Out of the Shadows: Reimagining Gay Men's Lives

by Walt Odets

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.

Genres: Nonfiction, Queer, LGBT, Psychology, Gay, History, Sociology

369 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2019

About the author

Walt Odets is a clinical psychologist in private practice who has worked with and written about the psychological, developmental and social lives of gay men for more than three decades.

His seminal book, In the Shadow of the Epidemic: Being HIV-Negative in the Age of AIDS, which Duke University Press published in 1995, was selected by The New York Times as one of the “Notable Books of the Year.” The Advocate magazine reported that In the Shadow of the Epidemic was also the No. 1 bestselling book among gay men that fall. The following year, OUT magazine named Odets "one of The 100 most impressive, influential and controversial gay men and lesbians of 1996.”

Odets’s recent work has focused on the psychological aftermath of the HIV epidemic, the long-standing childhood and adolescent stigmatization and trauma experienced by young gay men, and the conventional idea of “the homosexual” and its negative influences on gay identities, self-realization and relationships between men. This work has culminated in a new book, OUT OF THE SHADOWS: Reimagining Gay Men’s Lives, which examines the hopes and new possibilities for gay men today. The book will be released by both Farrar, Straus and Giroux and Penguin Random House (U.K.), in June 2019.

Walt Odets earned his B.A. in Philosophy from Wesleyan University in 1969, and after two decades working as a photojournalist and pilot, a Ph.D. from San Francisco's Professional School of Psychology, in 1989. A public advocate, he has consulted for the Shanti Project of San Francisco and the Gay Men's Health Crisis (GMHC) in New York City, and been a member of the AIDS Task Force of the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association (GLMA). He has also served as a clinical supervisor for the psychology intern program at Berkeley's Pacific Center, and as a member of the United States Congress, Office of Technology Assessment evaluation workshop on AIDS prevention.

A seasoned and engaging public speaker, Odets has presented to a broad range of groups, including The Gay Men's Health Summit, the California Department of Health Services, the American Psychological Association, the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association (GLMA), the Gay Men's Health Crisis (GMHC), the San Francisco Psychoanalytic Institute, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF), the National Gay and Lesbian Health Conference, the American Psychiatric Association, the San Francisco Department of Public Health, the State of New York Department of Health, the Yale University Institution for Social and Policy Studies, the Stanford Medical School and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).

Walt Odets is the son of playwright Clifford Odets and stage actress Bette Grayson. He was born and raised in Los Angeles and New York, and presently lives in Berkeley, California, where he writes and maintains a private practice in psychotherapy.

Website: www.waltodets.com
Facebook: @waltodetsauthor

Reviews

[George Ilsley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not an easy read, but feels like a “must read”. It is an important book, even though the explicit audience is the US market.

Grateful for the insight into the effects of being born before Stonewall, and the impact of the stages of the AIDS epidemic on those who lived with years of death and uncertainty, and those who were born later and lived through the echoes and the still reverberating trauma.

I am grateful as well for reviewers here who mentioned how much they loved the last chapter. So, yeah, I stuck it out and the last chapter, a biography of 50 years of friendship ( and all that can mean ) was simply marvellous.
❤️❤️❤️

[Richard Derus · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pearl Ruled (p59)

The first chapter, "Are Gay Men Homosexuals?", wants to delve deep into an old, old argument about identity and self-definition that, quite frankly, is beyond my capabilities just now. My dear Young Gentleman Caller, recently departed this sandy spot on Earth, asked me to read it so I did...the first chapter...and I'm just not down for a discussion of what makes me like all the other QUILTBAG people in the world. Am I, in fact, like a lesbian or a trans person?

We're all human, we're all one race, and no thank you on the storms of outrage that reductive formulation brings from all ends of every spectrum of identity. I resign, you're right, make it so Number One, whatever it takes to make you shut your pie hole and let me process my personal discontent with the nature of change.

I'll re-engage with this cogent argument for a rethought gay identity when I'm ready to think deeply again. As of 2023, that time has not come and frankly seems unlikely ever to come.

[Jacob · Rating 5 out of 5]

An essential exploration of the possibilities for gay self-love in the wake of lifelong and ongoing personal and community trauma, by a gay psychotherapist who has treated hundreds of gay men attempting to build authentic lives in the face of immense—and ethically inexcusable—suffering. This brave, beautiful book is a guidemap (or, as Odets calls it, a songbook) for interrogating the coping mechanisms that can imperil healing and a more authentic life. Empathetic and wise. I cried so much. Including on a plane. For this gay man, it was life-changing.

[Philip · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you are a gay man or know someone who is a gay man, listen up. Walt Odets has been a San Francisco psychotherapist for over 40 years. His book, Out of the Shadows: Reimagining Gay Men's Lives is a call to embrace the life we were meant to live no matter what age we are when we read this book. Odets weaves the understanding of societal influence, biological family, community, and the two parts of the AIDS epidemic in the western world and how these merge together to either support or hinder us. He also understands that marriage equality and military service will only help if we hold on to what he calls our gay sensibility. I've always thought that. Odets never bashes anyone. He gently lays out a tapestry of three different life experiences, those of us who came of age before HIV, those who came of age during, and young men who have come of age after the introduction of the medicines that have been keeping HIV+ people alive since the 1990's. Out of the Shadows acts as a road map to help each of us understand what might be holding us back and in the most loving way possible invite us to move forward and embrace a fuller life.

