The Velvet Rage by Alan Downs (Paperback)
www.queerlit.co.uk
Overcoming the Pain of Growing Up Gay in a Straight Man's World. Today's gay man enjoys unprecedented, hard-won social acceptance. Despite this victory, however, serious problems still exist. Substance abuse, depression, suicide, and sex addiction among gay men are at an all-time high, causing many to ask, "Are we real

I read this book years ago when it was the first edition. It really spoke to me about some feelings I thought were really personal but turned out to be fairly common.

I read it again years later and it was a good read again. It has some really useful lessons and ideas I think.

I’m really curious if anyone else has read it, particularly someone younger than 40, and what they thought about it. If you haven’t read it I would recommend giving it a go if you can find it, I’m going to give it another read now it’s popped into my head.

  • @MrFagtron9000English
    3•1 year ago

    Do you think things are different for Gen Z, especially they live in a non-shithole area?

    I have some younger cousins that are in my old high school and they said that there are many openly out gay kids and a GSA (or whatever it’s called now I can’t remember). Those kids have boyfriends and girlfriends and go to dances and whatever and no one really cares, It’s fine.

    When I was in the same high school, this was around 2005, there was maybe a handful of out kids and they were like the effeminate drama kids that were obviously gay and there was no GSA.

    • SpeckleOPMEnglish
      2•1 year ago

      Well I’m really not sure tbh and I’m kind of curious if the stuff in the book applies to people younger than me, and also if there’s different stuff going on now.

      Some of the things in the book are insidious and a bit harder to see straight away so they may well be lurking around still.

      It’s good to hear that it’s different from my time. I’m from the UK and when I was at school they had a law called Section 28 which prohibited the “promotion of homosexuality”. No one was ever actually prosecuted under that law but it did make a whole lot of teachers very worried about discussing gay things. It had a pretty bad effect on me (I’m fine now!) and was only repealed in 2003.