Out of the Shadows

Even in our modern progressive world, it's not easy to be a gay man. While young gay men often come out more readily, even those from the most liberal of backgrounds still struggle to accept themselves and experience stigma, shame and difficulties with intimate relationships. They also suffer from ongoing trauma wrought by the AIDS epidemic, something that is all too often relegated to history. Drawing on a lifetime's work as a clinical psychologist, Walt Odets uses the stories of his patients as well as the stories of his own deep relationships with other gay men to illuminate these difficulties and how they may be overcome. He explores everything from how defining gay men as merely "homosexuals" is reductive and damaging to their emotional lives, to the way stigma, shame and trauma continue to shift and follow gay men throughout their lives even as society becomes - on a surface level - more accepting. He shows us how a new way forward is possible through rejecting the currently-fashionable assimilation politics, learning to accept ourselves and others as they are, and independently inventing our own lives.