Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

....Of course this isn't dry and erudite social criticism; it doesn't pretend to be. What it does do is pose some very difficult questions and shed light on some behaviors that gay men (including myself) must address. I have to admit that there were certainly things I did not agree with in Signorile's book. And the repetitveness of terminology and thoughts ocassionally grated, but by and large this book made me pause and think. That, whether passing the muster of pretentious dialectic dogma or not, is a clear representation of the power of an author who is uncovering something that is worth considering. And the fact that many other gay men have responded to this book so powerfully means that it IS speaking to some underlying deep questioning that folks are doing about what we as gay men have become post-Stonewall. As an Ivy- educated young gay urban professional, I am more than capable of distinguishing between what I consider to be great writing or not. And Signorile is not my only choice in the panolpy of authors writing contemporary gay social critcism. However, he is one I will continue to read until the things he says no longer feel/seem relevant to me

This book is a gem. The words and ideas in it ring very true, at least from this writers perspective. The pressure to be "cut, ripped and pumped", and to escape "Life" with drugs and fun is REAL. It was well on its way to destroying me before I jumped off the merry go round in the early 90's. Signorile is not preaching, nor is he buying into the "Cult of the Circuit". He freely admits he works out. He wants to look good. But not at any cost. His dipiction of the flight over the desert and mountains to yet another "Circuit party" was oddly chilling and yet sad. Are we(gay men) so desperate to "blend" and yet be noticed that the cycle of attention seeking behavior will not end? I did find that the disparity between the two types of lives led (Parts One and Two) was a bit too stark, and difficult to relate to. Having been to NYC and Chelsea several times-that description was more than apt. The looks from the "Pumped" to the "Non-pumped" are amazing-very withering and pitying. Signorile hit this one on the head. I think he is saying it is time to wake up, smell the coffee, and work on ourselves from the inside out, and not the other way around.

As a gay man who has lived in NYC since the 50s I found Signorile's picture of gay male life in the Fifties and Sixties and the judgements he made about those years to be a mass of threadbare cliches. Good God! Who did he interview to get such a narrow and crippled portrait of those years? He clearly lacks a knowledge of the broad range and nuancing of the gay male subculture of that era. This very poor beginning makes it difficult to take the rest of the book as seriously as Signorile clearly wants the reader to.

The "post-AIDS" era of the gay male subculture has been marked by a terribly uneasy attitude toward the preceding pre-AIDS era, and has seen the male subculture become something of a caboose on the train of feminism, with ambiguous and sometimes bogus issues of political correctness and the emulation of mainstream - white, middle class - goals and lifestyles being promoted as desiderata. Signorile's book is evidence of this interesting turn of events, but it is not much in the way of an analysis.

The entire work would have come off better if the author had skipped the assertions of research and simply done it as an confessional essay entitled something on the order of "Afraid of Ourselves."

George Chauncey's "Gay New York" was a credible study of the history and sociology of pre-WW II gay New York. We need something as fine and well done on the later years of gay American history. This book isn't it.

Born in 1970 and raised in rural Minnesota, I couldn't have been farther from Chelsea or anywhere else in New York in the 1960's. Having just read "Life Outside," I am nonetheless mystified by the responses which decry the book's inaccurate rendering of Chelsea life. This book is not about Chelsea life. It is (although I am grossly oversimplifying) about two things: a strict physical ideal which imprisons many gay men and prevents them from developing the more important non-physical aspects of their being; and the portion of the gay population which lives outside the major urban centers, preferring a very different "lifestyle" which those of us in cities rarely attempt to imagine. Like all good writing, this book is notable mostly for its ability to inspire thought, and to open minds. Mr. Signorile is not, I'm sure, expecting every reader to agree with his every position; I did not. But I appreciate his willingness to question the status quo, and I felt smarter having read his book. I highly recommend it.

