Rating: 
Summary: The mirror can be painful...
Review: ....Of course this isn't dry and erudite social criticism; it doesn't pretend to be. What it does do is pose some very difficult questions and shed light on some behaviors that gay men (including myself) must address. I have to admit that there were certainly things I did not agree with in Signorile's book. And the repetitveness of terminology and thoughts ocassionally grated, but by and large this book made me pause and think. That, whether passing the muster of pretentious dialectic dogma or not, is a clear representation of the power of an author who is uncovering something that is worth considering. And the fact that many other gay men have responded to this book so powerfully means that it IS speaking to some underlying deep questioning that folks are doing about what we as gay men have become post-Stonewall. As an Ivy- educated young gay urban professional, I am more than capable of distinguishing between what I consider to be great writing or not. And Signorile is not my only choice in the panolpy of authors writing contemporary gay social critcism. However, he is one I will continue to read until the things he says no longer feel/seem relevant to me
Rating:
Summary: The mirror can be painful...
Review: ....Of course this isn't dry and erudite social criticism; it doesn't pretend to be. What it does do is pose some very difficult questions and shed light on some behaviors that gay men (including myself) must address. I have to admit that there were certainly things I did not agree with in Signorile's book. And the repetitveness of terminology and thoughts ocassionally grated, but by and large this book made me pause and think. That, whether passing the muster of pretentious dialectic dogma or not, is a clear representation of the power of an author who is uncovering something that is worth considering. And the fact that many other gay men have responded to this book so powerfully means that it IS speaking to some underlying deep questioning that folks are doing about what we as gay men have become post-Stonewall. As an Ivy- educated young gay urban professional, I am more than capable of distinguishing between what I consider to be great writing or not. And Signorile is not my only choice in the panolpy of authors writing contemporary gay social critcism. However, he is one I will continue to read until the things he says no longer feel/seem relevant to me
Rating: 
Summary: Seriously flawed and disappointing
Review: As a gay man who has lived in NYC since the 50s I found Signorile's picture of gay male life in the Fifties and Sixties and the judgements he made about those years to be a mass of threadbare cliches. Good God! Who did he interview to get such a narrow and crippled portrait of those years? He clearly lacks a knowledge of the broad range and nuancing of the gay male subculture of that era. This very poor beginning makes it difficult to take the rest of the book as seriously as Signorile clearly wants the reader to. The "post-AIDS" era of the gay male subculture has been marked by a terribly uneasy attitude toward the preceding pre-AIDS era, and has seen the male subculture become something of a caboose on the train of feminism, with ambiguous and sometimes bogus issues of political correctness and the emulation of mainstream - white, middle class - goals and lifestyles being promoted as desiderata. Signorile's book is evidence of this interesting turn of events, but it is not much in the way of an analysis. The entire work would have come off better if the author had skipped the assertions of research and simply done it as an confessional essay entitled something on the order of "Afraid of Ourselves." George Chauncey's "Gay New York" was a credible study of the history and sociology of pre-WW II gay New York. We need something as fine and well done on the later years of gay American history. This book isn't it.
Rating: 
Summary: Signorile shows us that gay communities can and do evolve.
Review: As a gay man who has survived the AIDS crisis and along the way witnessed the deaths of almost all of my friends in the process, it heartens me that Mr. Signorile is highlighting the fact that the gay community is flourishing and evolving. Though the picture he paints is a disturbing one at times the book reveals how gay life in America can and is progressing beyond the urban ghettos and that we can survive everywhere as equals in a society that has long sought to supress and reject us
Rating: 
Summary: Low wattage
Review: As a leading gay studies figure (one cited again and again in this book) commented to me privately, "Signorile is very clever at using the media, but he isn't very bright." In ten years, no one will remember this eminently forgettable book.
Rating:
Summary: Read this book. Think about being queer. Get smarter.
Review: Born in 1970 and raised in rural Minnesota, I couldn't have been farther from Chelsea or anywhere else in New York in the 1960's. Having just read "Life Outside," I am nonetheless mystified by the responses which decry the book's inaccurate rendering of Chelsea life. This book is not about Chelsea life. It is (although I am grossly oversimplifying) about two things: a strict physical ideal which imprisons many gay men and prevents them from developing the more important non-physical aspects of their being; and the portion of the gay population which lives outside the major urban centers, preferring a very different "lifestyle" which those of us in cities rarely attempt to imagine. Like all good writing, this book is notable mostly for its ability to inspire thought, and to open minds. Mr. Signorile is not, I'm sure, expecting every reader to agree with his every position; I did not. But I appreciate his willingness to question the status quo, and I felt smarter having read his book. I highly recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: Read this book. Think about being queer. Get smarter.
Review: Born in 1970 and raised in rural Minnesota, I couldn't have been farther from Chelsea or anywhere else in New York in the 1960's. Having just read "Life Outside," I am nonetheless mystified by the responses which decry the book's inaccurate rendering of Chelsea life. This book is not about Chelsea life. It is (although I am grossly oversimplifying) about two things: a strict physical ideal which imprisons many gay men and prevents them from developing the more important non-physical aspects of their being; and the portion of the gay population which lives outside the major urban centers, preferring a very different "lifestyle" which those of us in cities rarely attempt to imagine. Like all good writing, this book is notable mostly for its ability to inspire thought, and to open minds. Mr. Signorile is not, I'm sure, expecting every reader to agree with his every position; I did not. But I appreciate his willingness to question the status quo, and I felt smarter having read his book. I highly recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: This book is smart, warm and well-written
Review: I just finished Life Outside. I was pressured to read it by a friend who was moved by it and who wouldn't shut up about it. I was very impressed. There's so much here, so much that is important and prickly, the kinds of things people do not want to hear. But Signorile is very talented. He says it with soul and compassion. I was afraid to read the book when it came out. I'd followed Signorile over the years and always knew he was right even when I didn't like what he had to say. He is the gay male community's conscience and people either love him or hate him for that. Witness some of the reviews here. The pretentious academic types hate him. But he's the intellectual of the street, not of the ivory tower. He speaks his mind about gay male behavior, the politics of the gay left, the gay right, the gay community as a whole. He always points to the elephant in the room. That's why I didn't want to read Life Outside. But once I got started I was driven. The writing is crisp and wonderful. I felt compassion and I felt warmth while reading Life Outside but i also know how it could get a lot of people riled up. It's a testament to the book that it is still causing controvery a couple of years after it was first published. That's a very valuable book.
Rating:
Summary: Very insightful
Review: I learned a great deal from this book. Signorile's insights are quite impressive. He's a perceptive chronicler of a subculture, a true social anthropologist. My only criticism is that I would like to have seen more on gay life in the cities but "outside" of the "cult of masculinity." And I'd like to have seen more on life outside the cities as well. Overall, however, this is a a very good book and an important account of the gay male community in America at the end of the 20th century.
Rating:
Summary: Dull, simplistic and "politically correct"
Review: I realize that many readers find this book enlightening, especially those with no first-hand knowledge of the gay Chelsea scene in New York City, such as straight reviewers and gay men living in gay isolation. However, for this 57-year-old gay man living in Chelsea, Signorile's insights are old news--obvious, trivial or wrong--and they are often much too judgemental. Sexuality comes in many forms, not just today's politically correct liaisons. Life Outside is guilty of the ultimate book sin: it bored me.
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