The Velvet Rage: Overcoming the Pain of Growing Up Gay in a Straight Man's World

by Alan Downs

shame is the fear of being unlovable.

You, too, began to understand that you were different. Your understanding was only dim at first, but as those early years progressed into adolescence, you became increasingly aware that you weren’t like other boys—maybe even not like your parents. Along with the growing knowledge that we were different was an equally expanding fear that our “different-ness” would cause us to lose the love and affection of our parents. This terror of being abandoned, alone, and unable to survive forced us to find a way—any way—to retain our parents’ love. We couldn’t change ourselves, but we could change the way we acted. We could hide our differences, ingratiate ourselves to our mothers, and distance ourselves from our fathers whom we somehow knew would destroy us if he discovered our true nature.

Maybe you remember just how cruel children can be? Most gay men have early memories of this kind of rejection at the hands of their playmates. In fact, it is on the playground that we probably first began to consciously think about how we were different from other boys. We didn’t necessarily want to play the same games as the other boys. We were taunted or ignored by the more athletic, aggressive boys who always seemed to win the positive attention of their classmates and even the teachers.

It was this early abuse suffered at the hands of our peers, coupled with the fear of rejection by our parents, that engrained in us one very strident lesson: There was something about us that was disgusting, aberrant, and essentially unlovable.

No matter how we expressed it, we needed love and we feared that there was something about us that made us unlovable. It was an experience that became an integral part of our psychology that has stayed with us most of our lives. We became utterly convinced that there was something about us that is essentially unlovable.

Whatever the cause, most of us grew into our young adult-hoods without having had a truly loving, honest, and safe relationship with a man. Not with our buddies, and certainly not with our fathers.

The end result of these strained family dynamics was that the only authentic validation we may have experienced as a young man came from our mothers. And this validation was usually directed at the things that our mothers valued—the feminine ideals. Hence, the feminine qualities (not to be confused with effeminate qualities) of our true self were validated the most.

So as mere children, years before we would have sex for the first time with a man, we had suffered rejection by our peers, emotional neglect from our fathers, and overcompensating protection from our mothers. We survived by learning to conform to the expectations of others at a time in our development when we should have been learning to follow our own internal promptings. We became puppets of a sort—allowing those around us to pull the strings that made us act in acceptable ways, all the while knowing that we couldn’t trust ourselves. What would you like me to be? A great student? A priest in the church? Mother’s little man? The first-chair violinist? We became dependent on adopting the skin our environment imposed upon us to earn the love and affection we craved. How could we love ourselves when everything around us told us that we were unlovable? Instead, we chased the affection, approval, and attention doled out by others.

Not surprisingly, the long-term effect was an inability to validate ourselves. The ability to derive internal satisfaction and contentment didn’t emerge from our adolescence as it should have. Instead, we sputtered along looking to others for the confidence and well-being that we needed to protect ourselves from being overcome with shame. What normally becomes an internal, self-sustaining process of self-validation in the healthy, young adult remained infantile within us, and we instead became sophisticated in the ways of coercing acceptance from the world around us.

This is you and me—a little boy with a terrible secret who hides his curse behind a curtain made of crimson velvet. It may surprise many to learn that his secret is not his sexual appetite for men. No, it is something darker, stinging, and filled with rage. His secret he cannot reveal, not even to himself, for fear that it will consume him completely. Deep inside, far from the light of awareness, the secret lives. Go down beneath the layers of public façade, personal myth, and fantasy. Peel away the well-crafted layers, for only then can you see the secret clearly for what it is: his own self-hatred.

The truth is that we grew up disabled. Not disabled by our homosexuality, but emotionally disabled by an environment that taught us we were unacceptable, not “real” men and therefore, shameful. As young boys, we too readily internalized those strong feelings of shame into a core belief: I am unacceptably flawed. It crippled our sense of self and prevented us from following the normal, healthy stages of adolescent development. We were consumed with the task of hiding the fundamental truth of ourselves from the world around us and pretending to be something we weren’t. At the time, it seemed the only way to survive.