I want to read this again. There's lots to digest. But my initial thought upon finishing Odets' book is one of wonder and familiarity. Thank you for putting together many parts of my life's puzzle pieces that have confused me over the years. You've given me lots to work with and affirm in my own therapy.

Odets' book blurs the lines of genre. As Publisher's Weekly put it, "[A] soaring combination of social critique, memoir, and manifesto..."

More than 5 stars if I could.

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

Note: Odets’s book is focused on gay males so I will use the word gay rather than the more inclusive LGBTQ.

I cannot do this book justice with this review. In fact, I cannot do it justice with a single reading. As I read, I was aware that Odets was writing about something that would take a lifetime to undo and to reimagine—my own life as well as the life of countless gay men born into a society that is still hostile to them.

“True self-acceptance is readily recognizable: it is largely free of needless explanation, apology, and pandering, and free of reactive, unrealistic self-confidence and compensatory false pride. Self-acceptance allows realistic self-confidence, which is significantly unhinged in adulthood from the expectations and approval of others. In the end, authentic self-acceptance—or the lack of it—is almost the entirety of what defines a life. Without true self-acceptance, there is no true self-confidence or self-realization. Without self-realization, lives feel squeezed, purposeless, and truncated, cut short long before physical death finally ends them entirely.”

Claiming that the years 1969 (the Stonewall uprising), 1981 (the first news of HIV/AIDS), and 1996 (the year AIDS began to become manageable) are milestones in gay life in America, Out of the Shadows discusses what it “means” to be a gay man in the United States today, the shame and stigma most gay persons feel, and the role the HIV / AIDS plague plays in the shaping of our understanding of what it is to be gay.

The book covers much territory including the impact of the on-going HIV / AIDS epidemic, the developmental stages of life, and obstructions to self-discovery and realization, but ultimately the book is focused on the role of shame in the life of gay men and the struggle to deal with that shame and create a full and honest life.

Odets frequently reminds the reader that this shame is not the "fault" of the gay man but is a reaction to living in a world that still does not celebrate the diversity of people but has very rigid gender and sexual norms.

Although society has created the conflict by imposing a simplistic, inhuman model, it is left to LGBTQ people to deal with the problem: it is LGBTQ people who are left feeling deviant and “misaligned.” We have the choice of either rejecting the social construction in a pursuit of wholeness and authenticity or bringing ourselves into alignment.

As I read the book I frequently found myself remembering and thinking more deeply about my own experience:

• I had long felt “different” from most of the boys around me while I was growing up. As a child, I did not have the words to identify the source of that feeling, but I knew I was not like the other boys in some deep and fundamental way. I began to sense I was flawed. Today, when I look at pictures of myself from late elementary school, I see the face of a frightened boy already withdrawing from people around him.
• In 10th grade, after months of severe anxiety that made me sometimes think of suicide, I whispered to myself the words, “I think I am homosexual.” But I also felt I was alone. There was no one I knew like me. There was no Internet or Google for research. There were no positive overtly gay characters on television, in the movies, or in books. All I could find were a few clinical-sounding passages in books that claimed gay people were mentally ill. All I heard from my fundamentalist church was that I was going to burn in hell for eternity. All I knew from the news was that I was a criminal.
• By the end of high school, with great fear, I admitted--as though it was shameful and evil--I was gay to a very few people. Even though they were supportive, I still believed what the medical profession, the church, and the government said about me. I believed they knew me better than I knew myself.
• As I began college, my parents went through a nasty separation and my brother became drug addicted. I tried to be “the perfect kid” as everything fell apart. I also worked and went to college full time and tried to maintain the house and (unsuccessfully) hold the family together. I buried myself even more and tried not to add more to all that was happening around me.
• Furthermore, while in college preparing to become a teacher, I knew I had to hide myself even more which intensified the feelings of being flawed and unworthy. Anita Bryant, the Save the Children campaign, and the California Briggs Initiative were all in the news. These were all attempts to remove gay teachers from the classroom. If I wanted to teach, I could not live my life as a gay man—as the man I was. I buried myself in my schoolwork and full-time job and strived for perfection in both. I tried to prove I was worthy, but also to make sure I had no time to explore my own life.
• When I signed my contract to become a teacher, that contract included a morality clause that made it very clear I would be fired if gay. I pushed myself deeper into the closet and buried myself in my job working 12+ hours daily. If I could only think my career, I did not have to think about myself as a gay man.
• Then, in 1981, the first news began to break about what was at first called GRID (Gay Related Immune Deficiency). Of course, this was soon called AIDS. The president of the US, Ronald Reagan, did not mention the plague until many years into it. Most of the nation turned its back until it then became antagonistic and fearful. William Buckley, Jr. even called for the tattooing of all AIDS victims. Thousands upon thousands (over 300,00 by the end of the decade) of gay men began to die. I began to believe I might get the disease and die unless I continued to bury myself in my work and avoid contact with other gay men.
• In 1982, I took a sabbatical and went to Japan to teach. While there, the shame, the horror, and self-loathing led to a breakdown that brought me home and into therapy.
• That same year, I told my mom and stepdad and a few others that I was gay, but still there were periods of time when I tried to deny it by dating women. I also continued to hide to protect my job. But, as the years went on, it became harder and harder to do this as I became consciously aware of how deeply I had swallowed the shame and how much I hated myself. Finally, I began to wonder if maybe the world was wrong about me and “my guts” were right.
• Finally, I had had enough. I woke one morning and chose to live. Though those earlier years caused great damage, I decided to live more fully and authentically. As a friend said, I threw the closet door open so hard it came off its hinges.
• Though the struggle with shame continues, I am “out” in all areas of my life and entering the 22nd year of living with the man I love. I now face that struggle with the knowledge I will never hide or go backward but will continue to learn how to be more authentic and claim my place in a world of beautiful diversity. Furthermore, I will do my part to make life easier for those LGBTQ persons who follow, and argue not only for assimilation, but for the acceptance and celebration of the great diversity of human life. As the author Odets writes, “it is time that we act out of who we are, not who they are or whom they would want us to be to bestow their approval.” Our emergence from the shadows must be about something more than survival. Instead, it must “allow living better, more vital, and more authentic lives than American families and society had offered us.”

