Gay Body: A Journey Through Shadow To Self - Softcover

Thompson, Mark

4.15

27 ratings by Goodreads

9780312198862: Gay Body: A Journey Through Shadow To Self

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0312198868 ISBN 13: 9780312198862

Publisher: Stonewall Inn Editions, 1999

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The spiritual journey to adulthood is, for most gay men, particularly difficult. In an electrifying mix of theory and autobiography, Mark Thompson explores the stages of healing and recovery that men can experience if they dare to take the path leading to a fully integrated body and spirit. In his own life, he details the experience of growing up gay in a dysfunctional family, the heady days of the early 1970s in San Francisco, and his attempts to heal himself--from the fairy circles to the deepest reaches of the leather movement.

Intermixed is an explanation of archetypes and how they function in gay man's life, the roles that they assume, the dangers that they hold, and the lessons that must be learned for each gay man to heal his own gay soul, spirit, and body.

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Review:

Mark Thompson's Gay Body: A Journey Through Shadow to Self is a remarkable personal account of what it means to possess, or live in, a gay body in the world today. But this book is not about body building, AIDS, or even simple physical health. In Gay Body Thompson takes one of the most profound questions of Western philosophy--how do we unite our corporeality with our emotional and spiritual selves--and meditates on it from a uniquely gay male perspective. Using gay liberation philosophy, Jungian psychology, radical fairy thought, and his own experiences with drugs, S&M, and transgressive sexuality, Thompson has created a work that mixes autobiography with theory in an attempt to discover how gay men can find their fullest potential, their truest selves.

From the Publisher:

Lambda Literary Award Finalist

"Stories like this don't usually get told--perhaps that's what makes Thompson's cri du coeur noir feel so fresh and original....I see both selfless generosity and fearlessness in the telling of these extremely intimate stories, which the author has put out in the hope of helping other gay men to see and learn about themselves."

--Harvard Gay & Lesbian Review

"Gay Body is as much a meditation on the spirit as it is the flesh. Thompson's moving, sometimes harrowing, sometimes gut-wrenching memoir...is but one version of the journey that all gay men must take if they are to find themselves whole." --Lambda Book Report

"Gay Body has the warmth and humanity of an autobiography and the depth and analysis of a theological work, yet reads like a mystery novel....Thompson seems to have found the unconscious pulse of a gay man's soul, for as I read, I found my own experiences coming back to me within a wider perspective and with new understanding." --White Crane Journal

"Thompson seamlessly weaves an unsparingly candid autobiographical narrative with broader observations, drawing on elements of Jungian archetypes, gay history and mythology, and New Age spirituality....A provocative work." --Library Journal

"This brilliant book should be required reading for every gay man interested in personal growth and healing....Gay Body offers invaluable insight, compassion, and wisdom to guide us in our search for meaning." --Genre

"The road Thompson travels is fascinating, as he unlocks closets within closets....A powerful inner quest...truthfully described." --The Washington Post

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