Life Outside - The Signorile Report on Gay Men: Sex, Drugs, Muscles, and the Passages of Life - Hardcover

Signorile, Michelangelo

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0060187611 ISBN 13: 9780060187613

Publisher: Harper, 1997

Synopsis

Popular Out magazine columnist Michelangelo Signorile
investigates the hot-button issues
confronting gay men today.

"Exhaustively researched, surpassingly perceptive."
--New York magazine

"Life Outside bravely advances a critique of the attitudes and ideologies that have shaped the gay 'scene' and merits the attention of a broad audience for its courage and informativeness."
--New York Times Book Review

"A stunning expose. Gay men should be handed three things when they come out of the closet: a box of condoms, a videocassette of George Cukor's The Women, and a copy of Life Outside."
--The Advocate

Michelangelo Signorile galvanized a generation of lesbians and gay men when he took on the "closets of power" in his 1992 classic Queer in America. Now, in Life Outside, he offers an expose of what he calls the "cult of masculinity" within contemporary gay male culture, while finding hope and renewal in other aspects of gay life. He reveals the origins of the current obsession in much of the gay community with an impossible physical ideal and explores the malevolent commercialization of gay sex.

Life Outside also identifies another, more positive phenomenon in the gay male world. With the expansion of the gay movement, with more gays coming out--and remaining--in suburban, small-town, and rural America, the urban "scene" is no longer setting the standard for what it is to be gay in America. With the "deghettoization" and "deurbanization" of homosexuality, we find men who challenge long-held assumptions about being gay, relationships, and coping with growing older. With first-person accounts from men who are moving into midlife with pride and vitality, Signorile points the way for all gay men to face the passages of life with a new maturity.

About this title

About the Author

Michelangelo Signorile, author of Queer in America and Outing Yourself, writes the monthly column "Signorile in America" for Out magazine. He has also written for the New York Times, the Village Voice, USA Today,and The Advocate. He is a graduate of the S. I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University.

Reviews

A columnist for Out magazine, Signorile (Queer in America, LJ 6/1/93) here urges gay men to shun what he calls the "cult of masculinity" that has been embraced by many gay men, particularly in the largest urban areas. In the first section?the best part of the book?Signorile describes the cult, traces its origins from shortly after Stonewall, describes the "circuit parties" firsthand, and documents the rampant use of steroids and other drugs among cultists. In Part 2, he posits recent trends toward the "deghettoization" and "deurbanization" of homosexuality, a move toward "postmodern monogamy," and a breakdown in the stereotype of the lonely old queen. Unfortunately, Signorile offers little reliable evidence for these trends and relies instead on data from an informal, unscientifically selected sample of several hundred men who are quoted or paraphrased at length. Also, many chapters read like expanded columns, good in themselves but not woven into an entirely cohesive argument. Overall, this is a good, readable book that could and should have been better. Recommended for larger collections.?Robert W. Melton, Univ. of Kansas Libs., Lawrence
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Harper
• Publication date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0060187611
• ISBN 13: 9780060187613
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 352