consume him completely. Deep inside, far from the light of awareness the secret lives. Go down beneath the layers of public facade, personal myth and fantasy. Peel away the well crafted layers, for only then you can see the secret clearly for what it is: his own self-hatred.” I started going on dates, from the internet or with people I’d chat up in bars, trying to meet someone special. Then by coincidence I met Michael. After six months I knew he was the one. I still wasn’t out. And then one day someone from work saw me leaving Revenge, a gay club in Brighton – so the cat was out of the bag. 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.

Downs coined the phrase to refer to a very specific anger he encountered in his gay patients – whether it was manifested in drug abuse, promiscuity or alcoholism – and whose roots, the book argues, are found in childhood shame and parental rejection. “Velvet rage is the deep and abiding anger that results from growing up in an environment when I learn that who I am as a gay person is unacceptable, perhaps even unlovable,” he explains. “This anger pushes me at times to overcompensate and try to earn love and acceptance by being more, better, beautiful, more sexy – in short, to become something I believe will make me more acceptable and loved.” Few LGBT readers ever mention T.E. Lawrence’s war memoir, yet it deserves a key place among our historical classics,” Warren wrote. “Colonel Lawrence outed himself as thoroughly as a war hero and army officer could dare to do in post–World War I Britain. He never uses the word ‘gay,’ of course, but it’s crystal clear what he’s talking about. In the early 1950s, I read it in high school for a World War I book report, and cried my eyes out over the love story of Daud and Farraj, with its setting of the horrors of desert warfare. It was the first book that I ever happened upon that mirrored to me what LGBT identity is all about.” Alan Downs, PhDis 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.