Man and Masculinity: the Velvet Rage and Manhood in America - Essay Example

? Man and Masculinity: The Velvet Rage and Manhood in America The issue of sexuality has been in the hot seat for decades as several topics engage in controversies and heated debates on what should be done and how to perceive people. The concern revolves around the sex and gender and how the society views them. Sex and gender may be interchangeable, but they differ in reality. Sex refers to biological or physiological features of human beings, while gender relates itself to the societal beliefs, standards and roles assigned to people. In the usual sense, gender drags the view on sex as the functional basis being more of a priority than the concept of physiology. Nowadays sex can also be linked to both the function and sexual activity (Wilson 3). Both affect the views of people on sexuality. On the study, the sexuality in focus is the issue being faced by the gay community and how the gays can cope up with the standards of masculinity as they do not adhere to those regulations. The books entitled “The Velvet Rage” and “Manhood in America” are the two works to be compared and contrasted in the succeeding paragraphs regarding the gays and the masculinity standards. The author of “Velvet Rage” is Alan Downs. Downs spent his childhood in Shreveport, Louisiana with his parents named Don and Eunice who were an Engineer and a housewife respectively. Psychology captivated him at Louisiana State University after his first class and later on he pursued Ph.D. in University of Nebraska. Before he became a psychologist, he worked for Hewlett-Packard, while writing several business books. Later on he realized that psychology is the love of his life, so he pursued to become a psychologist. Currently he serves as the director of the Eight Northern Indian Pueblo Council Behavioral Health located at Santa Fe, New Mexico (Downs 81). Downs wrote the book “The Velvet Rage” to point out how shame drives the lives of gays, as their existence is unacceptable to the majority of the society. Sometimes they hide their true identity through their muscled bodies. The pain and shame they feel and experience throughout childhood are both brought up until their adulthood, as they think they are inferior to straight men. They dare to avoid the shameful feeling, when they are adults, by being in rage secretly to their bitter memories and extremely working to excel in arts, fashion and success. Through the vast experience of Downs and psychological researches, the gay readers will be able to cope up with their extreme tendencies and understand the ways on how to control their lives (Todd 52-63). The tips on how to cope up for gays are compared later on to the masculinity standards written in the book entitled “Manhood in America”. “Manhood in America” is written by Michael Kimmel who is one of the leading researchers regarding masculinity nowadays. Kimmel had written twenty volumes or more that include some of the famous titles like The Politics of Manhood, The Gender of Desire and The History of Men, Changing Men: New Directions in Research on Men and Masculinity, and Men Confront Pornography. He also made some documentaries and one of them is entitled “Against the Tide: Pro-Feminist Men in the United States, 1776-1990” that focused on men throughout history who helped women gain equality. In the study, his book entitled “Manhood in America: A Cultural History” will be used. That book was praised for a detailed presentation about masculinity. Many positive reviews were made about that book that boosted its popularity. Some of the reviews were even printed in famous newspapers, such as The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times and The New York Times (Kimmel). On the succeeding paragraphs, each chapter of “The Velvet Rage” will be discussed and compared with “Manhood in America”. The “Velvet Rage” opens with part one which is about the source of the rage divided into three chapters. The first chapter is about the secrecy during childhood. Dr. Downs points out that the inner disturbance of gays started from childhood. He also points out that as all humans start as children, they are dependent on their parents and avoid the possibility of putting shame on them. He also added that the fear of parental rejection would affect the gays when they grow up (p. 9). The reason for the shame that would be felt by the parents of gay children is the result of the views on masculinity as prevalent in the society that can be rooted in the history of America. Dr. Kimmel said that the formation of America was dominated by men as they played key roles in American independence and development of its constitution (p. 11). The second chapter of The “Velvet Rage” is about “Ugly Truths and High Fashion Dreams.” Dr. Downs said the shame was the ugly truth as the grown-up gays tended to surround themselves with everything pleasant and high achievement. He also noted that shame and other negative emotions and experiences are normally forgotten psychologically to cope up with the situation and boost self-esteem. The tendency of the gays is to strive hard and reach “perfection,” (p. 19). The belief of perfection happens, according to Dr. Kimmel, the nature of men is to be competitive, prosperous and thriving (p. 30). The “Velvet Rage” then connects the high standards and shame to “Out and Raging” as another