Book Discussion Group is Every 4th Saturday of the Month, 11:00 am

No RVSP Needed, just show up or join on (Meeting ID: 275 139 4844 and Pass code: 076609)

This month’s selection: “The Soul Beneath the Skin: The Unseen Hearts and Habits of Gay Men” by David Nimmons

Among the most acclaimed books on the gay male experience, The Soul Beneath the Skin explores the wide variety of social and ethical experiments in gay men’s lives and their implications both for gay men and society at large.

Published in 2002, this surprising and thought-provoking book begins with the less-than-obvious fact that, in the years since the historic uprising of the Stonewall riots, an enormous number of social science studies have been done on gay men. Dave Nimmons proceeds to synthesize that information to reveal a number of unseen patterns of gay male behavior and some truths about our lives that we feel instinctively but have not named.

For instance, countless studies show that gay men have developed a culture in which public violence is almost nonexistent, which is notable when you consider that violence in this society is almost entirely a male phenomenon. Even in intensely overcrowded gay bars and discos, with alcohol and testosterone saturating the atmosphere, fistfights are virtually unheard of. In the area of volunteerism, study after study shows that gay men volunteer at a much higher level than any other segment of the population (and, very interestingly, our volunteerism is about evenly divided between gay and non-gay causes, as are our charitable contributions). Our patterns of intimacy and friendship are much more diffuse and extended than heterosexual patterns; sexual jealousy and exclusiveness are extremely different, as are our relationships with women and our pursuit of playfulness and sexual bliss.

These social innovations, strikingly similar to the teachings of the great spiritual traditions, suggest a new and profound public ethic and a stirringly optimistic vision of a social revolution as radical as it is unnoticed.