Books > Life Outside

Life Outside Overview

Life Outside uses hundreds of interviews with American men in a groundbreaking study of fundamental issues shaping gay life: sex in the age of AIDS, family relationships, long-term commitment, and aging in an often youth-obsessed culture.

The acclaimed bestseller finds three major trends: the cult of masculinity, the deurbanization of homosexuality, and the death of the lonely old queen.

Signorile draws on illuminating accounts of life on the "circuit" — drug-fueled parties dominating the "scene" and largely defining the gay aesthetic — to show the pressure to conform to an impossible physical ideal, and how that pressure creates anxiety and insecurity even for those far from the circuit.

He also identifies a positive phenomenon. Life in gay urban centers has long set the pace for life outside. But with more gays coming out and staying in rural, suburban, and small-town America, life outside the urban scene is changing the face of what it is to be gay in America.

Life Outside Contents

Introduction

Part One: Life Inside
1. The Cult of Masculinity
2. The Origins of the Cult
3. The Evangelical Church of the Circuit
4. Happiness in a Vial

Part Two: Life Outside
5. The Deurbanization of Homosexuality
6. Postmodern Monogamy
7. The Death of the Lonely Old Queen

Epilogue
Appendix I: Six Ways to Deprogram from the Cult
Appendix II: Negotiated Safety

Ordering Life Outside

Life Outside is available for purchase in both hardcover and paperback formats on Amazon. You can also e-mail me to make arrangements for special autographed copies.