Stage two of the gay man’s life is the stage of compensating for shame. Once we leave stage one and are no longer shamed by our sexuality, we continue to hold the deeper belief that there is something fundamentally flawed about ourselves. Any person, straight or gay, who grows up in an environment that is essentially invalidating of some core part of themselves such as sexuality struggles with this deeper shame. The shame over being gay is past us. Now we are driven by the deeper shame of believing that we are flawed.