Authentic validation is absolutely necessary for the development of a strong sense of self. Without it, the self does not develop properly. Further, authentic validation inoculates us from the ravages of shame.

Without the inoculating effects of authentic validation, shame is debilitating. It is a hugely powerful emotion that is very distressing. It causes us to immediately withdraw and try to hide. We want to cover up our mistakes and run away. Because shame is so distressing, we are highly motivated to avoid feeling it. There are two tactics we can use to avoid shame, and we often use them both. The first tactic is to avoid situations that evoke feelings of shame (e.g., not returning the call of a friend who criticized you). The second tactic is to elicit validation to compensate for the shame (e.g., flirting with another man after having a fight with your boyfriend).

With an inability to self-generate authentic validation, to feel good just because we are who we are, we walk through the world feeling frequently invalidated. At times, we see it everywhere: at home, with our lover, at work, or just walking the street. Even the most minor slight can be perceived as invalidation.

Because we are very vulnerable to shame and because it is triggered so easily within us, our lives become solely focused on avoiding shame and seeking validation. Almost everything becomes either an avoidance strategy or an invitation for validation.

The young gay man avoids gym class (where the other boys make fun of him), and he becomes a straight-A student to achieve some validation. Or perhaps he surrounds himself with friends (mostly girls) who don’t seem to notice or care that he is different, and he achieves validation by wearing the most up-to-date and stylish clothes. Or he attempts to become “hypermasculine” by working out at the gym and becoming the star athlete so that no one suspects the real truth about him. One common thread runs through all of these examples: The avoidance of shame becomes the single most powerful, driving force in his life.

The gay man who isn’t able to believe in himself, to be satisfied with himself, seeks validation from the world around him, but he finds what validation that he does receive increasingly fails to satisfy.

Unable to satisfy his own needs, feelings of rage begin to emerge. His tolerance for invalidation becomes dangerously low and his hunger for validation is all-consuming. Sometimes, even the smallest of perceived slights ignites a flash of red-hot anger within him:

While we grow ever more comfortable with our sexuality, in both public and private, we have yet to deal with the core shame that continues to hound us. We grew up believing that we were unacceptable and somehow tragically twisted. We no longer hold that being gay is twisted, but we cling to the core belief that we are inferior. In stage two, it is this core of toxic shame that takes center stage. To silence the distress of this toxic shame, we go about the task of seeking validation from others.

The more validation we discover, the less distress we feel.

What’s different about our craving for validation in stage two is that in stage one, validation is all about trying to hide our sexuality. In stage two, it is about trying to still the small but persistent voice of shame within us. We need validation to assure us that as gay men, we are worthwhile and ultimately deserving of love.

The acquisition of validation is so rewarding that we become validation junkies. The more we get, the more we crave it, the better we feel, and the harder ...

Our bodies become chiseled in muscle, pleasing our bedroom guests. We work to become wealthy so that we can take regular and exotic excursions around the world that bring us excitement and worldly sophistication that is...

And, of course, we include sex in our search for validation. Many gay men collect encounters with beautiful, sexy men like a museum might hoard all the David Hockney or Edward Hopper paintings it can possibly afford. The validation we achieve through sexual encounters is immediate and stimulating, even if it is essentially inauthentic. We play a role, one that we have mastered over years of being onstage, that seduces our beautiful conquest-to-be. When he gives up his resistance and succumbs to our siren call, we feel the rush of immediate validation. If no one else does, at least this one man sees something of value in us.

Hidden in our search for validation is both a truth and a lie. The truth is that validation is good and necessary for our psychological well-being. The lie is that we have not yet truly discovered or accepted ourselves; hence, the validation is of something less than authentic. It is the validation of a façade that we masterfully erect.