With clear explanations of psychological concepts and stories of gay men the author has worked with over the decades, the Odets makes clear that “as far as we know, being gay is simply one expression of natural human diversity, for which explanations and justifications are owed to no one.” Furthermore, he celebrates the resilience of gay men living in a straight world.

Odets begins by defining terms. Most importantly, he makes clear that being gay is about something far more fundamental than sexual attraction or behavior. Over the years, many people have come to think that the only difference between a gay man and one who is straight lies in the gender of the sexual participants.

He goes on to say that even many—if not most--gay men have internalized straight society’s belief that “the gender of his sexual partner defines him as gay and is his only distinguishing difference.”
Instead, being gay is about falling in love consistently with persons of the same gender. It is not only about sex. A straight man can have sex with someone of the same gender and not be gay. A gay man can have sex with a female and not be straight.

Sex and sexual attraction are only one expression of being gay or straight. A gay sensibility, instead, is about something deeper and more fundamental. It is about our internal being, our “real” self and the expression of it. It is about who we are rather than who society says we are.

Instead, being gay is about “cathexis” which is defined as “the natural human channeling and attachment of emotion to other people.” This gay sensibility “describes both the man’s internal experience of himself, and his characteristic external expression of self to others.” It is this gay sensibility—this experience of self, others, and the world--that lies behind and gives expression to sexual behavior.

Persons who are gay are not “just like everyone else” but are shaped by their integration of conventional male and female traits. Odets continues by writing that “the gay sensibility constructs gender more humanly, by integrating elements of conventionally feminine and masculine sensibilities into the life of a single person.”

He goes on to write that “In the societal model, observed biological sex, gender self-identity, internal sensibility, and expressed sensibility must all be aligned. As children and young adults, we easily internalize this model, and any discontinuity between the four components becomes a painful internal struggle that is worsened by societal stigma and rejection.

Odets also argues that until gay men come to understand that being gay is about more than sexual behavior, and until they stop equating their gay sensibility with the narrow definition of homosexuality, they will continue to be adversely affected; our society still defines homosexuality as something sick, perverted, flawed, deviant, criminal, sinful, and even evil. And most gay men use those adjectives to define themselves and come to believe themselves unworthy of a life of fullness, love, health, and joy.

Today, even though a slim majority of Americans say they support equal rights for LGBTQ persons, watch the reaction of many Americans when a gay couple walks down the street holding hands or kiss at the airport. Ask gay men how comfortable they feel expressing their love in public.

Odets argues that while many people, gay and straight, support formal rights, that support lags far behind when it comes to the affectionate expression of loving relationships. We can also see this support lagging when a gay man expresses his more feminine internal self.

Despite the polls gay men must daily struggle for self-acceptance in a society that is still hostile to those who are gay. Self-acceptance “is largely free of needless explanation, apology, and pandering, and free of reactive, unrealistic self-confidence and compensatory false pride. Self-acceptance allows realistic self-confidence, which is significantly unhinged in adulthood from the expectations and approval of others. In the end, authentic self-acceptance—or the lack of it—is almost the entirety of what defines a life. Without true self-acceptance, there is no true self-confidence or self-realization. Without self-realization, lives feel squeezed, purposeless, and truncated, cut short long before physical death finally ends them entirely.”

Reminded that a large percentage of gay men of his (my) generation were dead before the age of thirty and that the survivors were ruined by all the death around them, Odets argues that “it is time that we act out of who we are, not who they are or whom they would want us to be to bestow their approval. We must do more than survive, we must “allow living better, more vital, and more authentic lives than American families and society had offered us.”

We must not fall prey to the message that being gay is OK if all that is wanted are “equal rights.” We must not accept the message that that the love between two gay me is “just sex”. Instead, we must continue to struggle to live fully and openly with all the privileges of those who are straight. We must allow ourselves to love fully, emotionally, and completely rather than cave to the pressure to see our loving relationships as “less than.” We must embrace our inner sensibility that causes us to fall in love with persons of the same gender.

We must come to believe that “being gay is simply one expression of natural human diversity, for which explanations and justifications are owed to no one.” We must not doubt our inner sensibility but seek a path of self-discovery and acceptance so we can integrate our inner and outer life and outwardly express the internal impulse of our authentic self. For, when we free ourselves of the stigma imposed by society and internalized by ourselves, we can be more fully ourselves and grow into our potential.

We must overcome the stigma thrust upon us and be confident in our capacity to be loved and be in love. As Odets writes, the authentically lived gay man “has a lively internal life that he comfortably expresses, a quality of emotional receptivity, and a sense of human vulnerability that are all elements of a gay sensibility.”

