Nearly every day, Dr. Olson receives questions and comments from men who are tormented because they don’t want to want what they want: they have a profound sexual attraction to other men.   Many of these men do not think of themselves as gay.

Finally Out: Letting Go of Living Straight, a Psychiatrist’s Own Story offers personal narrative, professional insight, and historical context that together bring about a critical transformation in the way we understand human sexuality.  It rigorously examines why some  gay men live straight lives and never come to terms with their true sexual orientation, and why some men engage in secret sex with other men and believe they are “too straight to be gay, but too gay to be straight.”

These questions are ones Dr. Olson faced about himself.  Growing up in Nebraska, Dr. Olson had a vague awareness that he was different from other boys, but he attributed his sexual ambivalence to his dad’s traumatic death when he was three.

With his marriage and raising a family, he believed his life was full and complete.  But at age forty, after decades of inner conflict, Dr. Olson fell in love with a married man.  After eighteen years of marriage to a loving and emotionally compatible woman, he suddenly realized that his most fundamental assumptions about himself were wrong.

Until then — when on occasion he questioned whether he might be bisexual — he pushed the thoughts from his consciousness. He was heterosexual — with a little quirk.

Not long after the affair ended, he made a heart wrenching decision: he sought a divorce and began the complicated journey of “coming out.” As he faced down fears that the news would destroy his family and ruin his career, over time he learned to live his life authentically, as the man he had always been.

Dr. Olson offers solutions to the challenges faced by those who choose to “come out” after living half a lifetime or more closeted.  He also addresses the concerns of those men who for a variety of reasons may choose not to come out.  Through his insightful look at these men, he also offers understanding for the families and friends who love them and the counselors who help them through this difficult transformation.

“A wise, cordial, trustworthy 68-year-old gay shrink.”–  Father Tony Adams, The Bilerico Project & South Florida Gay Times

“We have waited a long time for a voice.  You have delivered.  Congratulations.”

– Philip

Finally Out is Loren Olson’s own story of coming out in middle-age. It touches on universal truths that speak to a generation of gay men who have left the closet later in life or are contemplating that journey.”

– John Riley Myers, author of Prince of the Pharisees

“Finally Out is a carefully reasoned book about all human sexuality. Lay readers and professionals — both gay and straight — will find this book invaluable.”

– Dr. Bernard J. Brommel, co-author of Family Communication: Cohesion and Change