DOWN AND DIRTY

Dancing the "Down-Low" (Frank Leon Roberts, July 22, 2003, Pacific News Service)

African American men who are on the D.L., "down-low," have sex with men unbeknownst to their girlfriends (if they have one) and families. They don't consider themselves gay, and they identify with hip-hop despite the music's homophobia. They've been a source of controversy in the black community.

Black Entertainment Television ran an entire special on the "growing" presence of D.L.s, complete with "how-to-know" guides for black women questioning their man's sexuality. A recent episode of "E.R." featured an HIV-positive D.L. brother who "risked" infecting his girlfriend. The black literary world is rife with D.L characters, subplots and sensibilities. Author James Earl Hardy's" B-Boy Blues" and "The Day Eazy-E Died" got things started. E. Lynn Harris' series -- "Invisible Life," "Just as I am" and "Any Way the Wind Blows" -- is still insanely popular.

The controversy swings from seeing the D.L. brother as the primary spreader of AIDS in the "mainstream" black community to an insistence that they "come out of the closet" so they can be "out and proud." But as the brother at the train station told me, he was out, but in a new kind of way. Moreover, he was going to get his groove on at the sex party, safely.

Behind these AIDS fears lies the heterosexist assumption that AIDS is born and bred in gay communities and then venomously spread outward. Much of the anti-D.L. rhetoric from the black media hides the painful fact that many straight black women and men are HIV-positive and spread the disease among themselves, without any help from "evil" gay black men.

Heterosexist assumption? Where does Mr. Roberts think AIDs was born and bred? The late Randy Shilts wrote a terrific book tracing the trail of AIDs through the gay community and the horrific toll it took--starting with the predatory flight attendant known as Patient Zero and ultimately taking even Mr. Shilts's own life. And Michael Fumento described in his book, The Myth of Heterosexual AIDs, how many HIV-positive men--particularly black and Hispanic men whose communities are more hostile to homosexuality--would routinely lie about their sexuality or, like the men in this story, did not consider themselves gay or bisexual even though they routinely had sex with men.

Mr. Roberts suggestion that AIDs is instead primarily spread by women--a near impossibility--and straight men--equally unlikely unless they are or were intravenous drug users--is not only ridiculous but irresponsible for a journalist. Posted by Orrin Judd at July 29, 2003 10:28 PM