Name: Charley's review of The Velvet Rage by Alan Downs
Item: The Velvet Rage
Rating: 2.5
Author: Charley

Alan Downs

A groundbreaking examination of the psychology of homosexuality, why it leads to shame over one's identity, and how to overcome it In The Velvet Rage, psychologist Alan Downs draws on his own struggle with shame and anger, contemporary research, and stories from his patients to passionately describe the stages of a gay man's journey out of shame and offers practical and inspired strategies to stop the cycle of avoidance and self-defeating behavior. The Velvet Rage is an empowering book that has already changed the public discourse on gay culture and helped shape the identity of an entire generation of gay men.

Overcoming the Pain of Growing Up Gay in a Straight Man's World

The Velvet Rage

The gay male world today is characterized by seductive beauty, artful creativity, flamboyant sexuality, and, encouragingly, unprecedented acceptability in society. Yet despite the progress of the recent past, gay men still find themselves asking, "Are we really better off?" The inevitable byproduct of growing up gay in a straight world continues to be the internalization of shame, a shame gay men may strive to obscure with a fa?ade of beauty, creativity, or material success. Drawing on contemporary psychological research, the author's own journey to be free of anger and of shame, as well as the stories of many of his friends and clients, The Velvet Rage outlines the three distinct stages to emotional well-being for gay men. Offering profoundly beneficial strategies to stop the insidious cycle of avoidance and self-defeating behavior, The Velvet Rage is an empowering book that will influence the public discourse on gay culture, and positively change the lives of gay men who read it.

Charley

What makes a measurable difference in my life is when I practice, meaning do, certain things that are likely to improve my life and increase my contentment. Like wise when I don’t do these things, I like to call them skills, my inner peace and joy are diminished.

Should be retitled ‘a series of unfortunate events’. Felt like the majority of the book was about hopelessness and too little focus on hope. Found the last couple chapters interesting

Sarah Sammis

With "rage" in the title, I expected to find a great deal of anger inside of The Velvet Rage. Instead I found a book full of hope, encouragement and practical advice.

Alan Downs is a therapist who specializes in counseling gays. As a gay man himself, he brings a lot of his own personal experience into this book. His perspective helped to bring a well needed dose of humanity to this book that would otherwise be dry reading to someone outside his target audience.

The Velvet Rage is broken up into four parts. The first part, "The Roots of Rage" explains how things go wrong in childhood with parents, friends and society all setting standards that young gays can't conform to but feel they must to fit. The second part, "Overwhelmed by Shame" covers the first stage of recognizing one's gayness; in Downs's patients this is a stage of anger and self loathing. Stage 2, covered in "Compensating for Shame" is a time of self destructive behavior where men try everything to be the perfect gay only to realize that perceived perfection isn't the same as happiness or self confidence. Downs's goal is to get his patients to Stage 3 or the "Cultivating of Authenticity" where they can just be themselves and be happy with who they are. In stage 3 being gay just becomes another facet of one's identity instead of being either something to hide or the only defining feature.

Downs ends his book with a few simple rules. While he says that non gays won't "get" these rules, they actually sound like practical advice that can be modified for anyone's day-to-day living.

Jim Hagan

Interesting book and it's good to reflect on the ability of shame-isolation to produce over-achieving and inauthentic behaviour in gay men. However, wider political or cultural analysis is missing and for me is necessary for analysis of gay issues. This is very much an individuaised, psychological treatment, whic in my view is extremely limited for this topic. Another ciriticism is that it focuses heavily on monogomy as the only solution, and is weirdly essentialist in that regard. Regardless, every gay man should read this book for the potential personal insights, but take it with a pinch of salt (as with all self help, I guess).

Ryan 

Dweedle 

This book is probably most interesting if you are a gay man. While I disagree that so much of a gay man's life is driven by the shame he experiences of growing up in a "straight mans world", I recognize that my experience isn't universal. There are some good, practical approaches to living a more authentic life at the end of this book that are worth anyone's time.

Valentin Rodriguez

Greg K

Stefan R. Schmid

Eric Smith

Daniel Kilby

Eva Decker

Pieke Heijmans

Jaël

Offers advice on how gay men can overcome their deep-seated feelings of shame, which is often associated with their earliest childhood experiences and the ambivalent relationship they have with their own father.

jk &
The Velvet Rage by Alan Downs

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The Velvet Rage by Alan Downs