So, this book had been recommended to me awhile back:
The Velvet Rage
Now, full disclosure - the author is a clinical psychologist, but I don't want anyone to confuse his ideas with hard scientific fact. But even anecdote and example can be illuminating.
His basic gist is that gay men are so used to being belittled at an early age, as we grow older, we find ourselves often times overcompensating, seeking approval and validation through certain archetypal paradigms.
Take for example certain avenues in which gay men are often broadly reputed, even among ourselves and friendly allies, to excel at:
- living fabulously - we're supposed to have fantastic homes, stylish and comfortable
- living hotly - so this is the gym bunny archetype, but can be extended to the extra effort we put into clothes, beauty, hair, and everything else shallow
Now extrapolate this to everything - workplace, personal lives, our political lives. And the growing realization is that we're expected to somehow live these superhuman exceptional lives.
Which sounds like it's not a bad way to be, kind of an aspirational ideal, right?
So Downs goes on to describe the downside of all this living fabulously. Gay men experience statistically known higher rates of depressive disorders, drug abuse, and so on.
It should be said that the author specifies this cloud of phenomena and behaviors are specific for gay men; other folks in the LGBT umbrella have plenty of their own challenges that just don't map over. And he's not very forthcoming about Deepak Chopra-style means of coping with all these stressors in a healthy manner.
Agree with it, disagree with it - the point is to strike up a conversation about ourselves in a brutally honest fashion.