The Velvet Rage (9 page)

During the crisis of identity, the drumbeat of shame beats louder and louder in the gay man's ears. Our emotions tend to
vacillate from panic to deep sadness. We look at the world around us, the world of friends and acquaintances we have created for ourselves, and we imagine that very few of these people will accept us. We envision a lonely life, one that is childless and socially outcast. We believe that life as we have known it will completely collapse the day we announce we are gay.

Of course, you know that life doesn't collapse. Instead, life can take on a richness and added dimension of emotional depth that you can't imagine before taking the leap of coming out. But at the height of the crisis, we imagine this to be the only possible outcome. In the grinding grip of this crisis, many of us actually choose to retreat into a straight life in the hope of bringing relief from the suffocating shame that overwhelms us.

Donald had several male sexual relationships in college. He never publicly identified himself as gay and strongly preferred not to hang out with those who were openly gay. The few relationships he had with men were kept very private and superficial. Even after seeing one man for well over six months, the relationship was still more like one between acquaintances. He would meet his lover for the evening, have a few beers, have sex, and return home within a few hours. His lover was instructed to never leave a message on his home phone and absolutely never to acknowledge him in public should they accidentally meet.

After college, Donald returned to his hometown for a job that his father had secured for him at a local construction company. It wasn't too long afterward that his father's questions began: Who are you seeing these days? When will we have a wedding? Will I ever have grandchildren?

Donald had dated a number of different women in college, but none seriously. A date or two, maybe more, and he'd move on to another woman. On the golf course, he often complained to his
father that he just couldn't find the right woman. Once settled in a job and new house, the pressure within him began to rise. Could he tell his family that he was really gay? Was he willing to throw everything away—as he imagined he would have to do—just for the chance to have sex with another man? The intense distress and anxiety kept him awake most nights until the early hours of the morning. What would he do?

Then he met Sharon. She was a beautiful woman whose family was very wealthy. And she seemed to really like him. Donald and Sharon dated steadily for two years, during which they grew quite close. They shared a lot of the same interests and dreams. At first, Donald found the sex to be interesting and even fun. But after awhile, it became something of a chore for him. Thankfully for Donald, Sharon didn't seem all that interested in sex herself.

It was about this time that Donald spotted a man named Kerry, walking through the lobby of the high-rise building where they both worked. The two exchanged a knowing glance, and Donald felt an old, familiar longing rising within him. In a day or two, Kerry struck up a conversation with Donald and eventually asked him out to dinner. They went to a very private, out-of-the-way restaurant of Donald's choosing, and ultimately made their way to Kerry's apartment. Then Donald did something he had never done before: He spent the whole night with a man.

When he returned home early the next morning, he was racked with guilt. What if Sharon had called during the night? What if there had been an emergency in the family and everyone was trying to find him? He was momentarily relieved when he checked the answering machine and saw there were no messages. He then phoned Sharon, who seemed to be her usual upbeat self. Thank goodness, he thought. He hadn't disclosed his secret.

Over the next weeks Donald found himself torn between erotic fantasies about Kerry and demoralizing guilt over Sharon. On two more occasions he arranged to be with Kerry, and after each time, the guilt and anguish over his lies to Sharon increased.

After weeks of sheer hell, losing weight and sleep, he decided to “fix it all” by asking Sharon to marry him. He did and she said yes. He told his plan to Kerry the next day over a very brief and nervous cup of coffee. Donald was flooded with relief and felt he had finally made a choice that would bring him peace and happiness.

As the years went on, Donald and Sharon had a baby boy. He was a very bright kid, and they found their lives consumed with caring for him and his insatiable curiosity of the world. But over these same years, Donald found himself slipping into a chronic, low-grade depression. His relationship with Sharon had cooled somewhat, although they were still kind and supportive of each other. He often felt that they were more like best friends who shared the same house and child.

When Donald finally came into my office for therapy, he was in his late forties and struggling with a worsening depression that had escalated when Sharon was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. He imagined his future, and all he could see were endless trips with Sharon to the doctor, eventually visiting her in a nursing home, and ultimately putting their son through college by himself. Life had become an agonizing burden.

It was well over a year before Donald even hinted to me that he had had relationships with men when he was much younger. Even though he often found himself privately reviewing these memories with erotic zeal, he had not revealed them to another living soul. In the cocoon of the therapy office and on a particularly difficult day, he told it all. He was quick to add that he was
not gay, and that he wished that I would leave all of this out of my notes. I agreed, and he left the office seeming a bit relieved but anxious at having told someone his shameful secret.

Donald was never able to allow himself to come out as gay, although in the privacy of his therapist's office he was finally able to admit that he probably was so. Too much of life was built on the façade he had created, and he dared not destroy it. Not surprisingly, his depression lifted only slightly during his work in therapy, but he eventually quit therapy, resigned to the idea that his life was already set before him, and there was nothing he could do about it.

Whereas he might have come out to his family and started living an authentic and honest life, Donald foreclosed on his crisis of identity. He felt immediate relief at having made a decision, but the decision led to long-term distress. Men like Donald often come to therapy in their thirties and older, having no clue as to why they are depressed, anxious, and having difficulty in their marriages. They inevitably see themselves as “nice guys” who have been treated unfairly, either by specific individuals or, as in Donald's case, by fate itself. Most often, they have little insight into the connection between unfulfilled sexual yearnings and their current distress. Some are able to work this through and eventually allow themselves to explore the side of life they had earlier forbid themselves to taste. Unfortunately, almost as many others refuse to make this journey, and instead, blame everyone else including themselves for their unhappiness. And they fundamentally cling to the belief that they are not gay.

