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mehdi_k 's review for:
"We are men in a world where men are emotionally disabled by our masculine cultural ideals. And we are men who threaten those ideals by loving another man at a time in life when we are neither equipped for the ravishes of love or the torment of shame."
Downs hit a lot of nerves with this book. His simple (quite possibly simplistic) descriptions of the stages of gay men's emotional development are relatable and well explained. It feels good to see someone has understood the topic well enough to verbalise and summarise it so simply. From being overwhelmed by the shame of growing up different to overcompensating that shame, and finally seeking radical authenticity and meaning: I can definitely pin these stages to my life and that of other gay men I know. Many golden nuggets in there.
I enjoyed reading Downs' synthesis and took a lot of notes. In addition to a comprehensive synthesis based on concepts from Dialectical Behaviour Therapy, the author provides a list of possible actions one can take to achieve a more authentic existence. While these were quite general and could apply to anybody (not just gay men), I think they can be very useful, particularly for the emotionally younger reader.
However (and that's a pretty big however) two issues bothered me as I was reading this. First, his many references to extremely wealthy, fabulous, and successful upper-class American gays as some kind of norm we all tend towards, and his highlighting of these communities was off-putting and made me roll my eyes a few times. I wish his work with less privileged clients had come through in this book as well, so that middle- to lower-class gays and non-Americans wouldn't feel excluded while reading this. The second issue for me was the clients' anonymised names. Why did the author mention approximately 10 different Johns? This is confusing and could have been easily avoided by choosing unique names for each story.
Despite these two issues, I would still recommend this book, maybe coupled with Walt Odet's Out of the shadows, for a deeper dive into the psychology of gay men.
Downs hit a lot of nerves with this book. His simple (quite possibly simplistic) descriptions of the stages of gay men's emotional development are relatable and well explained. It feels good to see someone has understood the topic well enough to verbalise and summarise it so simply. From being overwhelmed by the shame of growing up different to overcompensating that shame, and finally seeking radical authenticity and meaning: I can definitely pin these stages to my life and that of other gay men I know. Many golden nuggets in there.
I enjoyed reading Downs' synthesis and took a lot of notes. In addition to a comprehensive synthesis based on concepts from Dialectical Behaviour Therapy, the author provides a list of possible actions one can take to achieve a more authentic existence. While these were quite general and could apply to anybody (not just gay men), I think they can be very useful, particularly for the emotionally younger reader.
However (and that's a pretty big however) two issues bothered me as I was reading this. First, his many references to extremely wealthy, fabulous, and successful upper-class American gays as some kind of norm we all tend towards, and his highlighting of these communities was off-putting and made me roll my eyes a few times. I wish his work with less privileged clients had come through in this book as well, so that middle- to lower-class gays and non-Americans wouldn't feel excluded while reading this. The second issue for me was the clients' anonymised names. Why did the author mention approximately 10 different Johns? This is confusing and could have been easily avoided by choosing unique names for each story.
Despite these two issues, I would still recommend this book, maybe coupled with Walt Odet's Out of the shadows, for a deeper dive into the psychology of gay men.