Men Are From

For gay men, the demands of the AIDS epidemic are enormous and unrelenting. Regardless of HIV status, all are called on to maintain vigilant safety with sex, to face down a cultural stigma greater even than homophobia, and somehow to find a way to go forward in a world heavy with loss. As exhaustion and grief threaten to overwhelm the activism and optimism of earlier years, and with new infections on the rise among young gay men, the challenge of finding meaning in a world turned upside down is more than an idle philosophical exercise. It is a matter of psychological and perhaps even physical survival.

Popular assumptions about gender and communication–famously summed up in the title of the massively influential 1992 bestseller Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus–can have unforeseen but far-reaching consequences in many spheres of life, from attitudes to the phenomenon of "date-rape" to expectations of achievement at school, and potential discrimination in the work-place.

American society has become anti-male. Men are sensing the backlash and are responding. They're dropping out of college, leaving the workforce, and avoiding marriage and fatherhood at alarming rates. The trend is so pronounced that a number of books have been written about this man-child phenomenon, concluding that men have taken a vacation from responsibility. But why should men participate in a system that seems to be increasingly stacked against them?

From John Gray, author of the phenomenal multi-million copy bestseller Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus, comes the definitive book for men and women seeking lasting love in the face of modern pressures.