"Boys' Secrets and Men's Loves" explores the secret self men carry and the possibility of resistance through love and equality.

NEW YORK, Aug. 17, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- David A.J. Richards, a longtime constitutional law scholar and author of more than 20 books, explores the personal and political costs of patriarchy in "Boys' Secrets and Men's Loves: A Memoir," a work that combines memoir, literary criticism, philosophy, psychology and democratic theory.

Richards writes from his perspective as a gay Italian American man whose life and scholarship have been shaped by questions of constitutional rights, gay rights, feminism, ethics and resistance to injustice. In the book, he examines how boys are initiated into patriarchal codes of masculinity and how those codes can produce shame, secrecy, trauma and emotional disconnection.

"Trump's election made visible how deeply patriarchal ideas of manhood continue to shape American political life," Richards said. "I wanted to examine why appeals to domination and hierarchy can be so powerful for men, including men who have themselves been wounded by those ideals. Until men understand that wound, shame can be turned outward into anger rather than inward into reflection and change."

"Boys' Secrets and Men's Loves" argues that patriarchy harms women and men by enforcing a rigid gender binary and hierarchy, discouraging vulnerability and empathy while rewarding domination, silence and conformity. Richards connects that argument to his own life and to the work of writers and artists, including Charles Dickens, Henry James, James Baldwin, James Joyce, Mark Twain, Philip Roth, and Clint Eastwood.

"The book describes how men harbor a secret self as a way both of registering and resisting the trauma of their initiation into patriarchy," Richards said. "That hidden self is not only a source of pain; it can also become the beginning of voice, memory and resistance."

"Boys' Secrets and Men's Loves: A Memoir"
By David A.J. Richards 
ISBN: 9781796037272 (softcover); 9781796037289 (hardcover); 9781796037265 (electronic); 9781796055825 (audio)
Available at Xlibris, Amazon and Barnes & Noble

About the author
David A.J. Richards is the Edwin D. Webb Professor of Law at New York University School of Law, where he has taught constitutional law and criminal law for 50 years. A scholar of moral philosophy, constitutional law, human rights, patriarchy, gay rights, and feminist resistance, his published works include two books co-authored with the leading feminist, Carol Gilligan, namely, "Deepening Darkness: Patriarchy, Resistance, and Democracy's Future" and "Darkness Now Visible: Patriarchy, Resistance, and Democracy's Future," as well as another co-authored with the leading psychiatrist of male violence, James Gilligan, namely, "Holding a Mirror up to Nature: Shame, Guilt, and Violence in Shakespeare." To learn more, please visit www.davidjrichards.com.

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SOURCE Xlibris