Anatomy Of A Media Frenzy:
The Downlow On "The Down Low"

In recent weeks, the media have started to revisit the story of the "down low" that was so popular last year. The "down low" is a term used to refer to black men who have sex with men but do not identify as gay.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch discussed the down low in a story on "the changing face of AIDS" last month, and the television show "E.R." recently unveiled a plot involving a rapper on the down low who is diagnosed with HIV. And it doesn't stop there. A new book on the down low is scheduled to hit the bookstores next spring. Where is this all coming from?

To understand where it's coming from now, you have to understand where it came from last year. It all started 15 months ago when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced results of a shocking new study on AIDS.

Newspapers across the country printed the story on Feb. 6, 2001. USA Today's headline said, "1 in 3 young gay black men are HIV-positive." The Milwaukee Journal headline read, "HIV hits 30% of gay black males." The Boston Herald simply said, "Gay black men hit hard by AIDS virus."

The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Sun-Times and Atlanta Journal all ran stories, as did several radio and television news programs. It was a "breakthrough" moment -- the first time the major media seriously addressed the issue of black gay men and AIDS. But the breakthrough was short-lived.

Eager to find explanations for the statistics, reporters called on the usual suspects to interpret the study. The director of Washington's Whitman-Walker Clinic said the study's findings were "no surprise." AIDS activists blamed the numbers on the "stigma" of being black and gay, and the director of Boston's AIDS Action group said the problem is that many black gay men are afraid to "come out."

But no one provided a new or definitive answer to the question about the new infection rates.

Enter the down low. The first reference to the down low in the mainstream media took place on Feb. 7, 2001, in the Los Angeles Times. But few in the media picked up on the term until a former down low brother himself spoke at the African American AIDS Conference in Washington later that month. In the weeks that followed, a string of articles appeared in major newspapers about this supposedly new phenomenon.

USA Today's article on March 15, 2001, was the first to focus exclusively on the down low, but the story dramatically shifted the focus from black gay men to black women. "Black men who hide their bisexuality can put women at risk," the headline said.

Thus, a story that began from a disturbing study about black gay men was transformed into a story about the risk to straight black women. The black men were shown as deceitful predators, and the black women were portrayed as innocent victims.

But the black gay and bisexual men were victims, too. After all, they were being infected at an alarming rate. But with hints of prison sexuality and talk of double lives, the down low provided a sexy -- albeit stereotypical -- vehicle to discuss AIDS in the black community. The term itself conjured up the veiled secrecy of a mysterious underground lifestyle, an informal fraternity of men in a clandestine sub-population.

But there was one problem. It wasn't new. Presumably "straight" black men had been having sex with one another on the down low for decades. Essex Hemphill's 1991 book, "Brother To Brother," included a poem called "The tomb of sorrow" about black men secretly having sex in Washington's Malcolm X park. In the same year, E. Lynn Harris published his first book, "Invisible Life," which opened up black bisexuality to the public. Other examples go back to the Harlem Renaissance.

Over the years, black men who have sex with men (MSMs) labeled themselves "undercover," "in the life" and a dozen other names. Some said they were just "kickin' it" while others liked to "mess around." Eventually they called it the "down low" or "the DL," words that were taken straight from black popular culture. Brian McKnight recorded a song called "On the Down Low" back in 1995, and R. Kelly recorded "Keep It on the Down Low" the following year. Whatever it was called, it was the same behavior. Nothing changed but the name.

So why did it take so long for the mainstream media to catch on to the down low?

By January 2001, the CDC was making connections between black MSMs who do not identify as gay and increasing HIV infection rates among women of color. By not identifying as gay or bisexual "these men may not accept their own risk for HIV, and therefore, may unintentionally put their female partners and children at risk," Dr. Helene Gayle of the CDC noted at the time.

That sentiment was confirmed by later studies that showed a "bisexual bridge" for HIV and most recently by the CDC's latest AIDS surveillance data, which shows that two-thirds of black women with AIDS were infected through heterosexual contact.

But if you accept the premise that men on the down low are chiefly responsible for the spread of HIV among black women, it's hard to understand how pushing these men further into denial about their sexuality will help solve the problem. Instead, it's likely to exacerbate the problem as men on the down low become so vilified that they avoid testing, counseling, treatment and any serious effort to address their HIV status, not to mention their sexuality.

But there's another disturbing trend. A study by Ellen Yancey at Morehouse School of Medicine found that nearly half of low-income African-American women surveyed in Atlanta did not use a condom during any sexual encounter in the previous two months and 60 percent did not know their partner's HIV status. This in spite of the fact that nearly all black adults know how the HIV virus is transmitted, according to a study by the Kaiser Family Foundation.

The studies suggest a different approach to fighting AIDS than simply sensationalizing the down low. First, we should encourage both sexual partners to protect themselves in all sexual encounters. Second, we need to help people learn to talk about safe sex in the context and the moment of their sexual experiences. Third, we need to destigmatize the opprobrium attached to black men who have sex with men to encourage these men to talk honestly with their sexual partners.

Vilifying men on the down low doesn't address these issues. Instead, it demonizes homosexuality and bisexuality and may discourage black women from exercising personal responsibility as they instead seek out ways to find out if their man is on the down low.

Unfortunately, after all this media attention, we still don't know the cause of the high infection rates among young black gay men. The media didn't stick around long enough to answer those questions. They moved onto sexier topics -- straight black women and the implicitly guilty black men who infect them.

© 2002 by Keith Boykin. All Rights Reserved.