In stage two, we learn to achieve validation in any way that we can, and not necessarily in the ways that will make us content with life. During stage two, more so than any other stage, a low tolerance for invalidation rises to the surface. This is an inability to tolerate any perceived invalidation that might come our way. Sometimes it is painful invalidation, like a lover who leaves you for another man or a friend who stabs you in the back with critical words spoken to others. Sometimes it is a slight invalidation, perhaps just a frown from a stranger or an innocent joke about your taste in clothing. Whatever the source and however intense the perceived invalidation, in stage two, the gay man can handle very little of it.

When a gay man experiences a low tolerance for invalidation, he is highly distressed by whatever perceived invalidation he experiences, and it is only logical that he would take action to relieve that distress. That action, or shall I call it a reaction, usually involves either removing himself from the invalidating situation, silencing the source of invalidation, or both.

In practical terms, this means that we either avoid the person who is invalidating us or we strike out at them verbally, physically, or passively.

While no gay man is proud of it, it is true that gay men in stage two can become absolute geniuses at invalidating each other.

Depression can emerge in the gay man in stage two as it can in stage one, but for different reasons. In stage two, the gay man experiences a hunger for validation and a hypersensitivity to invalidation. In fact, he may become so sensitized to invalidation that he begins to see it everywhere he turns in life. His vision narrows, as if by intention he were eliminating from sight all traces of validation. What he does allow himself to see is a life full of invalidation.

What is distinctly noticeable about this stage two depression is that the old sources of validation no longer seem to soothe the gay man’s distress. He works hard, but the feeling of validation is harder to come by. The beautifully furnished apartment no longer thrills him. His success at work feels as if it were a grating noise to his ears. The parade of sexual conquests with beautiful men becomes tedious and boring, like a hamster on a treadmill who runs incessantly but will never go anywhere. Very little, if anything, is experienced as validating.

The harsh reality of stage two is that the gay man often pursues sources of inauthentic validation. Why? Because he hasn’t yet discovered the essential part of himself. Having lived with the belief that he was critically flawed, his true self was abandoned and he pursued other, more appealing personas. The steep climb out of stage two and the depression it can sometimes trigger is found in the simple process of rediscovering the essence of the self. It is a complete upheaval of life that ultimately destroys everything that was once dear and sacred, and preserves only that which is real and honest.

The end of stage two is inevitably the dark night of the soul for the gay man. It is a time when he may untie every anchor to his small vessel. Relationships are often ended. Career choices are frequently questioned. Friendships are dismissed. The meaning of life is rejected, revised, destroyed, and reinvented. And while the extent to which a gay man displays this angst upon his face and life may vary, the internal process is always tough and grim. Some retreat into a period of mostly silent contemplation. Others become activated, expressing their struggle to all who will hear. Each slight variation of personality has its own way of expressing the process, but the result is the same: elimination of shame and the birth of authenticity.

the only way to reduce shame is to expose oneself to it.

Admitting a mistake is opening the door to shame, something a gay man in stages one and two can’t really afford to do. It’s far too threatening, so he may ignore the mistake and hope it will be forgotten, or worse, try to create a distraction by blaming his partner for something else.

This is what is known as a process addiction—using a behavior to regulate your mood. At first, any process addiction is a choice to engage in a behavior that helps to radically shift your mood. Over time, you become dependent on the behavior, and it starts to feel like it’s out of control. Regardless of the consequences of repeating this behavior, you keep doing it to feel better. Again and again, you go do it, until you either find another way to regulate your mood or your life becomes consumed with the addiction.

Gay men who actively participate in frequent anonymous or casual sexual hookups are loath to call what they are doing an addiction, but the signs are all there. If you look just beneath the surface, you find a life that is consumed with pursuing sex. They need the sex to make life livable, and in the process, often destroy the best things in their life. Relationship after relationship falls apart because they either have an affair or become so miserable when the relationship cools off sexually that they feel compelled to find a new supplier of the drug they crave, walking away from lover after lover to find it.

Each emotion has its own set of common catastrophic thoughts that it can trigger, but the result is the same. Not only do you feel the distressing emotion, you panic because it feels as if the emotion will never pass. The emotion becomes intolerable, and you search in earnest for a way to avoid feeling it. That’s where brief sexual encounters often enter the picture—not only do they bring distraction, they sometimes hold the power to change your mood completely.

