Ward and John, the Dull Ideal

I think Alan Downs’ The Velvet Rage should be subtitled The Zen of Conformist Mediocrity. I’m sure that Downs is a good therapist who has helped many. He comes across as carrying, professional and considerate. And he has some good insights. But…

Downs claims that gay men grow up in a culture that doesn’t appreciate them and is often hostile toward them, and this leads to a deep sense of shame, and he concludes that this shame has a profound impact on the lives of gay men.

Downs believes there are three stages gay men pass through before they are free of the shame. First we are closeted. In this stage we can be intensely homophobic, secretive and dishonest. We might get married to a woman, have kids, but privately enjoy gay porn or have anonymous gay sex, or even have a sexual relationship with a man while insisting we aren’t gay. Then in the second stage, we are flamboyant, extravagant, outrageous, fabulous and extreme as we desperately seek external validation. Working for that perfect gym body, spending a fortune on designer clothes, being the absolute best at our jobs, making lots of money, taking exotic vacations…anything that’s over the top and out of the ordinary is a symptom of this middle stage according to Downs. Gay men in this stage might also be extremely defensive, sarcastic, bitter, alcoholic and drug addicted. The final stage is self-acceptance, and Downs believes that gay men in this stage settle down and lead quiet lives and mostly blend in.

Downs believes that most gay men have difficulty maintaining relationships because they had shaming and invalidating relationships with their fathers, and he seems to think anything other than long-term, monogamous relationships are symptoms of unresolved shame.

It’s not that I completely disagree with Downs on every count. I recognized myself in much of what he has to say, and I recognize other gay men I’ve known. But he concretizes and generalizes about his conclusions, categories and stages to an extent that he presents gay men as stereotypes and gay caricatures: the closet case who sucks off men at truck stops, the closet case who hates gay men, the promiscuous gym bunny or disco queen, the boozy, jet set queen, the house beautiful queen, the insecure bitchy Boys in the Band queen. Yeah, we’ve seen men like that, but it’s just too simple, too tidy, too on the nose. Too reductive.

Aside from that, I think Downs does what many therapists do without realizing it, and that’s philosophize. He comes to conclusions about the way things should be and the way life should be lived, conclusions that I think are beyond the scope of psychology. He presents a kind of school of thought, and I think it’s rather tedious and boring, and he offers no solid proof as to why we should think his beliefs are universally valid. Downs seems to think that any early sexual experience is abusive. He seems to think that living alone is pathology. He seems to think that breaking up is pathology. He seems to think having a sex life others might consider kinky is pathology. He seems to think having an open relationship is pathology. He seems to think being too poor or too rich is pathology. Doing anything to stand out is pathology. Even going to gay bars, gay resorts or gay Pride Parades is pathology. I get the sense that in Downs imagination anything other than a quiet comfortable middle class suburban life with a unobtrusive man whom you have sex with twice a week with the lights off is an indication that things our out of sorts. The ideal he wants to impose on all of us is straight out of a 1950s sitcom. Ozzie and Henry, that dull, forgettable gay couple from down the street. They have a house that looks like every other house in the neighborhood. They have good jobs, but nothing too exciting. They might invite you to dinner, and the food will probably be pretty good, but nothing too exotic.

Is this self-acceptance or another kind of extremism, extreme conformity? And conformity to what? A Hollywood fantasy?

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with being Ozzie and Henry or Ward and John, but I don’t think that if you dream of a masked man with a large dildo that it’s a sure sign that Daddy didn’t love you enough. I don’t think that every time you try to excel at something or try something new or unusual that it means you’re being down on yourself.