The Way Out: The Gay Man's Guide to Freedom No Matter if You're in Denial, Closeted, Half In, Half Out, Just Out or Been Around the Block

Introduction: Finding My Way Out\ I have spent my entire life looking for the way out of pain.\ However, no matter what form it took—fear, depression, bitterness,\ anxiety, jealousy, loneliness, addiction, anger, judgment,\ self-criticism, you name it—and no matter how much it hurt, for most of my life I didn't think of it as pain. Rather I qualified these feelings as symptoms of my imperfection. In other words, I thought the pain was me.\ As an adolescent growing up in the suburbs of Birmingham,\ Alabama, in the '70s and '80s, I was in a lot of pain. But by the time I was sixteen, I was sick enough of being listless and depressed to do something about it. I decided that I wanted to be happy. And I was certain that the way to do this was to correct my imperfections.\ The most serious of these imperfections was my homosexuality—\ it was my fatal flaw, my original sin that I had not chosen to commit. Though by my midteens I had accepted that this condition was never going to change, I could not really accept that I was gay. To me that would have meant accepting that I was a lonely, pitiful and defective human being, that I was not loved by God, that I was less than straight men, that the only others like me were shadowy discards from society. Doing that would have meant accepting that I was never going to be happy, so that was out of the question.\ My sexual attraction to men, however, was by no means the only imperfection I needed to cloak. Compared to the fabulous Pretty in Pink teens I grew up with, I was absolutely riddled with imperfections—I wasn't beautiful; I wasn't rich; I wasn't masculine; I wasn't confident; I wasn't athletic. As I became hyperaware of these inadequacies, too, I slowly became both ashamed and embarrassed to be me.\ To remedy this I became devoted to getting gorgeous and becoming popular—in other words, to getting "perfect." And college became the set where I was able to successfully act the role of a privileged pretty boy. Playing this role felt like the very first shot of morphine after a lifetime of debilitating pain, and I often felt high. But whenever the morphine wore off, I would find myself hurtling back into the void, and it was as if I had never left.\ Meanwhile, my sexuality was literally in the closet—that's where I kept my gay porn, on a high shelf in a small closet blocked off by a large chair. I even did such a number on myself that, whenever I saw a guy I thought was gay, I would find myself thinking, "Ugh, how horrible that would be." Then I would momentarily move into a kind of twilight zone of awareness of the fact that I was this person I pitied. I was in a state of shock over my own being.\ Then in 1993 I made a monumental shift in how I experienced my life when I rebelled against the depression that still tormented me and looked inside myself for the first time for its source in the form of my own thoughts. Not only did learning how to fight my thoughts mark the beginning of the end of depression for me, it awoke a nascent awareness of my power to change the reality of my life by looking inward rather than outward. As a result, the way I lived my life began to change.\ First I ditched my plans to go to law school and decided instead to follow my lifelong dream to become a writer. Even more significant, for the first time in my life I began to question my belief that I couldn't come out of the closet and be happy.\ There were few images of gay people in the media then, so it was still a very lonely time to be gay. And I couldn't even say the word "gay" out loud, so I was at a total loss as to how to go about coming out.\ Then opportunity struck. One night I read in Details magazine that they were starting a new section that readers could submit stories for. And I had a revelation: I would write an essay about life inside the closet and thereby come out in the process.\ As much as going through with it scared me, and as much as it seemed an impossible long shot that it would be selected, I became aware of a silent, certain knowledge about what to do next: write that essay. And so I did.

\ Out magazine“Nutter brings us a how-to for the gay everyman, both a handy guide for newbies and a thoughtful refresher for those of us who think we’ve already been there, done that.”\ --Out magazine\ \ \ \ \ \ OutInAmerica.com“The Way Out chronicles what it means to be a gay man in America.”\ --OutInAmerica.com\ \ \ \ The Advocate“The author of a compelling new book for gay men, The Way Out relates his own journey from the closet to the party scene to despair to enlightenment – and invites you to join him on his path to affirming the true self.”\ --The Advocate\ \ \ \ \ \ Bay Windows“In The Way Out, Nutter uses his life’s humorous anecdotes as a guide for gay men who are coming out, as well as those who are ‘aggressively gay’, come to the realization that the typical gay life doesn’t have to be one of pain and confusion.”\ --Bay Windows\ \ \ \ \ \ Echo magazine“Christopher Lee Nutter’s mix of ancient wisdom and contemporary idioms is bound to resonate with young gay male readers.”\ --Echo magazine\ \ \ \ \ \ Frontiers magazine“Nutter attempts to help gay men work through their baggage, overcome insecurities, deal with a busted heart, and essentially empower themselves to live the most honest, healthy, authentic life they can.”