Until then, we will live truncated lives.

Authentic lives are significantly nonreactive: they are primarily rooted in an internal center rather than in others’ norms and expectations.

Out of the Shadows covers many topics around the theme of reimaging gay lives and coming out of shame. So, while it may be a challenge to boil this important book down to a few points, it is one that deserves multiple readings and much reflection.

A highly recommended book.

[BookChampions · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was terribly moved by this book, and while I commend Odets for his urgent and respectful voice guiding readers through this tough look on shame, isolation, trauma, and recovery, it's the stories—one after the other—of the queer men he interviewed and counseled that make this a must read. No surprise, then, that the final chapter is Odet's personal story and his own relationships. It's a beautiful arc.

Odets gives the men in this book wide berth to tell their stories—all "heroic" ones, he asserts. The stories educate readers about how men have survived the trauma of the AIDS epidemic and its aftermath, as well as the short-circuited self-realization and maturation brought on by the closet.

I was reminded, while reading, of my favourite book, A Little Life and why I'm so moved by the horrific yet heroic story of Jude St. Francis. JSt.F will always be in my heart. But ultimately, I'm simply in awe of the work of therapists and psychologists. Odets knows the awesome task of having to bear witness to human striving amid terrible suffering, stigmatization, marginalization and fear. But he also knows how to honor those stories.

To say I "felt seen" reading this book is only a small wonder in light of this book's scope. The human lives captured within these pages—*lives*, not characters—will stay with me for a long time. And I'm left wondering that eternal Mary Oliver invocation: What am *I* (as man, as queer, as husband, as teacher, as father) going to do with my one wild and precious life?

[Conor Ahern · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an interesting enough book, though the premise--talking about gay men generally through the lens of individual patients the author had helped over the years--got a bit old after a while. Probably the most interesting thing it did was divide gay men into camps based on their exposure to HIV/AIDS. In a time when HIV/AIDS is an afterthought for Americans with the privilege to afford PrEP, it is easy to forget that at one point gay men were taking their lives into their hands just by pursuing the normal human need for sex. The trauma that this inflicted upon that whole generation is inestimable, and the contrast in terms of mere decades could not be more stark.

[Austin Lord · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is genuinely life changing. Reading this book was an incredible experience as over the course of a few weeks, I felt my mindset changing, and I felt more at ease the more I read this. This book is not an easy read, it can be very challenging and heavy, but it is, without a doubt, the most important book I've ever read.

This book is about growing up gay (I am using gay as an umbrella term for "not straight") in a world that discriminates and is overall hostile to people who are gay. Reading this book felt validating like nothing I've ever experienced, it helped me understand the challenges I had to deal with growing up, and the challenges that are still to come, and it helped me understand why, even to this day, I still feel a great sense of shame about being gay. Being gay is hard, even in modern times where gay acceptance is at an all time high. There is discrimination and stigmatization that just permeates in the world, and that is something that I've always been frustrated about, but this book helped me to feel seen, and helped give me the tools needed to move past this.

I grew up in a very Catholic household, and with that comes a great sense of shame when it comes to sexuality, and especially when it comes to being gay. I remember growing up terrified of the world around me, terrified of who I was and who I wanted to be. This taught me to bottle up my emotions, and with no way to expel these negative emotions, these feelings very quickly turned into anger. I felt nothing but pure anger up until a few years ago, life felt so unfair to me. Why was it that I had to be gay? What did I do to deserve this? Even after accepting my sexuality, it was an uphill battle, as I still felt this profound feeling of anger.

Looking back, I now realize the amount of unbridled rage that I was holding onto. Anger at my parents for raising me into a life of shame, and for not fully accepting me for who I am. Anger at society for creating an world in which I felt unsafe. Anger at religion for giving people a justification to discriminate against and shame gay people. And anger at myself for falling into these same traps, for convincing myself that I was a terrible person all because of who I love, and anger for not coming to terms with being gay sooner. In many ways, these feelings of anger were completely justified. Reading this book made me realize that this reaction is normal, but after a certain point, these feelings are no longer beneficial and they can hold a person back.

This book helped me to forgive. I learned to forgive those who unintentionally caused harm to me throughout my life, I learned to forgive those who would never apologize to me even if given the opportunity to. This book taught me to let go, there are so many things that are out of my control, so what is the point of latching onto the negative emotions associated? I remember finishing this book and just lying on my couch just at a loss for words, and eventually I completely broke down sobbing as I realized just how much of my life was being driven by anger. When I say this book changed my life, I sincerely mean it, I have never felt like I was strong enough to let go of these feelings I've carried with me through childhood, until I read this book. I've never felt this way before, I am clear of mind, and I am ready to move forward and grow.

[Jerry Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a straight, white, Cis, middle aged male I find myself in a very fortunate, totally unearned position in society replete with white (and other) privilege that I work to understand and try to change every day. In attempting to become more educated on the issues, I have read a lot about the racial divide in the US. However, I am very under informed about LGBTQ issues and I want to be a better ally. Hence I picked up this book and it was educational indeed.

Odets is gay, and has decades of experience in psychotherapy working with the gay community. This book is set in the context of his practice that has been dominated by the fact that the community was so devastated by the emergence of HIV and AIDS in the early 1980s. He talks at length of the despair and terror of a community that saw half its members cut down by this horrible disease leaving those left behind, or even HIV negative, with issues of PTSD, guilt, depression and a lot of other issues. It is very easy to minimize this from the position I find myself occupying. Since we are nearly 40 years past the flaring of AIDS it is easy to assume that HAART has made this disease a manageable, chronic condition but it isn't that easy. It also minimizes what the gay community went through and continues to deal with.

