Dl And Black Men

All throughout history since the AIDS and HIV diseases has made its presence known; it has always been looked at and referred to as "The Gay White Men's Disease". Now, the deadly incurable disease has spread way beyond the white Gay community, it is now being seen at an alarming rate in the African American community amongst heterosexual black women. Many African American men are leading double lives and refusing to admit to their female partners, who believe they are in a relationship with heterosexual men, that they are "Gay", causing the women they are with to contract AIDS/HIV.

According to the Center for Disease Control, African American women between the ages of 25 and 44 make up 76 % of AIDS cases and 75 percent of that number was contracted from heterosexual sex. (www.cdc.org) So many are questioning how this deadly disease has gone from a gay white man's disease to the leading cause of death amongst African American women. Black men almost inherit promiscuity like a trait inherited from a parent; it is a learned behavior that is constantly reinforced by our culture, a culture that has value in the sexual experience of a man. Many believe that the recent rise of "down low" men, in the African American community has become the bridge between black heterosexual, non drug using women and AIDS.(www.alternet.org) Keith Boykin defined "Down Low" as the "men whose public identification is straight, but who have discreet sex with other men outside of the primary relationship. A person who identifies this way would be said to be on the down low". As stated and researched by The Center For Disease Control, sex with men is the leading cause of HIV infection among black men because the study showed 8,780 HIV positive men had all contracted the virus from having sex with another man. Then a survey of the black community reported that only 25 percent of these black men who have sex with men, identified themselves as homosexual, that leaves a large amount of unidentified down low men out there in our communities.

The problem is not that these men are sleeping with other men, the problem is that they are doing so without using protection and then going home and sleeping with their wives and girlfriends (risking their lives with no protection), who have no idea that their husbands are sleeping with men. Many of these men pick up these bisexual behaviors from another older man when they are younger, and some are just born gay or bisexual. Most of the other down low brothers learn this behavior while doing time in the prison systems; in some prisons African Americans make up 90% of the inmate population and are usually the majority in all prisons. In fact African Americans make up nearly one million of the 2.2 million U.S. prisons population. They learn the behaviors in prison either from being raped or being curious. Many men in prison believe that they do it as a matter of survival and sanity. In prison the behavior is not looked down on by the inmates because everyone is doing it, even some of the prison guards and head officials in the prisons. The down side to this is that the Criminal Justice System does not pay attention to or address these sexual acts that are going on in side the prisons and do not provide condoms, or any programs for AIDS prevention or safe sex, but they know it is going on. A great deal of black men contract AIDS or HIV while in jail and never know because the jails do not test the men before they go into the prison system or when they are released. Many prisons believe that if they establish such AIDS prevention and safe sex programs, and began giving out condoms that they are condoning homosexuality. This may be true, but the men are going to have sex with or without condoms, spreading all sorts of diseases to each other. (www.nationalvanguard.com)

After most these men learn this behavior and get used to not using condoms, they come out of jail, never admitting they are gay or bisexual and have sex with more men and women without using protection, spreading their disease amongst the community. Since there are mostly African American men in prison, there are more African American men learning and practicing this bisexual, down low behavior and contracting different diseases. A multicity study of men between the ages of 23 and 29, reported that 32 percent of men who have sex with men have HIV. These men are contracting mostly AIDS and HIV in jail and then being released, bringing it back to African American women; causing them to be the majority of new AIDS cases. According to the CDC, AIDS is the leading cause of death amongst black women between the ages of 25 and 34, and the second cause of death for black men between the ages of 35 and 44, compared to the fifth cause of death amongst white people. (www.cdc.org)

Most of these men that come out of jail after having homosexual relations in prison and the other DL brothers that have never been in jail both continue to have relationships with women and are even married in some cases to pose as a front so no one can detect their homosexuality. These men that sleep with men refuse to be called gay and will not associate themselves with gay men or the gay community. These men tend to be very homophobic, and top not blow their cover, are the most outspoken people against homosexuality and gay men. Some of these men really do not believe they are gay, though they have sex with men, and therefore do not admit it to their girlfriends, wives, family, or anyone else for that matter. According to Tamala Edward, these men do not consider themselves gay because they believe women are for relationships and men are for sex, and gay men do not like, want a relationship, or sleep with women, and DL men do, so in their eyes they cannot be gay. Many of these men keep their homosexuality a secret and refuse to admit that they are gay because of the homophobia and discrimination in the black community towards gay people. In the white community, men that come out as gay are accepted by their community and mostly by their families. There are even T.V. shows directed at white homosexuals, like the infamous Will & Grace, and many prevention and awareness campaigns for these white homosexual men. There is nothing of that sort, shape, or form for these African American homosexuals and that is because the African American community does not believe their men can be gay or bisexuals, and these men that are gay and bisexual, do not admit their homosexuality. As indicated by Constantine Simms, homosexuality is the greatest Taboo in the black community and this is why most African American men tend to keep their sexuality a secret, and then dress like straight men to blend in with everybody else.

The Black Community is the most hostile and outspoken towards homosexuality, black men get triple discrimination against them