Breaking The 'Down Low' Myth

"Yes, there are black women who have been infected by a man on the low," writes Kellee Terrell in an opinion piece on African-American focused news site theGrio.com.

Terrell continues, "In recent years, it's become common to blame black men having secret and unprotected sexual encounters with other men while simultaneously sleeping with their female partners for the rise in HIV among heterosexual black women. I guess if it's been on Oprah, it must be true.

Terrell provides an important perspective on the effect the media's characterization of men who have sex with men has had on the African-American community:

"Yes, AIDS is the number one killer of black women ages 24-35. But if we were to stop, put away James L. King's book and re-adjust our thinking caps, we would see that blaming this epidemic on men on the low doesn't make much sense. Especially since we don't have any proof to back it up."

The issue of men having sex with other men, unbeknown to their wives and girlfriends, captured wide spread media attention in the early 2000's after several articles on the subject were reported in major newspapers like The Los Angeles Times and The New York Times. These reports explored the perceived link between the spread of HIV to heterosexual African-American women by their down low partners.

But, as Terrell asks, are down low men to blame for the spread of HIV among heterosexual women?

Dr. Chandra L. Ford of Columbia University in New York City urges caution when assuming down low men are the primary cause of high African-American HIV infection rates:

"Part of what has happened as a result of that initial burst of stories reporting the 'down low' is that those stories often tied the down low to high rates of HIV infection among African-American women, which was not supported by epidemiological data." Ford added, "There were a lot of assumptions, there were a lot of leaps of faith that led to that."

Is the down low only an African-American issue?

In her article "Down low" myth distorts HIV research, prevention, author Anne Harding talks about Dr. Ford's research and the misconceptions that the down low is an exclusively African-American issue.

Harding writes: "The practice of straight men secretly having sex with men is seen across all ethnic groups. While black men and women have higher rates of HIV infection than other ethnic groups, they also report fewer risk behaviors, suggesting researchers should look elsewhere to understand the disparity. For example, having a bacterial sexually transmitted infection can increase the risk of both transmitting and contracting HIV, and it is possible such infections may be more common among blacks than whites due to poorer access to health care. The view of black sexuality as deviant and diseased has deep roots, Ford noted, pointing to the way the public and the medical community viewed syphilis in the early 20th century as a disease of the black community."

Kellee Terrell's opinion article provides additional insight into on men who have sex with men through the lens of a single straight African-American female. And while HIV/AIDS celebrates plus of its silver anniversary, infection rates surpass CDC projections, and the highest risks groups continue to be those with the least amount of access to health care and information, the question remains: What are we going to do about the spread of HIV?

"The DL myth is actually detrimental to HIV prevention," Terrell adds. "In hopes of understanding the why and the what, we should look at the history of racial, economic, gender and sexual oppression that render us more vulnerable. It's much easier to sit back and blame the queers who go bump in the night."

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