This is not a book about AIDS per se, although it was fascinating and heartbreaking to read about that backdrop. I was very moved by "And the band played on" and considered myself reasonably aware of this issue but I was woefully uninformed and had never really thought about the impact in the ways described here. Everyone should read this account and realize the ongoing issues.

Since I was so ignorant of the issues, I was guilty of the misrepresentation that comes up right at the beginning of the narrative, namely the conflating of "homosexual" and "gay". In other words, failing to appreciate the distinction and using the terms interchangeably. This foreshadows the tone of the book which discusses the challenges facing gay men in terms of society, judgement, guilt, pressure etc. not just related to HIV. I am ashamed not to have thought of these things before.

It seems to me that the prejudice against the LGBTQ community comes largely, but not exclusively, from the right, the religious, or those who view the sexual act as somehow "icky". I remember hearing Christopher Hitchens in a religious debate, state that being gay wasn't a form of sex it was a form of love. This is the message of this book to me. Whilst I knew that of course, I hadn't really thought about it in detail. This book really laid that out with the individual stories contained here, the pain, the challenges, the horror of seeing partners, friends and family die from AIDS and the scars that leaves.

As a society we need to do better; I need to do better. I am very glad I read this. Sometimes I lost the train of the argument as Odets took us through a number of areas and issues, and I had to work to pull together the message. Straight people need to read this, we need to understand these issues much better. I still don't really, because I am not in this situation, but I will think more about it and that is a good thing.

[Michał]

Every page of this book to me: go to therapy please 😌🤗

[Peter Gajdics · Rating 5 out of 5]

It took me a long time to finish reading this book because I recognized myself on every page, and that was painful. For anyone, gay or straight or otherwise, wanting to delver deeply into what it means and what it's meant to be "gay," and not just "homosexual," I couldn't recommend this book more.

[Justin F · Rating 5 out of 5]

Walt Odets has done a phenomenal job of describing the life of a gay man in America. This should be required reading for all gay, bi, queer, gender fluid, trans, etc. individuals, as well as any allies, friends, or curious souls.

Odets is a clinical psychologist, and thus presents various aspects of the gay existence via psychological case studies. Each account is compelling, and for me, hauntingly familiar, as I suspect it would be for most queer men in America. Within these vignettes, Odets details the psychological underpinnings of the concept at hand, e.g., stigma, and how we internalize and project these feelings. The result is a beautiful book full of humor, honesty, humanity, and hope. I encourage everyone to read this.

[Pedro Olim · Rating 5 out of 5]

just finished it and i’m still in shock, i cried a bunch while reading it but now i’m just stunned by how beautiful and powerful it is.

from the stories of so many gay men, to the author’s personal life experience… i feel so connected to these men across space and time. there are stories of trauma, loss, isolation, but also of discovery, love and authenticity.

our legal victories are nothing without liberation, and the only person who can give us our true liberation is ourselves. i feel so happy to be gay.


ps if i lived anywhere near san francisco i would be running to that therapy session

[Michaela · Rating 5 out of 5]

---Full disclosure: I received this book for free from Goodreads. ---

So, I'm not sure what I expected this to be, but I sure didn't expect it to be everything that it was. It was such a well-done piece of work, & the author deserves praise for what he's he's done here.

That said, I'm not quite certain how to relate my reading experience here. I quite enjoyed the insight provided via the interplay of the author's lived realities as a compassionate psychologist, & his personal life as a gay man. His read on recent history in the world of gay men (I'm calling "recent" Stonewall to the present) & the sometimes odd ways the cumulative fallout of it all manifests itself, in so many myriad ways, in the world of gay men in the United States is nothing if not eye-opening. I learned SO MUCH.

Perhaps it may help potential readers to be explicitly aware that the information in this book pertains to the U.S. population. Populations elsewhere may have overlap on some issues, but in no way will the entirety of this book wholly relate to the gay male population of any other nation. Although that is so, interested parties should not be put off from reading this. There is still so much available here that is universal, but nothing that might not be understood by all readers. I am simply saying, that if one is seeking information on the lives of gay men elsewhere in the world, this book might provide illumination only in the way that it examines a population & individuals w/ histories of being considered as undesirable outsiders by the larger society in which they exist. The psychological damage of living under such sustained threat & strain is indeed universal.

A few tidbits of what I learned might be appropriate. The grouping along age-lines to better understand generational differences of this population in relating to one another was highly enlightening. The way the generations relate to the AIDS crisis alone is enough to almost put the groups on their own islands. Then there is the aspect of "community" that coalesced &, in a sad way, dissipated both w/ the knowledge of the virus & treatment possibilities, & w/ the almost invasive usurpation by social media apps. Loneliness is epidemic. Too many gay men, raised in the U.S. culture of hyper-masculine posturing, & worship of physical objectification as superior to intimate connection, have not the 1st clue how to go about acquiring the support they need to mature into healthy, stable men. Nor do they know how to deal w/ the trauma & (socially-acquired) shame that more often than not remains internalized, & unrecognized w/ expert-levels of denial, which therefore does nothing but fester unabated in the subconscious. Such a reaction is not uncommon in any marginalized person, nor is it uncommon when it occurs in entire traumatized & unsupported communities or populations. In fact, amongst younger gay men, there is a sort of refusal to acknowledge vulnerability. It manifests oddly as an almost full denial of AIDS as a real threat, w/ the requisite shunning of HIV+ persons, rather than the support one might think a younger, informed population should have developed. In slightly older generations, utter paranoia about condom-usage can result in a very stressful hyper-vigilance that eventually exhausts the individual psyche. Then, of course, there is the older generation suffering from an unreal amount of PTSD from the grief & terror of the time when the unknown was culling them w/ an invisible scythe, & the broader society either turned their backs, or applauded.