Signorile is not a great author, but a journalist and as such unfortunately does not do justice to his topic, the cult of masculinity. Its an important book, one whose thesis is vital to the expansion and development of contemporary gay culture. We can finally look away from our sexuality as the only defining quality of our lives and look towards other aspects of our lives to find fulfillment, like loving relationships with one another. I appreciate Signorile's attempt here, although not his methods. the book is painfully redundant and simplistic. It doesn't adequately dive into issues like the historical development of this tendency towards "hyper-masculinity." The writing is simply too casual, perhaps he was aiming low at the reader demograph, the typical out magazine reader. the book reads too much like a long article, he would have done well to simply distill the information into a long essay rather than a book. I believe that this subject deserves a book, it can save lives, and more importantly enrich many more. It has been criticized as neo-conservative, but what's the alternative, complete promiscuity? please! we are finally too smart and too in control of our own lives to be reduced to simple sexual beings, sexuality is important but should not be defining. I believe that the future of gay culture lies not in the drug induced fantasy world of gay nightclubs (which i also visit from time to time) but in the lives that we form with our partners. Forming real relationships based on love, trust and yes even commitment is the real high and its unfortunate that too many of us can't see that. Kudos to michelangelo for writing this important book but shame for not taking it seriously enough to make it a truly crtical expose of the unfortunate world that too many of us live in. I applaud the effort and constantly suggests it to every other gay man i know, i believe the critic on the back cover of the book that this should be given to every young gay man upon coming out, it may well make urban gay life tenable for all of us.

I've been passing this book on to friends every chance I get. I think every gay man should be aware of these issues, and read Sigorile's point of view. I like Signorile's directness and fearlessness. He reminds me of Camille Paglia. He doesn't take any crap from anyone. He says what feels. The attacks on him only seem to make his fame grow bigger and bigger. And he seems to capitalize on it briliantly. His style is easy and confident, and this makes a lot of people very comfortable with him. Dare I say , we're also attracted to him, physically and emotionally. When he came here to Miami Beach to Books and Books right in South Beach, it was like he was entering the belly of the beast of the gay party scene and the gay body culture. The Miami Herald played it up, making it seem like he'd be so controversial, and that there would a lot of trouble at the signing from people who disagreed with his book. Instead, the audience was totally entralled with him, including all of the muscle guys from the beach who came. We're still talking about. Great book.

This book takes the dark side of gay culture and puts it in your face. You may not agree with every point, but you are challenged to at least take a stance. Some find the writing simplistic and repetitive but I think all agree the reader is forced to spend time with some very uncomfortable issues. For this reason I consider the work worthy of every gay mans attention.

Signorile writes an insightful and long-overdue book on the self-destructive nature of current gay male circuit party life. While by no means representative of the gay community as a whole, he makes the very valid point that virtually everyone who is gay and male is affected by the standards promoted by this subgroup. The result is extremely damaging.

Those who have attacked this book as intellectually inferior or "sex negative" miss the point. They are attempting to shift the discussion away from what are very ugly truths about much of gay male culture today. Fortunately, Signorile also offers insights into gay men who are choosing to build their lives outside of the gay urban demimonde - a model that is well worth emulating if gay men want to avoid the inevitable waves of disease and infection that are part and parcel of the "fast-lane" lifestyle and culture. A culture, I might add, with extremely distorted "values."

I just finished Life Outside. I was pressured to read it by a friend who was moved by it and who wouldn't shut up about it. I was very impressed. There's so much here, so much that is important and prickly, the kinds of things people do not want to hear. But Signorile is very talented. He says it with soul and compassion. I was afraid to read the book when it came out. I'd followed Signorile over the years and always knew he was right even when I didn't like what he had to say. He is the gay male community's conscience and people either love him or hate him for that. Witness some of the reviews here. The pretentious academic types hate him. But he's the intellectual of the street, not of the ivory tower. He speaks his mind about gay male behavior, the politics of the gay left, the gay right, the gay community as a whole. He always points to the elephant in the room. That's why I didn't want to read Life Outside. But once I got started I was driven. The writing is crisp and wonderful. I felt compassion and I felt warmth while reading Life Outside but i also know how it could get a lot of people riled up. It's a testament to the book that it is still causing controvery a couple of years after it was first published. That's a very valuable book.

It was extraordinary to read so many of my own thoughts, ideas and observations finally put down on paper by someone who shares them. Mr. Signorile is very perceptive. As someone who has lived in West Hollywood, Boystown in Chicago and for the last four years in Chelsea, I can attest to the veracity of his reporting. Those who claim it's not true just don't want to admit what the problems are. So they come up with cliches to put it down or they hurl names. Both immature responses. Gay men should read this book and be moved to action and energized to make real and positive changes in their culture.