Instead of allowing himself to feel lonely, the gay man may try to avoid it by seeking out a brief sexual encounter. As long as he is engaged in the “chase” and eventually captures his prize, he is emotionally distracted and his mood often shifts. The problem is, however, that this effect is usually temporary, and often the loneliness (or threat of loneliness) returns.

Kyle relied heavily on sex to regulate his emotions. This worked for him until the day that he got into a relationship with a really wonderful man. It was only a matter of time before the relationship sparked some distress, and Kyle started feeling the strong urge to seek out sex with other men. In his more rational state of mind, he didn’t want to do anything to hurt his relationship, but when he was distressed with emotion, all he wanted to do was escape into the embrace of another man. As a few years passed, Kyle secretly returned to his habit of frequenting the park. Now he was feeling terrible guilt about his behavior and wanting to change before his lover found out about what he had been doing.

The gay man’s obsession with youth is almost always linked with his use of sex as a way to control his emotions. He imagines that when he is no longer sexually attractive, he will become overwhelmed by his loneliness and a victim to depression. There will be no way to bring joy into his life anymore. Life will become drudgery and painful.

What he doesn’t realize is that gay men who no longer use sex to control their emotions are often relieved to grow older. The pressure to be sexy and out on the town is lifted. He no longer feels compelled to watch every calorie that passes his lips or spend seven hours a week at the gym. Instead, he is free to be himself, without all the cultural expectations that he be something else or that he must, at all costs, remain alluring to other men.

Using other men as a method of emotion regulation requires the gay man to be fundamentally inauthentic. The sexual encounter is all about making him feel something different, and when that is successfully accomplished, he is done with the other man. The encounter is a means to an end that has little to do with a relationship or emotional exchange between two people. It’s all about me and making me feel better, and you are forced to go through the motions, pretending to be interested in the other person long enough to get him naked. At times, you must make idle conversation until sufficient time has passed so that both of you can maintain the illusion that it really isn’t just about sex. For instance, you may learn that at times it is more effective toward your goal of having sex if you aren’t exactly honest about all the details of your life. You may be even tempted to create a completely fabricated life just for the benefit of bedding the listener (if you have any doubt about this, just visit a gay chat room on the internet).

Gay men in their forties and fifties often enter the crisis of meaning. What’s happiness really all about?

Like the crisis of identity, the crisis of meaning can either be foreclosed or resolved. Foreclosure is what it always is—nothing more than a quick fix to a distressing emotional state. In the crisis of meaning, it usually means throwing yourself into another relationship, buying yet another vacation home, traveling around the world, or pushing yourself to create the perfect body. Foreclosure in the crisis of meaning almost always sounds something like this: “I’ll find contentment if I just try harder at what I’ve been doing.” More men. More sex. More workouts. More parties. More high achievement. More money. More Botox. More, bigger, better.

Resolving the crisis of meaning is all about reaching the place of honest and radical authenticity. It’s about no longer needing to compensate for shame and living your life without needing to gild it with the extraordinary. Growing older, day by day and year by year, without the need to make it all seem better than it really is. It’s life, and it’s just fine without the embellishments.

The one and only skill that resolves the crisis of meaning is that of acceptance. Learning to accept the things in life as they are in the present moment. You’re growing older, your boyfriend’s getting fatter, your job isn’t totally amazing, and where you live can often be boring. To repeat a cliché that I often breathe to myself: “It is what it is.”

When you drop the struggle with shame and accept life as it is without judgment, you find great freedom on the other side. It is freedom to be who you are, exactly as you are. The only real meaning in life is found in being who you are right now, without apologies. You don’t need to be more spiritual, richer, friendlier, better looking, younger, or living on a beach....

The three legs that make up the stool of contentment are passion, love, and integrity. Contentment in life rests firmly in the ongoing pursuits of these three things.

Passion is the repeated experience of joy in doing something. When one discovers passion, it is usually because an activity seems to produce joy each time it is performed.