How to Survive Your Own Gay Life

How to Survive Your Own Gay Life

Author: Perry Brass

Publisher: Perry Brass

Published: 1999

Total Pages: 221

ISBN-13: 9780962712395

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Wise. Factual. Often controversial. Not simply about how to survive your own gay life, but how to how survive your life as an adult man whose sexuality brings him to other men. Surviving when gays have become -- often for marketing reasons -- more publicly acknowledged as well as repressed. When many revered gay feelings, such as tenderness and openness to new ideas and people, are denied; even as wildly homoerotic images have become part of our media-saturated culture. How to Survive Your Own Gay Life explores this, but -- more importantly, how to create rewarding relationships and a strengthening inner life. There has never been a book like this. One of the fortunate things about being gay is that it was written for you. But it's a book for every man. It's message is about getting in touch with the adult person inside you. The person that we all need to survive our lives -- gay or not. But if you are gay, this book is about your life. About "straight" relationships as well as gay ones. About the commercialized "gay world" of bars, etc. -- that acts against adulthood, as well as the gay community at large, and how both affect you. About important inner spiritual "gay work"; and the "gay tribe" that is our hidden support. About the crucial "mythos" of being gay -- providing psychic patterning for gay men, and the strange history of gay "origins myths" and how these reflect society's obsession with same-sexuality. Also some real "nuts-and-bolts" wisdom: about the joys and problems of gay marriages and friendships. About dealing with conflicts and crises -- personal, professional, and financial. About surviving -- and preventing -- gaybashing. And about working your way throughthe late 20th Century's generalized environment of depression (our "Prozac nation") and coming out more alive, happier, and stronger.


A Gay Man's Guide to Life

A Gay Man's Guide to Life

Author: Britt East

Publisher: Houndstooth Press

Published: 2020-06-30

Total Pages: 274

ISBN-13: 9781544509228

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Many gay men find ourselves trapped in a series of no-win situations. If we don't live honestly and openly, we won't have the skills, wisdom, or relationships necessary to manifest our dreams. But when we do come out, we must confront the full force of societal homophobia, and consider a variety of questions: Can we create family without mimicking the norms of straight society? How do we cultivate sustainable gay friendships amidst our internalized homophobia? In a world of hook-up apps and disposable relationships, how do we find lasting love? A Gay Man's Guide to Life answers these questions. Britt East presents an approachable, no-nonsense path for gay men, to set down the excuses and get to the business of improving their lives. No new-age mumbo jumbo or wishy washy self-help jargon. Just real work focused on real results to unleash our true selves and unlock our best lives.


Out of the Shadows

Out of the Shadows

Author: Walt Odets

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Published: 2019-06-04

Total Pages: 233

ISBN-13: 0374719322

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A moving exploration of how gay men construct their identities, fight to be themselves, and live authentically It goes without saying that even today, it’s not easy to be gay in America. While young gay men often come out more readily, even those from the most progressive of backgrounds still struggle with the legacy of early-life stigma and a deficit of self-acceptance, which can fuel doubt, regret, and, at worst, self-loathing. And this is to say nothing of the ongoing trauma wrought by AIDS, which is all too often relegated to history. Drawing on his work as a clinical psychologist during and in the aftermath of the epidemic, Walt Odets reflects on what it means to survive and figure out a way to live in a new, uncompromising future, both for the men who endured the upheaval of those years and for the younger men who have come of age since then, at a time when an HIV epidemic is still ravaging the gay community, especially among the most marginalized. Through moving stories—of friends and patients, and his own—Odets considers how experiences early in life launch men on trajectories aimed at futures that are not authentically theirs. He writes to help reconstruct how we think about gay life by considering everything from the misleading idea of “the homosexual,” to the diversity and richness of gay relationships, to the historical role of stigma and shame and the significance of youth and of aging. Crawling out from under the trauma of destructive early-life experience and the two epidemics, and into a century of shifting social values, provides an opportunity to explore possibilities rather than live with limitations imposed by others. Though it is drawn from decades of private practice, activism, and life in the gay community, Odets’s work achieves remarkable universality. At its core, Out of the Shadows is driven by his belief that it is time that we act based on who we are and not who others are or who they would want us to be. We—particularly the young—must construct our own paths through life. Out of the Shadows is a necessary, impassioned argument for how and why we must all take hold of our futures.


