And Another Thing About the DL
By Keith Boykin, in sexuality
Tuesday, November 1 2005, 10:00AM
Thanks to Malcontent for tipping me off to this new article in Instinct magazine. I haven't seen the magazine yet, but I have read the page shown here on the Internet (click the image on the right for a larger version).
As many of you know, I'm over the down low. After the paperback version of my book comes out in a couple months, I will talk about it again for a few months and then try to move on. But it seems the subject is not going away. On his site, Rod reviews a new short film called "The DL Chronicles" and gives it a thumbs up, calling it "a quiet, reflective film—with the promise of a mini-She's Gotta Have It or Love Jones—but with the tension of a Woody Allen-esque ensemble piece."
According to Rod, "The Nina Simone-inspired soundtrack helps move the plot forward. Unlike most short films, the production values are fabulous; the art direction is top-notch, the photography and composition are solid, and, for the most part, the editing is tight. It's a good script—not over-written, but not the punch of a minimalist drama, which is okay." Okay, maybe I'll check out one more down low story.
Comments conceal
tru2oneself
November 1 2005, 10:14AM
Nice article. I'm just curious though why gay men have such a problem with the Down Low subject. The fact remains that there are a lot of brothers creeping on women and hiding the gayness. So what if we call it the Down Low, Creeping, or whatever. If you want to be gay or bi be honest about it. Stop pretending that you are straight and hurting innocent families and women. Gay is gay...bi is bi...straight is straight. There's no gray area in it. Down Low or not...just be honest about it dammit. And stop tripping because someone wrote a book about it and exposed their sneaky asses. I'm glad it was written. Most gay men were down low at one time in their lives anyone before they finally acknowledge what they really wanted.
jazzi
November 1 2005, 10:29AM
I agree. I'm not about pointing fingers & placing blame but it's high time to tell it like it is. Those who are on the low must began to see how their actions are hurting people, our women in particular. While not totally responsible for the spread of HIV/AIDS, they are certainly doing their part. To deny this in the name of political correctness or because we don't want certain people to feel as though we're picking on them is a disservice to us all. Sounds harsh? Too bad. There is way too much info out there for people to continue to walk around like it's the dark ages.
Kenneth Winfrey
November 1 2005, 11:30AM
Down-low, on-the-side, in-the-sack, or upside-your-head, we need to focus on safer sex and reducing homophobia that is largely the result of our very own church. How many men and women refuse to keep condoms on hand because they feel it's a plan to sin? When everyone gets through persisting in putting HIV at the feet of gay brothers, safe sex is safe sex--whether it's with a man or a woman. Americans have way more sex than we are willing to admit (men, women, gay or straight)and the data simply don't support directing so much energy at this one segment of sexually active people. Let EVERYONE know that condoms and abstinence are the only way to help prevent STDs. It doesn't matter who you have sex with.
Furthermore, as one who knows of a woman who became pregnant while married, I'd hate to think that these women are taking an unjustified place at the head of the table of "sanctity" and innocence. The excitement over the DL is solely because it's about gay sex because, after all, it should be common sense that HIV didn't come from gay men. There are plenty of women who have multiple sex partners too. They show up on TV everyday wondering who fathered their children. Again, it's obvious that EVERYONE needs to made aware of safer sex, not just men on the so-called down-low.
Oh, how it's so easy for the largely white-owned media to drive a wedge between Black people. We all know that Bill Duke nor J.L. King would make a dollar without their blessings. Yet, Black women are fully indoctrinated to assume that their men are more criminal than others, more unemployable than others, more uneducated than others and now, they think we are more "gay" than others! The only reason any of it is true is because dominant society made it that way, but it's really fallacious to believe that homosexuality (down-low or not) could be more prevalent among one ethnic group than another. Adultery is not specific to any race and neither is same-sex adultery.
If any report on the issue of same-sex cheating is ever presented, it should be rejected if it doesn't represent a cross-section of the entire population (Blacks, Hispanics, Asians, etc.), not just Black men. When will we ever learn that media hyperbole and stereotypes are not real epidemiology?
Furthermore, the victimhood of womanhood perpetuated by pop psychology has gone far beyond women's suffrage, it's turning into a gender war. We refuse to accept that Black men and women have HIV at higher rates because of a wide variety of social and economic factors. When a person is not self-actualized, for example, they are vulnerable to seek affirmation from just about anywhere. Sex is free, easy recreation, and sexual addiction seems to be encouraged by all of the sexually charged messages in the media. Even if knowing a man is gay would help, the hyper-masculine culture of many Black men would make it impossible anyway. Because of the erroneous exclusive association between gay men and HIV, many women feel that their assessment of a man's sexual orientation is somehow a substitute for an assessment about his health. On the other hand, nobody ever talks about the fact that many Black women who have contracted HIV are not married to (or in otherwise committed relationships with) the men that infected them, and that they may offer unsafe sex solely for the purpose of entrapping him, perhaps with pregnancy. The desperation of some women, therefore, is a part of the problem as well. So, you see, HIV is everyone's problem and everyone's responsibility.
Until we get off out soapboxes, quit pointing fingers, and work harder to push for ways to prevent and effectively treat HIV, we'll all be just blaming each other, and that's no solution to a problem.
edward
November 1 2005, 12:10PM
I recently went to an event with a guest speaker from a South Dallas Clinic. He was an African-American Doctor speaking about AIDS treatment issues in the African American community. Conspicuously, the subject of gay sex never came up!!! He talked about the outrageous infection rate among black women, without ever mentioning why, or how. How are we suppose to reduce the infection rate when black men and women, won't acknowledge high risk activity, or the existence of gay relationships? It's an outrage.
jazzi
November 1 2005, 12:27PM
Kenneth, you brought out some very good points.
jazzi
November 1 2005, 12:30PM
And so did you, Edward. If our doctors can't even mention gay sex in any discourse on sexually transmitted disease, then where the hell are we?
E-RED
November 1 2005, 4:59PM
well Keith, before you get off the down low topic, check out this video trailer for what looks like a very promising upcoming movie - http://media.putfile.com/reellow. %N.B. -- Beware of their widely-propagated lie that 70% of women sexually associated w/DL men are now HIV+.
Laura
November 1 2005, 6:28PM
...and speaking of people's willingness to believe the worst whenever the word "sex" is mentioned:
http://tinyurl.com/8n954
McMartin Pre-Schooler: 'I Lied'
for those too young to remember, the McMartin case put preschool child abuse on the map in the mid-late 80s. the readiness to believe wide eyed salacious stories of "Satanic sex rituals" was an exercise in mass hysteria, witchhunting and concommitant homobashing at its worst.
not surprisingly, McMartin preschool was located in ultraconservative sexually repressive Reagan/Bush-loving drooler Southern California.