While the above seems bleak, it explains so much. It clearly identifies the paths that brought that population & each of it's sub-groups to the place they are in now. Knowing one's history can do so much to aid one's own understanding of one’s own self. Seeing the whole historical pathway of it could be empowering to individuals by enabling better identification of the reasons one may be reacting negatively to their place in modern times. Hopefully such identification would facilitate becoming better adjusted to living in the world. Additionally, knowing that other people are out there dealing w/ the same traumas allows one to feel less alone, & to acknowledge that social connection is possible. Validation of shared trauma could do wonders for the healing processes of some people in this community, particularly those still unable to process so many years of grief & extreme loss.

Fortunately, this population, like all populations, is made-up of individuals. As such, despite the 1 larger connection of identifying as "gay," there are multitudinous examples of living according to one's own terms, & owning one's own life, despite all that may stacked against the group as a whole. There is no one way to be who you are, so to speak. That both opens up all kinds of possibilities, & all kinds of modern questions. For instance, toward the back of the book there is a very valid section that mentions the desire of the larger non-hetero population to acquire all the blessings bestowed via societally-accepted hetero-normativity. In other words. marriage, child-rearing, & all the blessings of the state that are conferred upon this type of old institution. While certainly an understandable notion, is it really the be-all end-all of equality? Obviously, denial of rights & benefits is not acceptable, but are other loving, supportive relationships any less deserving of respect? Non-traditional relationships have abounded over the course of human history, but they are nearly always invalidated as valid & worthy of respect by those "respectable" & "law-abiding" types of humans & their institutions. It seems just another way to create even more class divisions, in my personal opinion. This book does not fully go into discussion on such a topic, but merely raises the idea that in going forward, fully contemplating why a collective path has been chosen, & possibly what hands one might be playing into, can only allow for broader discussion of what "inclusion" & "acceptance" really mean. Working toward a desirable outcome for all, & not just those willing to "conform," is beneficial not to just certain individuals & populations, but to the whole of society. For any out-group, "conforming" to broader norms to justify worthiness tends to not benefit the whole of their members. Rather it may serve to further diminish & ostracize those persons who don't fit into that mold of accepted, so-called normative conformity, simply so that some members of the group might find some extra inches of acceptance. When talking about this specific grouping of persons, that is very particular kind of acceptance, often socially conditional, granted by the society & institutions that only yesterday were content to let them die. Big questions for any group seeking to throw off so much history of injustice & oppression, & worth the brief, illuminating mention given here-in. Inclusion is tricky rope, so it’s worthwhile to consider such questions. A fuller understanding of any undertaking in never an ill thing to acquire.

Finally, I just want to say that I saw a comment in a review that suggested the author thought sex was the answer to everything. For the life of me I can not understand how that conclusion was arrived at by the commenter. It was not my experience in these pages. There were some patients w/ intimacy issues, meaning the fall-out after the excitement of a new relationship had worn off, as it will eventually do. Being men raised stateside, emotional vocabulary & availability was not 2nd nature by any means, thus the source of the difficulties w/ maintaining a bond once the physicality had been dialed down. It's understandable, very human, & very much able to be improved upon by willing parties not spooked into paralysis by the emotional vulnerability of that learning curve. All long-term relationships undergo some degree of this phase in a relationship. In those w/ members raised on a mythos equating feelings to weakness however, this can be an especially difficult time. Thus the help they sought by enlisting our psychologist author to assist them in navigating such terrain. Outside of overcoming the estrangement felt by the members of such relationships, I have no idea what the aforementioned commenter might have been alluding to; maybe we read different books.

I've a friend completing her psychology Masters', & I will pass this book on to her. I nearly passed it on to my (gay) daughter, as we had recently had a discussion about what is "appropriate" at gay pride parades, given the fact that children are often present. Being an older, although more hetero-leaning person, I had a longer (& partially more directly experienced) view of the history of repression that was being currently played out by such attire as bondage-wear & the like, which I was able to relate. It was a case of history being played out (isn’t everything?), & another example of how knowing the past can help one to understand the point at which we are existing presently. Also, this is why the different generations must talk to each other. I had no idea people were attempting to regulate how others celebrated Pride, & she didn’t fully understand why such attire & forms of suggestive public display were guaranteed to be present at Pride. So we both learned things, which is good for everyone. (I further elaborated that these were learning moments for parents to have healthy discussions w/ kids, rather than continuing to practice the societally-avoidant stance on such arbitrarily "moral" practices, like sex, the human psyche, & biology. Age-appropriateness is of course called for in such discussions, but if one doesn't treat a thing as if it is abhorrent, then developing brains will not place special attention on it & thus avoid processing emotions associated w/ it's otherwise unexplained relationship to shame. So many hang-ups can be avoided by just being frank about life, & the variety of ways of living. Of course, that’s just me.) Oh, look at me digressing. Point is, I think the insights will do more good by being absorbed by someone about to go out & do therapy every day, than my kid who will likely let this sit on her shelf for a couple years before getting around to it. (In fairness, I’ve sent her a small library worth of books.) No worries. Once published I’ll get her a copy. I know she’ll learn so very much, & she’ll love it like I did.

