And his appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show hasn’t hurt his cause. The Velvet Rage was first published in 2005, but it has been a slow-burn success – in each of his royalty statements Downs has noticed that sales have markedly increased. It is a controversial theory, but for a book whose only marketing campaign has been word of mouth, it is having a profound impact. “This anger pushes me at times to overcompensate and try to earn love and acceptance by being more, better, beautiful, more sexy – in short, to become something I believe will make me more acceptable and loved.” “Velvet rage is the deep and abiding anger that results from growing up in an environment when I learn that who I am as a gay person is unacceptable, perhaps even unlovable,” he explains. Man orders fifth pint at the bar: “It’s OK, it’s just my velvet rage.” Boyfriend finds partner trawling through the thousands of profiles on sex-on-demand website Gaydar: “But it’s my velvet rage.”ĭowns coined the phrase to refer to a very specific anger he encountered in his gay patients – whether it was manifested in drug abuse, promiscuity or alcoholism – and whose roots, the book argues, are found in childhood shame and parental rejection. Its snappy title is slipping, sometimes ironically, into the gay lexicon.
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