The Velvet Rage (2 page)

Some have asked, if the world becomes more accepting of being gay, won't that lessen the relevance of shame in gay men? Ideally, yes, it will. However, what is equally true is that as homophobia diminishes in society, it is not a given that gay men will no longer experience the isolation that comes from feeling different than one's peers and family. It is in this experience of differentness, being the one who doesn't fit in, that shame takes root in our lives. So it follows that even as homophobia begins to wane in our world, gay men will still need to do the work of acknowledging all the ways in which we have accepted our unlov-ableness and actively do the work required to obliterate such heinous beliefs from our lives. In the decade and a half since Ellen DeGeneres came out as a lesbian on national television and the openly gay sitcom
Will and Grace
first aired, much has changed throughout the world regarding the acceptability of being gay. During this same period of time, addiction and mental health issues among gay men have continued at alarmingly high levels, and all indications are that they continue to rise. While social acceptance of gay men, gay rights, and gay marriage
is critically important to the well-being of gay men, these things are not sufficient to inspire us to do the deeper work of healing the tight grip of shame on our lives.

This revised edition of
The Velvet Rage
contains an expanded final chapter with practical information on how to live an authentic life as a gay man without the influence of shame. It is a struggle to live authentically, without the need to compensate for our inadequacies or to escape the pain of our emotions through addictions. Much of what I write throughout the book is influenced by my own training in Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), and I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to psychologist, researcher, and Zen practitioner Marsha Linehan, who created DBT. DBT was recently listed in a
Time
magazine supplement on “100 New Scientific Discoveries.” For those who might be interested in doing further psychotherapy on the issues of shame and emotion regulation, I recommend that you find a therapist who practices DBT. While not all DBT therapists are familiar with the issues specific to gay men, I find them to be generally well-trained and highly consistent with the approach taken in
The Velvet Rage
.

As this summer fades into autumn, and I leave the windswept dunes of Cape Cod and return to my practice in Los Angeles, I reflect back on the thousands of letters and e-mails I've received from readers of
The Velvet Rage
. Most gay men and their families found the book to be helpful, and a few have been enraged by it; but it is difficult, if not impossible, to be neutral about the gay shame of which I write. The book has reached far beyond what I ever dreamed possible, touching the lives of tens of thousands of gay men around the world. It is my sincere hope that this revised edition will continue that tradition and breathe life into a message that I believe is desperately needed among gay men.

No other group of people on this planet is better equipped to bring the message of self-acceptance and authenticity to the world than gay men and women. Many of us have struggled mightily with shame and learning to access the power of authenticity and honesty that lies within us. Whether it was the killing of eight million Jews; the bombing of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City that took 168 lives, including nineteen children; or the heinous act of hijacking and flying commercial aircraft into heavily populated high-rise buildings, the lives of nearly all destructive perpetrators are intertwined with, and in many cases motivated by, rageful reactions to personal shame. The devastating effects of shame are ubiquitous, and the message of self-acceptance is universally craved by a world that has in large part been taught that you aren't young, thin, holy, rich, or successful enough. It has taken me nearly fifty years to understand the enormous importance of overcoming destructive shame in healing our lives, and even in healing an entire planet that seems to be flirting all too closely with calamity.

As gay men, we are uniquely qualified to bring the message of compassion, forgiveness, and self-acceptance—for we have been there and know how important it is to be proud of who we are. The destructive influences of shame are everywhere in our world, and it is my sincere hope that this book will start a movement that takes us beyond this current age of gay self-indulgence and overcompensation and instead pushes us on the world stage as the leaders of self-acceptance and awareness. Although some may see this as too grandiose a vision, I do not. It is the natural outcome of our own struggle with shame that we would share our insight with a planet that desperately needs it. In this spirit, it is my dream
The Velvet Rage
will bring a deep change within you and every reader who picks it up, and together we start a
movement that frees our world from all the ways in which shame blocks people everywhere from experiencing the joy and contentment that lays just beyond those dark walls that imprison the human spirit.

Because this hard-won message of self-acceptance is so critically important, not only to gay men but to all, I offer this revised edition. While virtually all of the original material from the book remains both in this text and, more importantly, in practical relevance, I have added new material that I believe is essential. Chapter 14, which describes the skills important to overcoming shame and living an authentic life, has been revised and significantly expanded. While understanding the origins of shame-based wounds is important, this alone is not sufficient to bring needed change into our lives. Change comes by choice and practice, not from insight about our past. This is, I feel, the most important chapter in the book.

This edition closes with a newly added epilogue about my life and my own struggle with shame. I thought long and hard before including this, as the telling of one's own story always seems to have a tinge of self-absorption and even grandiosity, but two reasons pushed me to include this brief memoir of my adult life. First, I find that I often learn best through stories that help me to develop a mental picture of a complex issue.
The Velvet Rage
is filled with stories from the lives of my patients, so I thought it only appropriate to offer my own story, for whatever value the reader might find in it. Second, and of great importance to me personally, I discuss my experience of being HIV-positive for almost a quarter of a century. I have held great shame about being HIV-positive, and for the first time in these pages, I share with you as honestly as I am capable my experience of living with HIV. For so many gay men, the shame over being HIV-positive
runs a deeper and more destructive course than the shame over being gay. It becomes something of a lifelong reminder that we are flawed and enlivens the deeply held, sinister belief that perhaps HIV is physical evidence of our own unloveableness. In the telling of my story, I hope to reach out to all—straight, gay, HIV-POSITIVE, and -negative—to offer compassion, acceptance, and, most of all, the hope that comes from knowing that no matter who you are or what you have done, you are worthy of love.

