St. Louis native Keith Boykin’s trip home last week to clarify the “down low” and its relationship to African Americans and the AIDS epidemic marked the 48th day of a syphilis alert from the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services. Both issues point to African American men and gay sex.
Most of the new syphilis cases (15) are males who had unprotected sex with males, and nine are also infected with HIV, according to Nyla DeArmitt, a consultant to MDHSS and public health advisor for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
While there is a current syphilis outbreak in St. Louis n and the disease can be deadly n it can be cured. AIDS has no known cure.
African Americans make up just 13 percent of population in the U.S. but now account for 54 percent of annual AIDS cases. Black women accounted for 72 percent of all new HIV/AIDS cases in the country among women.
The harrowing numbers have health organizations and black women looking for answers. One explanation has been the “down low” n men sleeping with women while secretly sleeping with other men.
Boykin’s book, Beyond the Down Low: Sex, Lies and Denial in Black America, which he discussed last Wednesday at the Carpenter Branch of the St. Louis Public Library, refutes that charge.
“I had to read every major article on the ‘down low’ to research this book, and I cannot tell you how much misinformation I saw,” Boykin said.
“So many times, I saw reporters who claim the ‘down low’ was the cause of the AIDS epidemic, but there is no proof, evidence, data, clinical or scientific research, no CDC information whatsoever.”
Boykin described the evolution of “down low” as a concept in the black community. He said it originated as a description of men secretly seeing other women. “It was something to joke about,” said Boykin, who is openly gay.
“Then, suddenly, in this decade, we became alarmed about it, because we discovered gay and bisexual men were doing what heterosexuals were doing all along. So we tried to figure out how we could vilify and demonize these men on the ‘down low’ who were gay or bisexual.”
Nichol S. Gordon of locally-based NSG Consultants believes there’s a reason for black women to be alarmed about men on the “down low.”
“You have to understand how people get infected with HIV,” said Gordon, who does HIV-based program evaluation, grant writing and workshops for CDC.
“There is a small chance that a man will be infected by a woman. Most likely, the man infects the woman, or brothers infect brothers.”
Both Boykin and Gordon agree that it’s impossible to know how many men are on the “down low,” and both agree that more gay or bisexual men would publicly disclose their sexuality if the community were more accepting.
“If you were a man on the ‘down low’ and you ‘came out,’ you would think your family would disown you, your church would condemn you, your friends would ostracize you,” Boykin said.
“What reason would you have to tell the truth?’
Boykin and Gordon agree with health officials that the key to avoiding HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases is safe sex.
“Woman are the ones that have to make choices,” Gordon said. “When a woman sleeps with a brother, most of the time it isn’t him saying, ‘I’m going to wear a condom.'”
Boykin said stereotyping women as victims only does harm.
“If you see yourself as a victim, you don’t feel empowered to do anything to stop the problem. If we only focus on the blame after the fact, we’re not doing anything to prevent anything before the fact,” Boykin said.
“There are two issues here. One is about fidelity and infidelity, and one is about safe sex.”
