When the Workplace Bully Is a Woman: Gay Men, Abuse of Power, and the Right to Fight Back

A woman leans toward a seated man and yells as he raises his hands beside an office laptop.

Gay men bullied by female supervisors may face shame, gender stereotypes, and pressure to stay silent. Ken Howard explores how to recognize abuse, protect professional standing, and reclaim personal authority while supporting women’s equality.

I Can’t Stop Thinking About My Ex: When a Gay Breakup Takes Over Your Mind

Man sitting beside a window in a quiet room.

“It’s been months. Why am I still thinking about him every day?” In my work over 30 years as a gay men’s specialist psychotherapist and coach, I’ve heard some version of this question many times. Sometimes it comes from a man whose relationship lasted fifteen or twenty years and whose entire adult life had become … Read more

The Gay High-Achievement Paradox: When Success Isn’t Enough

A gay businessman looking out the window.

In more than three decades as a psychotherapist and coach specializing in gay men, I’ve worked with many men who are successful by almost any conventional measure. They lead organizations, practice medicine or law, build businesses, manage teams, and earn the financial security their younger selves hoped for. Yet a man can be highly accomplished … Read more

The Psychology of 9/11: Perpetrator Motivations and Our Reactions

Manhattan, New York, April 10, 2016. One World Trade Center (also known as 1 World Trade Center, One WTC 1 and WTC, the current building was dubbed the "Freedom Tower" During initial basework) is the main building of the rebuilt World Trade Center co

Every September, we remember the nearly 3,000 people murdered on September 11, 2001. We also confront a question that is difficult to ask without seeming to excuse the crime: How did the men who planned it come to believe that killing strangers, and dying themselves, was justified? As a psychotherapist, I have thought about that … Read more

Gay Men and Sides: Sexual Self-Empowerment Beyond Tops and Bottoms

Two adult gay men sharing affectionate physical closeness at home

 Gay men have developed an extensive vocabulary for talking about sex and relationships. We can be tops, bottoms, versatile, vers-tops, or vers-bottoms. Sometimes we become so accustomed to those categories that we overlook the assumption beneath them: that anal intercourse will necessarily be part of sex. But what if it is not? Gay men … Read more

Gay Men and the “Roommate Phase”: When Your Relationship Still Works, But No Longer Feels Alive

gay men in a relationship

“When did my husband become my roommate?” It is a question I sometimes hear from gay men in therapy or coaching who are in long-term relationships. They may still love each other. They have dinner together, binge Netflix together, and know one another’s skin-care routines, family-of-origin stories, medical histories, irritating habits, favorite foods, and exactly … Read more

Aging Without a Blueprint: Gay Men, Retirement, and What Comes Next

Older gay man planning retirement

A client of mine, successful, disciplined, the kind of man who built a real career from nothing, recently told me he had started reading about retirement planning and felt a strange kind of panic he could not name. It was not about money. His finances were, by any reasonable measure, fine. It was something else. … Read more

The Quiet Ambivalence of Open Relationships in Long-Term Gay Couples

midlife gay men in a relationship

Every so often, a client asks me a question that sounds straightforward but turns out to be about something else entirely. He does not begin by asking whether he and his partner should have an open relationship, or some form of consensual non-monogamy. Instead, he tells me they have not had sex in more than … Read more

Why High-Achieving Gay Men Struggle to Feel Loved

Successful gay professional sitting alone after work reflecting on achievement, emotional security, and relationships.

Success Can Build an Extraordinary Life. It Doesn’t Always Heal an Earlier One. If you judged only from outward appearances, you might reasonably conclude that many successful gay men have figured life out. They have built impressive careers, achieved financial security, cultivated meaningful friendships, and created lives that many people would envy. They are physicians, … Read more

Why Am I Never Invited? The Psychology of Social Exclusion in Gay Men

Gay man walking a few steps behind friends, representing social exclusion and uncertainty about belonging.

Have you ever opened Instagram and suddenly realized everyone else seems to have been invited? Maybe it’s a quiet Saturday evening. You’re finally relaxing after a long week, scrolling without much purpose. Then you see it: six people you know are having brunch in Palm Springs, a group from your gym is celebrating someone’s birthday … Read more