means of coping up and putting the dreams to action. The rage as Dr. Downs stated, comes out as a result of low self-esteem, shame and negative emotions from the past. The gays tend to look for love outside by hanging out in bars and having sex with various partners. They also tend to make themselves look sexier and more beautiful just to gain acceptance that leads to short-term relief and long-term frustration (p. 31). The resulting trouble being faced by gays can be rooted in the feminization of American culture as recreation of masculinity happens, according to Dr. Kimmel (p. 80). The next part of “The Velvet Rage” is the stage one or the start of the shame experienced by gays. Chapter four is all about drowning. As the earlier chapters pointed out the root of shame, drowning in shame starts in childhood as discrimination and unacceptability of the gay nature of children occur. Another point is as the gays grow up, they tend to withdraw from the public and hide his identity. They are overwhelmed by shame. Another key point is that they are not able to develop healthy emotional state as they view themselves to be shameful and do not fit in the society (pp. 41-43). The problem is intensified in chapter five as the gays, according to Dr. Downs, experience betrayal from the people they love, like family and romantic affairs. They tend to fake themselves and shame increases as they cannot express their true selves. They have probably experienced love, but for a short while and their former partners may deny their previous relationship in public. The same case happened to Sean, a growing-up gay who was a patient of Dr. Downs. He experienced rejection from his former lovers and from his father and the publicm especially the other men in neighborhood who called him homo and other discriminating names that led to his suicide (pp. 59-62). Probably, the troubles experienced by the gays since their childhood are attributed to the efforts of the fathers to devise new ways on manufacturing masculinity by locking the mothers as domestic and female discrimination to prevent the future American men to be the so-called “Mama’s boys”, according to Dr. Kimmel (p. 105). Chapter six of “The Velvet Rage” is all about the Identity Crisis of gays as they are not sure of their gender orientation. Dr. Downs points out, they project themselves as true males just to avoid the impeding discrimination against gays. He also points out that gays are more prawn to depression than men as they need to hide their true identities in their closets. Lastly, they also do suicide when they cannot bear their depression anymore (pp. 63-66). The stage two in “The Velvet Rage” shows how gays compensate for the shame they experience. The chapter on “Paying the Piper” shows how gays become outrageous. They focus their efforts and time on collecting arts, houses, cars and other beautiful objects and achievements and brag about them in front of their friends to reduce the uneasiness and shame that they bring all along (pp. 73-75). The next chapter then deals with being stuck in shame and the cycle happens in a repeating manner as they cannot get out of the shame and cannot find permanent solutions. Dr. Downs says that the dark night of the soul is hard to escape, but in order to move on, they must untie every anchor to their vessels (pp. 85-88). The next chapter is about sex as the mood of gays to look for partners and part of it is the sexual act as self-gratification. Dr. Downs says love is usually linked to feeling of satisfaction, happiness and physical acts like sex (pp. 93-97). The last chapter of stage two states how identifying the true identity and all about the self can unleash gays from shame (pp. 103-107). The gay acceptance and becoming more liberated can be linked to the recent decade events in terms of masculinity in America, according to Dr. Kimmel, as the traditional model for masculinity becomes less popular and new thoughts and acceptance of softer and more gentle masculine occur (p. 192). Lastly, stage three showcases the ways on how gays can accept themselves and truly achieve happiness without being affected by discrimination as happiness is a state of mind. Mighty real is the chapter that teaches on self-acceptance for gays as they should love themselves and be proud of who they are (p. 109). Chapter 12 is on Healing Relationship Trauma as acceptance of the self and using the natural capabilities of being close to mothers and the feminine qualities to repair and build relationships (p. 125). Chapter 13 is about contentment as accepting the past experience as motivation to go on and be happy with what they have at present (pp. 164-166). The last chapter then focuses on the personal experience of Dr. Downs and uses that to give benefits and practical tips to gay readers out there (pp. 167-190). Works Cited Downs, Alan. “When the Blues Won’t Go Away… A New Way to Beat Chronic Discontent.” Biography Magazine June 2003: 80-82. Kimmel, Michael. “Dr. Michael Kimmel: Biography.” Dr. Michael Kimmel. n.d. Creative Promotions Agency. 19 December 2011 . Kimmel, Michael. Manhood in America: A Cultural History. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. Todd, Matthew. “How to be Gay and Happy.” Attitude Magazine September 2010: 52-63. Wilson, T. Sex and Gender: Making Cultural Sense of Civilization. Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 1989. Read More