How To Be Gay

How To Be Gay

Author: David M. Halperin

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2012-08-21

Total Pages: 421

ISBN-13: 0674070860

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No one raises an eyebrow if you suggest that a guy who arranges his furniture just so, rolls his eyes in exaggerated disbelief, likes techno music or show tunes, and knows all of Bette Davis's best lines by heart might, just possibly, be gay. But if you assert that male homosexuality is a cultural practice, expressive of a unique subjectivity and a distinctive relation to mainstream society, people will immediately protest. Such an idea, they will say, is just a stereotype-ridiculously simplistic, politically irresponsible, and morally suspect. The world acknowledges gay male culture as a fact but denies it as a truth. David Halperin, a pioneer of LGBTQ studies, dares to suggest that gayness is a specific way of being that gay men must learn from one another in order to become who they are. Inspired by the notorious undergraduate course of the same title that Halperin taught at the University of Michigan, provoking cries of outrage from both the right-wing media and the gay press, How To Be Gay traces gay men's cultural difference to the social meaning of style. Far from being deterred by stereotypes, Halperin concludes that the genius of gay culture resides in some of its most despised features: its aestheticism, snobbery, melodrama, adoration of glamour, caricatures of women, and obsession with mothers. The insights, impertinence, and unfazed critical intelligence displayed by gay culture, Halperin argues, have much to offer the heterosexual mainstream.


How to Survive a Summer

How to Survive a Summer

Author: Nick White

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2017-06-06

Total Pages: 353

ISBN-13: 0399573682

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**Named One of Book Riot’s BEST QUEER BOOKS OF 2017** “Packed with story and drama … If Tennessee Williams’s ‘Suddenly Last Summer’ could be transposed to the 21st-century South, where queer liberation co-exists alongside the stubborn remains of fire and brimstone, it might read something like this juicy, moving hot mess of a novel.” –Tim Murphy, The Washington Post A searing debut novel centering around a gay-to-straight conversion camp in Mississippi and a man's reckoning with the trauma he faced there as a teen. Camp Levi, nestled in the Mississippi countryside, is designed to “cure” young teenage boys of their budding homosexuality. Will Dillard, a midwestern graduate student, spent a summer at the camp as a teenager, and has since tried to erase the experience from his mind. But when a fellow student alerts him that a slasher movie based on the camp is being released, he is forced to confront his troubled history and possible culpability in the death of a fellow camper. As past and present are woven together, Will recounts his “rehabilitation,” eventually returning to the abandoned campgrounds to solve the mysteries of that pivotal summer, and to reclaim his story from those who have stolen it. With a masterful confluence of sensibility and place, How to Survive a Summer is a searing, unforgettable novel that introduces an exciting new literary voice. “Clear and moving, revealing White’s talent in evoking the complexities of the rural South.” —Publishers Weekly


Gay Bar

Gay Bar

Author: Jeremy Atherton Lin

Publisher: Little, Brown

Published: 2021-02-09

Total Pages: 262

ISBN-13: 0316458740

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NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY: The New York Times * NPR * Vogue * Gay Times * Artforum * “Gay Bar is an absolute tour de force.” –Maggie Nelson "Atherton Lin has a five-octave, Mariah Carey-esque range for discussing gay sex.” –New York Times Book Review As gay bars continue to close at an alarming rate, a writer looks back to find out what’s being lost in this indispensable, intimate, and stylish celebration of queer history. Strobing lights and dark rooms; throbbing house and drag queens on counters; first kisses, last call: the gay bar has long been a place of solidarity and sexual expression—whatever your scene, whoever you’re seeking. But in urban centers around the world, they are closing, a cultural demolition that has Jeremy Atherton Lin wondering: What was the gay bar? How have they shaped him? And could this spell the end of gay identity as we know it? In Gay Bar, the author embarks upon a transatlantic tour of the hangouts that marked his life, with each club, pub, and dive revealing itself to be a palimpsest of queer history. In prose as exuberant as a hit of poppers and dazzling as a disco ball, he time-travels from Hollywood nights in the 1970s to a warren of cruising tunnels built beneath London in the 1770s; from chichi bars in the aftermath of AIDS to today’s fluid queer spaces; through glory holes, into Crisco-slicked dungeons and down San Francisco alleys. He charts police raids and riots, posing and passing out—and a chance encounter one restless night that would change his life forever. The journey that emerges is a stylish and nuanced inquiry into the connection between place and identity—a tale of liberation, but one that invites us to go beyond the simplified Stonewall mythology and enter lesser-known battlefields in the struggle to carve out a territory. Elegiac, randy, and sparkling with wry wit, Gay Bar is at once a serious critical inquiry, a love story and an epic night out to remember.


Free Your Mind

Free Your Mind

Author: Ellen Bass

Publisher: Harper Collins

Published: 1996-05-10

Total Pages: 452

ISBN-13: 0060951044

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In a groundbreaking book that weaves together their professional experience with the lively, poignant, immediate voices of dozens of gay and lesbian youths, the authors provide an invaluable step-by-step guide to empowering gay youth to understand, accept and celebrate their sexual orientation. Photos.


The Substance of God

The Substance of God

Author: Perry Brass

Publisher: Perry Brass

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 242

ISBN-13: 9781892149046

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Murdered gay scientist returns to life due to a substance that constantly regenerated itself. He is pursued by his murderers who want the substance he now carries.


The Velvet Rage

The Velvet Rage

Author: Alan Downs

Publisher: Da Capo Lifelong Books

Published: 2006-04-25

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 9780738210612

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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.