Questions for the Author

Finally Out: Letting Go of Living Straight

1. I’ll begin with one of the two questions you say you are asked the most:
How could you not know you were gay until you were 40 years old?
2. And the other question: Wasn’t your first marriage just a sham designed
to protect you at the expense of your wife and children?
3. What can mental health professionals learn from your book about the
struggle with sexual identity and how gay adults are understood?
4. In your lifetime gay rights and societal norms for homosexuality have Loren A. Olson is a psychiatrist in
private practice in Des Moines
evolved dramatically. When you survey the landscape, what surprises
you, what disappoints you, and how is society still not meeting the needs
of the LGBT community?
5. What counsel would you offer someone who believed their friend, sib-
ling or child was a closeted gay about to enter into a heterosexual mar-
riage?
6. We’ve all heard news scandals about politicians involved in same sex
affairs yet who deny they’re gay. Many of them were at the forefront
of anti-gay politics. Can you explain this phenomenon?
7. Your ex-wife recently told you that she and her husband-to-be wouldn’t
get married in a church that did not welcome homosexuals. What do
you think she has learned through the lens of your experiences?
On Coming Out:
8. Not long after you came out, a close friend was murdered. Hate crimes
“The struggle for men & women
still exist as a real threat to homosexuals. Are there situations in which who come out in midlife is more
you think remaining closeted is still the most sensible option? complicated because they
have been passing as hetero-
9. You say in the book that gay men and women “waste a lot of energy sexual in a heterosexual
hating a homophobic culture and blaming it for the guilt and shame they world.”
feel.” Aren’t they justified? What is the alternative?
“Letting go of the need for
10. You say “Where tolerance of gays is higher, HIV rates are lower.” approval allows the coming out
Please explain this and discuss the public health implications of men who process to begin.”
have sex with men yet deny they’re gay—even to themselves.
“Coming out requires coping
11. Today there are between 2-6 million gay boomers entering their senior talents, otherwise consequences
years. What challenges do aging homosexuals face socially, economi- may include depression, alco-
cally and with regard to access to healthcare, and why? holism, drug abuse, or suicide.”

12. One of your daughters is a conservative Christian. How does she recon- Contact: Leslie Wolfe Arista
cile her religious beliefs with the fact that her dad is gay?
13. You have six grandkids under twelve. How would you advise dads and
granddads of young kids on the best way to come out to them?
14. What advice do you have for men who are contemplating coming out
but fear losing the people and things that matter most to them?

www.FinallyOutBook.com