Foreclosing on the crisis of identity has destroyed more men's lives than can be counted. While obviously the majority of men are not gay, there is a sizable minority of men who have chosen a straight life despite their sexual preference for men. They hang
out at the gym and other places where men go, stealing a quick glance now and again. They notice men, and just as quickly turn away their attention so the delicate balance they've set up in their lives is not disturbed by a forbidden desire.

While most straight men simply repress any homoerotic feelings, there are some men who are so distressed by these feelings that they become belligerent toward any man who triggers such unacceptable sexual feelings. More than just passively foreclosing on their identify crisis, these men actively create a violent heterosexual identity. They throw pejoratives around such as “cocksucker” and “faggot.” When they want to attack another person verbally, they march out the list of nasty, homophobic words and phrases.

Adolescent boys commonly engage in homophobic verbal attacks, as they are engorged with hormones that stir up all manner of feelings. This is unfortunate but normal, since our culture places such a high value on masculinity-over-femininity ideal, and homosexuality is viewed as the ultimate betrayal of this unspoken cultural value. In high school and college, most boys grow out of the need to be homophobic and relegate homosexuality to the list of subjects that they rarely, if ever, discuss.

Those young men who struggle with strong attractions to other men don't tend to outgrow the need to attack that which they don't fully understand. They continue to attack homosexuality, as the whole subject causes them great distress. They are shamed by their innermost feelings and fantasies, and that shame quickly transforms into rage that is directed toward eliminating homoerotic feelings. The target of their rage becomes men who have, in their opinions and through a deep character flaw, allowed themselves to become homosexual.

When a gay man forecloses on his crisis of identity, and represses his feelings in an attempt to live a straight life, his distress is immense. This becomes the root of depression or other ailments, and if not resolved, can grow into a variety of chronic and troubling psychological symptoms.

The gay man who resolves his crisis of identity and comes to honest terms with his sexual attraction to men is the man who will resolve his depression. He begins to explore what it means to live in a predominantly straight world. For the first time in his life, he no longer hides that tender part of himself from the rest of the world.

When you confront your crisis of identity and face the truth of who you really are, life begins to take on an entirely new look. Old friends who aren't comfortable with you being gay begin to fall away. A few might reject you immediately, and others slowly drift away. At the same time, you form a network of gay men and gay-friendly others. Often in short order, your relationships begin to reshape around those who are accepting of who you really are.

As you move from living in the closet to being out about your sexuality, the desire grows within you once again to silence the shame that once overwhelmed you. This time, rather than being
subjugated by your feeling of shame, you begin to attack it vigorously, attempting to prove to yourself that you are worthwhile and loveable as a gay man.

While there is great relief from finally revealing the secret of your true sexuality, another internal tug-of-war begins to churn within you. You feel compelled to become the best, most successful, beautiful, and creative man you can be. You lurch forward into life, leaving achievement and creativity strewn in your path. You must prove to the world that you are no longer shameful. It is at this juncture in life, torn between the shame of your sexuality and a burning rage at the world that made you feel shameful, that you enter the second stage of the gay man's journey.

CHRISTOPHER LASCH

I
have very fond memories of Napa Valley. During the years when I lived in San Francisco, I spent many weekends at the house of a good friend and his lover, atop a mountain just above the small village of St. Helena in the valley. We'd often race over the Golden Gate Bridge just as soon as we could leave work on Friday afternoon, making the hour-and-a-half trek to the spectacular Santa Fe–style adobe home that my friends had built.

The house was nothing less than a showplace. It had been photographed many times and published in both local and national interior design magazines. The walls were more than a foot and a half thick, filled with the mud adobe bricks that kept the house warm in the winter and cool in the summer from nothing more than the mountain breeze. The pool seemed to cantilever over the valley, and when floating across its glassy water, it was as if you were drifting just above the clouds and the scattered hot air balloons that often traversed the valley several hundred feet below the elevation of the house.

Dinners at the house in Napa were always lavish affairs. Nothing was ever simple or easy. The fish was always fresh and exotic,
while the pies were always handmade and topped with generous scoops of gourmet delights. My friends always insisted on having the best of everything. They were—and are—wonderful hosts.

During my many visits, we were often joined by other gay men who had weekend homes in the valley. They were surgeons, corporate lawyers, investment bankers, and winemakers. Not one of them was anything less than outrageously successful in his chosen profession.

Back at work in the corporate offices of my high-tech company, my straight friends marveled at the continuous parade of the fabulous and famous dinner companions I kept on the weekends. I delighted in regaling them with my stories of the multimillionaire investment banker, who happened to be a passenger with his lover on a Hawaiian Air jet that nearly disintegrated in air and landed without a roof over the passenger compartment. As if he weren't wealthy enough, he had sued the airline for untold millions and won. This he told us, with a chuckle and a clink of a wineglass, was how he paid for the five-mile paved road that was the private driveway to his mountaintop mansion in the valley (he also owned virtually the entire mountain). My straight coworkers would shake their heads in amazement as they recalled their own weekend of eating out at the Olive Garden or standing in line at the local multiplex cinema.