\ --Frontiers magazine\ \ \ \ \ \ Ambiente Magazine“When we speak of role models, many times we think of athletes, movie stars or historic figures. Christopher Lee Nutter is the real thing.”\ --Ambiente Magazine\ \ \ \ \ \ San Francisco Bay Times“The Way Out expresses the newness and adventure of a man who is finding his soul, and who has the courage to say publicly what he’s learning.”\ --San Francisco Bay Times\ \ \ \ \ \ Gaywired.com“A gay Dr. Phil with a heavy dose of Dalai Lama.”\ --Gaywired.com\ \ \ \ \ \ The Long Beach Blade“Revolutionary.”\ --The Long Beach Blade\ \ \ \ \ \ Time Out New York“Nutter is on to something, and the timing of The Way Out has been ideal.”\ --Time Out New York\ \ \ \ \ \ Genre magazine“You may not immediately want to, but you’ll surely recognize yourself in these pages.”\ --Genre magazine\ \ \ \ \ \ Express Gay News“Leading the way out, Nutter offers advice on escaping the ‘gay herd’ mentality.”\ --Express Gay News\ \ \ \ \ \ Alan Van Capelle“Christopher Nutter’s own self-exploration identifies real challenges for gay men, and gives insights and tools to help us be our best selves.”\ --Alan Van Capelle, Executive Director, Empire State Pride Agenda\ \ \ \ \ \ Neil G. Giuliano“Christopher Nutter shares his personal story with candor and honesty, providing insights and observations that are sure to help other gay men no matter where they happen to be on their own journey.”\ --Neil G. Giuliano, President, Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation\ \ \ \ \ \ MD Jack Drescher“The Way Out may prove to be an enduring ‘post-gay’ survival gay for the twenty first century gay man.”\ --Jack Drescher, MD, Chair, Gay and Lesbian Committee, American Psychiatric Association.\ \ \ \ \ \ IN Los Angeles Magazine“One of the Best LGBT Books of 2006.”\ --IN Los Angeles Magazine\ \ \ \ \ \ The San Francisco Chronicle“Christopher Lee Nutter is a new player in the great American debate about values.”\ --The San Francisco Chronicle\ \ \ \ \ \ Gary Zukav“The Way Out is a guidebook written specifically to assist gay men in breaking out of the self-imposed prisons of ‘straight’ and ‘gay’ into an authentically powerful life of compassion and wisdom, but the insights it contains are essential to breaking out of all self imposed prisons.”\ --Gary Zukav, author The Seat of the Soul and The Dancing Wu Li Masters\ \ \ \ \ \ Edge Miami“The Way Out is a means to step outside of habitual thoughts that cast the self as an unwitting and powerless victim of circumstance.”\ --Edge Miami\ \ \ \ \ \ Miami New Times“The Way Out should be required reading for gay readers of all ages, from questioning teens to experienced adults.”\ --Miami New Times\ \ \ \ \ \ HX Magazine“Writing this deeply confessional book required an astonishing amount of self realization for the author himself.”\ --HX Magazine\ \ \ \ \ \ OutOnTheNet.Com“The Way Out is a book about eliminating the confusion of social identity and finding your true self.”\ --OutOnTheNet.Com\ \ \ \ \ \ AOL Coaches“The Way Out is going to be revolutionary.”\ --AOL Coaches\ \ \ \ \ \ Jack Drescher“The Way Out may prove to be an enduring ‘post-gay’ survival gay for the twenty first century gay man.”\ --Jack Drescher, MD, Chair, Gay and Lesbian Committee, American Psychiatric Association.\ \ \ \ \ \ The AdvocateThe author of a compelling new book for gay men, The Way Out, relates his own journey from the closet to the party scene to despair to enlightenment—and invites you to join him on his path to affirming the true self.\ \ \ \ \ Genre magazineNutter—who famously came out in an early '90s Details essay and then launched himself headfirst into the gayest existence possible, as an NYC bartender, nightlife columnist and general homo about town—reflects on his own lifelong (and ongoing) struggles to come to terms with himself, and doles out some healthy advice to other gay men in search of the same. You may not immediately want to, but you'll surely recognize yourself in these pages.\ \ \ \ \ Out magazineTwelve years after coming out in an essay for a major magazine, Nutter brings us a how-to for the gay everyman, both a handy guide for newbies and a thoughtful refresher for those of us who think we've already been there, done that.\ \ \ \ \ Bay WindowsIn The Way Out, Nutter uses his life's humorous anecdotes as a guide for gay men who are coming out, as well as those who are 'aggressively gay,' come to the realization that the typical gay life doesn't have to be one of pain and confusion.\ \ \ \ \ Library JournalIn this memoir, which doubles as a guidebook, journalist Nutter shares his experiences and those of friends to shed light on the gay experience in America. Beginning with his awareness that he was "different," Nutter openly discusses the shame, fear, and exhilaration of coming out. He details his self-destructive behavior in relationships, encouraging readers to learn from his mistakes and end homophobia's reign by eliminating it in themselves. Although Nutter's stream-of-consciousness writing style is a little hard to follow, there are readers who will identify with his struggles. Recommended only for filling out larger gay studies collections. A better purchase would be Brian McNaught's Now That I'm Out, What Do I Do? or Martin Kantor's Together Forever: The Gay Man's Guide to Lifelong Love. Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.\ \