In short: I recommend it! I’m so pleased I won this.

[Jonathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Insightful book about how gay men are shaped by experiences while growing up, with an especial focus on men living through the AIDS epidemic, whether as adults or children growing up with the fearmongering about being gay as a result of the epidemic, while also writing about current issues.

The discussion about the issues with gay marriage being the ultimate goal for a lot of activists was especially interesting, with how this in some cases seem to be a fight to assimilate queer people into straight institutions rather than just fighting for acceptance for alternative lifestyles (despite gay marriage being something that should be legal). The discussion about how sex education often fail men who have sex with men was also interesting and pretty relatable.

Other than that, the author writes really well, and whenever he takes up his own experiences with the AIDS epidemic, it's both really insightful to someone who did not live through the 80s/early 90s, and it's also devastating.

[Gregory · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is rare that I read a book that resonates so closely with my experiences. This book stirred up a lot of emotional baggage for me... but in a good way. This book is brave, honest and insightful. Highly recommended, especially for gay men seeking encouragement to embrace a life of self-acceptance and authenticity. I'm grateful to Walt Odets for this gift.

[Gerhard · Rating 4 out of 5]

'Today's gay communities would like to think that they bask in the light of a new golden age of acceptance and self-acceptance, but that is significantly untrue.' Review to follow.

[Tim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Insightful, moving, tragic, hopeful.

[Wells Woolcott · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nothing short of life changing. Made me think a lot about shame. As Björk once said IF WE DO NOT GROW OUTWARDS TOWARDS LOVE WE GROW INWARDS TOWARDS DESTRUCTIONS

[Oliver Whittingham · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an emotional and important read for me. Highlights the developmental trauma of growing up as a gay man, but alongside the sadness Odets provides a raw, unapologetic songbook of resilience.

[That One Ryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have read a few books on gay men’s identity, and how our lives are shaped by trauma or shame, however this was the first one I read that focuses on how the AIDS crisis has not only shaped individual gay lives, both from that generation and past, but also how it has shaped gay culture as a whole.

I don’t think many gay men have stopped to reflect on how that crisis has shaped their lives, or their culture and I appreciate how thoroughly Odets dissects this. I wasn’t aware he had written a book called “In the Shadow” reflecting on how being HIV negative in the time of the AIDS crisis shaped his world. So this follow up Out of the Shadows feels more poignant. I think many gay men could find a lot of value in looking at our culture and our individual attitudes from the perspective of this book.

This felt reminiscent of the Velvet Rage, which covers similar ground tho through the lense of shame. Both works left me exploring my own views and history and how they have impacted who I am.

I found everything Odets had to say thought provoking and well researched. Through his work, he has a clear understanding of how gay men shape their lives, and his theories and opinions are worth reflecting on.

[Jerry · Rating 5 out of 5]

An essential book for people to read — young or older — to understand the complicated psychological landscape within which gay men are living. With "marriage equality" finally granted, many people incorrectly think that everything is easily mended and works without the need for introspection and hard work.

As Walt Odets writes: "Are men who fall in love with other men and get married just like heterosexual men in conventional marriages? Both gay lives and gay relationships have a long, necessarily independent history of improvisation and invention, largely born of a gay sensibility. Without traditional social models to draw on, gay men have had to discover ways to be themselves in a manner that straight men with a ready-made life plan never have. For gay men, married or not, the task of discovery persists."

I recommend this book to all my gay brothers — but also hope that our straight friends and families can learn from the stories that Odets generously shares from decades of analyzing the complicated thing we call love.

[Lucas Lanza · Rating 5 out of 5]

Um livro excelente, bem escrito e esclarecedor a respeito da psique e possíveis problemas de saúde mental de homens gays vivendo em uma sociedade heteronormativa antes, durante e depois da primeira e segunda onda da epidemia de HIV/AIDS. Recomendo!

[Alonso · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very insightful book. Reading it gave me new perspectives to understand more deeply the community I belong to, and, more importantly, myself.

[Archie Harding · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the greatest books ever written. This is my bible that I will continue to study and cherish for the rest of my life. I truly believe every gay man should read this book

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book that I will likely listen to again in the future. It was chock full of information that any gay guy needs to know and internalize. I loved how he went through the stages of development how we can get caught at the different stages, and also how our trauma during each stage can influence future behavior. He was precisely on with the concept of "sport sex" being a result of us being told that men cannot have meaningful relationships with each other and how we are behind as a group because we were never allowed to practice intimacy at the same level that our straight counterparts were. The only reason I didn't give this book a full five stars is because of that weird, overly detailed, rambling Old Man story about the airplane at the end. That didn't add very much to the book, and I know it was the author's personal Journey but he didn't seem to tie it in very well to the overall theme of the book.

Before that though, this was one of the most enlightening and emotionally significant books I've listened to in a very long time. If you liked the Velvet rage or got anything out of it, this book goes one level deeper and will really open your worldview.

[Sophy H · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars

This one has been a while in the reading, and one I've had to stop and start many times.

