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

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.

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.