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

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The final chapters, however, are mindfulness exercises I'm sure a lot of people would benefit from. Not terrible but learning that the author is now a life coach makes perfect sense to me. He's also a PhD psychologist so, like, I don't doubt this man's credentials I realised I was different from the other boys when I was seven, but it wasn’t until I hit puberty at 12 that I understood I was actually gay. It was very isolating. I became anorexic, found it difficult to socialise and got bullied a lot. The Diversity Digest is our platform to showcase how these characteristics intersect and overlap to make up our everyday human experience, and to articulate the relevance and impact of D&I work through stories. 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.” My first grown-up gay experience was in my 20s when I was working as a builder. I was painting some offices in Croydon at night because there was no one in them. I had to move the van and I went for a pee in a public toilet – no one believes me when I tell them that’s why I went in but it’s true – and there was a guy hanging around and one thing led to another. I didn’t get into it, it was seedy. I’ve got no shame about it, it’s not what I’d do now, it was just a need at the time.

I couldn’t really relate to the characters in Faggots, either, and I don’t think I even finished the book. But it’s still on my bookshelf all these years later, sandwiched between Scott Heim’s terrific novel Mysterious Skin and Frank Browning’s probing sociological portrait of gay life, The Culture of Desire: Paradox and Perversity in Gay Lives Today. Becoming a Man: Half a Life Story by Paul Monette, an unrivaled memoir about life in and out of the closet. China Sourcing Agent: Source any high quality products from China through our partners Fulfillbot ! 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.Everyone WHO I speak to about Velvet Rage insists it is important to remember, amid the hype around the book, that, as Franks puts it: “Many gay men are able to grow up and have happy, successful adult lives with meaningful relationships, friendships and sex. I don’t want us to get into this idea that we’re all broken.” I announced to my dad that I was gay when I was nine. He laughed at first then took me to see a child psychologist. That made me realise it was considered wrong and I played it down and never spoke of it for another 12 years. I grew up thinking I had to prepare for the future more than others – work harder, get a better job, be financially secure and independent so if I was rejected I could cope. I just recently finished the book "Boys and Sex" by Peggy Orenstein. Lots of notes, lots of citations, extensive bibliography. THAT is how this book should have been written. I usually take notes in a nonfiction book, yet this read more like 100 small short stories/cases with definite singular answers. There was too much use of "we" and "us" constantly used, as over-generalization was rampant. There were many different scenarios/cases that were discussed in the book, so you are sure to find one that looks like "you" and even others that look like people you know. But the vast majority of the cases involved clients that were clearly going down a wrong path: multiple partners, additional boyfriends that slept over and were expected to be acceptable, lies, gossip, over infatuation with the youthful chiseled male body, etc. The singular answer to each case is stated, and the book moves on to another. On the dark and gloomy side...I think this book has a lot of issues that lessen its impact and bring down the work overall. My main frustration is that the book attempts to present a generalized gay male psychological journey. This is a fascinating topic, but the attempt is repeatedly undermined by the incredibly narrow focus of the examples used throughout the book. In between descriptions of psychological theory and ideas Downs relies primarily on anecdotes from his West Hollywood patients and his own experience as a gay man to drive home his arguments. This irresponsibly and unnecessarily focuses the book on the predominantly-white upper-middle-class gay male experience during the 1980's through early 2000's in the metropolitan United States.

One of the things I particularly liked about The Velvet Rage was the very practical ‘skills for life’ section that helps an y read er become more self-aware , better able to recognise how to set boundaries, how to recognise what their own needs and responsibilities are and ultimately better engage with the world and build relationships. The skills are based on the various theories that Downs puts forward of the barriers that are created for gay men which really gave me pause for thought, and I would encourage people to read both books to deepen their own insight. Clearly, because I was Pentecostal, I was going straight to hell for being gay,” says Downs. “Hence my own experience with shame. I often say the God of my childhood had anger-management problems.” Churches are particularly culpable, believes Tim Franks, for velvet rage. “Some gay men grow up in cultures where they will be told in no uncertain terms that God hates them. That’s a very significant message to grow up with.” Educational establishments don’t acquit themselves too well, either, he adds. “Homophobic bullying in schools in this country is still epidemic. It’s absolutely rife. Most British schools are not safe places to be gay.”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. By putting the more celebrated, creative aspects of gay culture in the spotlight, and suggesting that beneath them lurk serious psychological issues, the book has caused a stir, and Downs himself has drawn criticism. “It’s a minority of readers, but it’s a sizable minority,” he says. “Probably somewhere around 15% of readers will get quite angry. The question I get a lot is, ‘If I want to have as much sex as I want then what is the problem with that? Why pathologise that?’ I am not, in fact, pathologising that, but people have interpreted it as such. My response to that is if that’s working for you, if that’s bringing you lasting fulfilment and creating a life that you feel really is the life that you want to live, then go for it.” 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. 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. 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.