Although the subject matter is one of importance and needs to be addressed, I think the author's writing style just didn't gel very much with me and I therefore found it to be a bit of a slog to get through.

Odets deals with the many traumas that gay men experience, from coming out and family rejection, bullying, negative relationship experiences, to surviving and navigating the AIDS epidemic whilst losing those around you.

I think particularly regarding the trauma surrounding the AIDS pandemic and the trauma the gay community experienced, How to Survive a Plague: The Inside Story of How Citizens and Science Tamed AIDS is a much better title to read, and covers way more ground.

Overall, this book was ok, but just ok. Not one I'd particularly recommend or return to.

[Andy Hockey · Rating 5 out of 5]

It took me over a year to finish this cause let’s be real it’s chock full of technical language, and sometimes you don’t wanna dive into stories of gay despair.

But the way Odets ties his theoretical explorations off with one final, immensely personal chapter, made all time spent wading through the tough content totally worth it.

I did skip over a few parts, but the 85% I did read was stacked with the kinds of insights that just can’t be found elsewhere; giving words and reason to the many unnamed feelings and experiences I’m sure all queer men move through. In that sense, I’m coming to think of this book as ‘essential reading’ for queer men. I think it has changed my perspective in no small way, and brought me a greater sense of freedom. An aptly titled book.

[Evan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Liberation is about insisting on our own lives, not seeking their permission for a diversity that harms no one.

Admittedly, I didn't realize that Walt is the son of Clifford Odets for most of this book. Maybe writing travels down the bloodline because this book floored me – it's kaleidoscopic without being dizzying, it's analytic without being overly technical, there's a feeling of gracefulness and hope that floods through Odets' prose. Out of the Shadows uses psychotherapy patient case studies as a framework to examine and interrogate issues surrounding gay identity and sexuality, acceptance, loss and grief, and the stigma of shame. While at times the book veers dangerously close to psychology textbook, it continually returns to these case studies as a means to not get too lost in psychological or sociological theory. Although, sometimes I found myself most drawn to the theory – in particular, the first chapter, "Are Gay Men Homosexuals", lays out a nuanced examination of the book's themes, literally from the first line:

There are two different perspectives on what makes a man a "homosexual." The first—the heterosexual perspective—is that homosexuals are "men who have sex with men." The gay man's perspective, briefly put, is that he is "attracted to other men." The difference between the two descriptions is important: the heterosexual identifies a single, objective behavior, the gay man an internal life of feeling.

I might need to return to this chapter a few more times. It's the most densely-woven and theory-heavy of the chapters, but I can see this being distributed and discussed in an undergraduate Sociology of Sexuality class. On a cursory reading, Odets is arguing from the jump, and throughout, that when you reduce a person to the basest level of difference that separates you (in this case, sexuality), you will never understand the totality of the person. I think of Janaya Khan saying: "You have not known me, and I am telling you that you can only develop so far and you can only know yourself so well if you do not know me. [...] Because my humanity is my own. And when you are no longer able to see someone's humanity, that is when the most monstrous things can happen."

Later in the same chapter, Odets writes:

When I recently asked a gay Dutch public health official what it meant to "be gay in the Netherlands," he responded, "I'm not sure what the question is. If you mean, do we live in our own parts of town as you do in the U.S., the answer is no. The whole issue doesn't mean as much in the Netherlands, we don't really have gay and straight people the way you do. It's more like we have people, and all people are different.

(Though I recently saw a study from Dutch health service GGD that less than half of Amsterdam youth (43%) accept homosexuality, compared to 69% two years ago, so I'm not convinced that any country has it figured out.)

Acceptance is a slow road – sometimes it feels like a patch of open earth, a forest you plant so in a few generations, there might be trees there. That you can't rush progress, but time might yield a better world. About midway into the COVID pandemic, I met at a careful distance with one of my close friends. We sat in the park and talked about the world we were being called to. We had both been children of the midwest, and so I talked about being torn between owing yourself to your home or running away and trying to build a home in a new city. Eventually she left the midwest and then I did too – slowly realizing it may take a while to understand how the idea of home sits in my body, but that I didn't to understand it all at once. As Odets notes, cities like New York, where many LGBTQ+ people migrate so, isn't a community so much as it is a high concentration in a small space, but even if there isn't a magnetizing pull, there's still the promise. I think that's what community has meant to me, and I think that's what acceptance means more broadly. That anything could happen, so why not the best possible version of things? It might take more than a single lifetime to build a utopia, but maybe it can exist a few generations from now, a lifetime or two after this one. Odets ends this book on a note of hope:

Shame, self-rejection, and self-contempt are feelings imposed from outside, toxic feelings we hear expressed by others and take in [...] Many men can unlearn [these feelings], and today's slowly shifting social values provide an opportunity, particularly for young men who are still working to find themselves and the lives they will lead. For older men with more entrenched trajectories, the unlearning is possible but more difficult. Men of all ages do change, and the millions of gay men who suffered difficult starts but now live with authentic self-acceptance stand testimony to the possibility.

Odets ends at a place of acknowledging that now more than ever, we have the openness and the therapy frameworks to work through the shame, self-rejection, self-contempt, and overall stigma — that we have the means to become healthier versions of ourselves. That we all have the possibility to "invent honest and loving lives."

[metempsicoso · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ad essere onesto, non so né se né come metabolizzerò questo libro.
Meglio con che senza, credo (che è poi l'unico metro sensato con cui valutare un libro).