Out of the Shadows: Reimagining Gay Men’s Lives by Walt Odets is a book that is very important not just for gay men to read to help understand ourselves, but also for everyone else to understand us a little better.

In this video, I read about the first first four stages from Erik Erikson’s 8 ages of development.
The first one is Basic trust vs basic mistrust. In this age, children deal with the capacity to trust and it happens within the first years of life. They deal with deprivation and abandonment, and with disappointment in others who fail to provide us with the paradise we desire. This age creeps back many times into adulthood. It affects the community as a whole; for example, there’s a lot of trust issues within the gay community because of the AIDS epidemic, younger gays might not be as trustworthy because of that, thinking they might be infected or they might be lying about it.

The second age is Autonomy vs shame and doubt. When the child starts growing, he might feel shame about becoming more independent. He starts depending less on his parents, and sometimes there is shame about that because he might feel like his independent needs are evil.

The third age is Initiative vs. guilt. There is a guilt behind having goals and of having more physical and mental abilities as we grow up and being to start acting towards achieving these goals. This guilt might come about because the parent might also feel fear about not being needed by the child. There is survival guilt in this stage, and it not only means being guilty about being alive, which it could also mean, but it’s guilt about succeeding while others cannot. Guilt can crush initiative and it might lead people to live constricted, unfulfilled lives. Without unfounded guilt, our lives are more expansive and happy.

The fourth age is Industry vs. inferiority. Gay boys might feel inferior when compared to other straight boys, especially if they are praised for having skills such as being good at sports. These gay boys sometimes lie more towards creative talents, and if they are not encourage to pursue these gifts, they might feel isolated as kids and also as adults. Feelings of outsiderness continue, and there is a need of finding communities as adults. We want an authentic life, in which we have to realize that the only validation we need is from ourselves, not rely on others.

This book aids in helping us own our authentic selves and realizing that there is absolutely nothing wrong with us. My goal is to share this masterpiece in its entirety and help individuals who struggle with being gay because of what they have been conditioned growing up, and also to educate non gay men into realizing that we are complete beings who are not broken because we are gay, but might be broken because of they way we have been treated about it.

I am not making money from this video and do not own the rights to this intellectual property. It is for educational purposes only.

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