Subject: ADVOCATE review of Signorile's Life Outside
From: [email-masked]
Date: Sun, 25 May 1997 12:14:29 -0400 (EDT)

THE ADVOCATE, MAY 25, 1997

Beyond the Cult

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

by Michelangelo Signorile (HarperCollins, $25)

Reviewed by R.L. Pela

	Gay men should be handed three things when they come out of the
closet: a box of condoms, a videocassette of George Cukor's The Women,
and a copy of Mike Signorile's new book, Life Outside. In a little more
than 300 pages, Signorile has created both a stunning expose of the
superficial excesses of gay male culture and an encouraging report on how
we can mature beyond what he calls "the cult of masculinity."

	It's about time. Although other writers have documented the sexual
and chemical indulgences of our gay generation, none has recorded so
honest an evaluation of the threat of those excesses. Signorile splits his
argument into two distinct sections: "Life Inside" dissects the gay male
physical aesthetic, the impact of AIDS on the ideal, and how both are
informed by the vagaries of the gay party circuit. "Life Outside" explores
the deghettoization and deurbanization of homosexuals, a trend that
Signorile believes is leading to more traditional monogamous relationships
and a more rewarding life outside the cult of narcissism that tends to
typify gay male culture. 

	It's a tribute to Signorile's talent that he's able to document
the mindless party circuit without passing judgment on it. He uses
religion as a construct to illustrate the whys and wherefores of what he
calls "the Evangelical Church of the Circuit": the conformity and shared
behavior of its adherents, the rituals of the drug intake, the temple of
the gym. Despite his discretion there are some unpleasant revelations
here: a section called "The Stepford Homos" with chilling quotes from
robotic circuit clones who think that being successfully gay means a
lifetime of drugs and dancing and scary reports on the new trend in
"bareback" parties, where gay men consciously engage in unprotected anal
sex. Even more frightening is Signorile's opinion that many gay men
actually prefer the covert life of the closet and being part of a "secret
gay society."

	There's a payoff to all this: Signorile closes the book with his
hopeful theory that the deghettoization of gay culture will lead to the
death of the stereotype of the "lonely old queen." And there's a
delightfully ballsy appendix titled "Six Ways to Deprogram From the Cult"
in which the author offers insightful suggestions for shrugging out of the
shackles of the gay aesthetic and leading a fulfilling life outside the
urban scene. Life Outside also provides refreshing affirmation for those
of us who spent our 20s and 30s as frontline activists and promotes the
progression of such political involvement from kids who are just coming
out. 

	Signorile's latest journal will certainly invite the sort of
censure on which he built his career. But even the most defensive circuit
queen will recognize the accuracy with which Signorile has captured
contemporary gay male culture, and his most conservative opponents will
have to acknowledge the importance of passing along a new message to the
next generation of gay men.