 

Alan Downs
Los Angeles, California
August 2011

The experience of being a gay man in the twenty-first century is different from that of any other minority, sexual orientation, gender, or culture grouping. We are different from, on the one hand, women, and on the other hand, straight men. Our lives are a unique blending of testosterone and gentleness, hypersexuality and delicate sensuality, rugged masculinity and refined gentility. There is no other group quite like that of gay men. We are a culture of our own.

It is upon this important and undeniable cornerstone that this book was written. Understanding our differences, loving ourselves without judgment, and at the same time noticing what makes us fulfilled, empowered, and loving men are the forces that converged in the conceiving, planning, writing, and publishing of this book.

While we are different, we are at the same time very similar to all others. We want to be loved and to love. We want to find some joy in life. We hope to fall asleep at night fulfilled from our day's endeavors. In these aspirations and appetites we are like all men and women. The problem is, our path to fulfilling these basic human needs has proven to be fundamentally different from the well-worn paths of straight humanity.

Some have said that we must blaze our own trail and not be lured into the ways of the straight man. We must be brave enough to honor rather than hide our differences. We must stand up and fight for the right to be gay and all that it means.

In this book, you will find an honest and more complete picture of what it is to be a gay man in today's world. Yes, we have more sexual partners in a lifetime than any other grouping of people. And at the same time, we also have among the highest rates of depression and suicide, not to mention sexually transmitted diseases. As a group we tend to be more emotionally expressive than other men, and yet our relationships are far shorter on average than those of straight men. We have more expendable income, more expensive houses, and more fashionable cars, clothes, and furniture than just about any other cultural group. But are we truly happier?

The disturbing truth is that we aren't any happier, by virtually any index measured today. Much the opposite is true. Psychotherapy offices the world over are frequented by gay men struggling to find some joy and fulfillment in life. Substance abuse clinics across the country—from The Betty Ford Center in California to The Menninger Clinic in Texas to Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City—are filled with far more gay men than would be indicated by our proportions in the general population. It's safe to estimate that virtually every gay man has wondered on more than a few occasions if it is truly possible to be consistently happy and a gay man.

When you look around it becomes somewhat undeniable that we are a wounded lot. Somehow, the life we are living isn't leading us to a better, more fulfilled psychological and emotional place. Instead, we seem to struggle more, suffer more, and want more. The gay life isn't cutting it for most of us.

Some ill-informed, closed-minded people would say that it is our sexual appetite for man-on-man sex that has made lasting happiness illusive. If we would just be “normal,” find a good woman and settle down, then we'd discover what life is all about.

That's just crazy. Our struggles have nothing to do with loving men per se. Substance abuse, hypersexuality, short-lived relationships, depression, sexually transmitted diseases, the insatiable hunger for more and better, and the need to decorate our worlds to cover up seamy truths—these are our torments. Becoming a fulfilled gay man is not about trying to become “not gay,” but has everything to do with finding a way through this world that affords us our share of joy, happiness, fulfillment, and love.

In my practice as a psychologist, this is my goal: to help gay men be gay
and
fulfilled. The lessons I've learned from the profound teachers in my life—my gay male patients—are collected in this book. Their struggles, disappointments, and ultimate achievements are chronicled here. While names, identities, and geographic locations have all been changed to protect their rightful anonymity, I have made every possible attempt to be faithful to the relevant facts.

The book is arranged into a simple three-stage model that describes the journey of virtually all gay men with whom I have worked. I suspect that this model, or some modified version of it, is likely to be universal to all gay men in the western world and perhaps across the globe.

The stages are arranged by the primary manner in which the gay man handles shame. The first stage is “Overwhelmed by Shame” and includes that period of time when he remained “in the closet” and fearful of his own sexuality. The second stage is “Compensating for Shame” and describes the gay man's attempt
to neutralize his shame by being more successful, outrageous, fabulous, beautiful, or masculine. During this stage he may take on many sexual partners in his attempt to make himself feel attractive, sexy, and loved—in short, less shameful.

The final stage is “Cultivating Authenticity.” Not all gay men progress out of the previous two stages, but those who do begin to build a life that is based upon their own passions and values rather than proving to themselves that they are desirable and lovable.

The goal of this book is to help gay men achieve this third stage of authenticity. It is my experience that gay men who are not ready or willing to work toward this goal have a difficult time acknowledging their shame and the radical effects of it on their lives. Until a gay man is ready to reexamine his life, he may not be able to realize the undercurrent of shame that has carried him into a life that often isn't very fulfilling.

My own trek from shame to authenticity as a gay man has mirrored that of many of my clients' stories that I share with you throughout the book. Having grown up in a Christian fundamentalist home in Louisiana, I entered my adult years struggling with my own sexuality. After being married for several years and spending even more years in therapy, I began to accept myself for the man that I am, not the one that I or my family had wished for.

When I came out of the closet, I stepped right into the middle of the gay explosion in San Francisco during the 1980s. It was an exciting and horrible time—there were more men than I'd ever seen before and so many of them were dying from AIDS. Since then, I've lived in some of the gayest cities in the country: New York City, New Orleans, Key West, and Fort Lauderdale. There's not much that I haven't seen and tried.

Early in my career, I abandoned clinical psychology to become an executive at Hewlett Packard. It was the go-go '80s, and everyone, including me, was hoping to strike it rich in Silicone Valley. Part of my own journey toward authenticity forced me to confront my career choices and return to my real passion: clinical psychology. So I did, and it turned out to be one of the best decisions of my life. My life and my work have taken on a depth of meaning and fulfillment that I would have never known otherwise. I spend my days, among other things, helping gay men to heal the wounds of being gay in a straight world, and in so doing, realize their own authenticity and fulfillment. They have been my teachers and mentors, reminding me daily of the importance of staying true to myself regardless of how others may view me. It is their stories, not mine, that fill these pages. What wisdom is contained between these covers is theirs, and anything less is more than likely my doing.