On the Down Low: The Fourth of the Dirty Seven

I accept all kinds of lifestyles, as long as innocent people aren’t hurt and nobody is forced to do anything against their wills. But GuyMan, the fourth of The Dirty Seven, does hurt people because he is not straight about his sexual preference. GuyMan is on the Down Low. He is out there trying or pretending to be sexually attracted to women. He puts on a good act or he attempts, hopefully, to be what he is not. The fact that he is gay is not the problem. The fact that he is lying to you and to himself about it is what makes him one of The Dirty Seven.

He finds you attractive and interesting and thinks he can overcome his basic lack of interest in women sexually. So he dates you, hoping he might be able to stomach you when those intimate moments come up. He knows he can fantasize that he is with a man during sex, especially if he wants children. But if you have ever been with a man who loves women, you will be aware that something is lacking. In time you will question your attractiveness as a woman. You might think it is your fault.

Some GuyMen are ashamed of their gayness and hide it because of how society has treated gays in the past. Some hide it because their dream has always been to have a family with kids. So they get married. They do not let the woman know they are gay. Or, if they make a last-minute confession, say that they were once gay, but have completely changed. They hope they can contain the volcano that surges beneath the surface. One day, it erupts and blows the illusion out of the water. By then you have already invested time, money and life in a dream that turned into a nightmare.

Normalville
Some GuyMen really want families and the whole package of normalcy. They are natural fathers and nurture the best in their children. They love and cherish the whole concept of the family unit. The only thing about it they can’t get into is the way their wife’s body is shaped. If only she had pecs-of-steel and a penis!

In bed he is more affectionate than passionate (unless he pretends you are a guy). But your breasts and hips make it difficult sometimes. He is very helpful in household matters. But something is missing. His heart may be with you, but his body is with Bobby. Bobby’s that cute construction worker with the killer biceps building your deck. You see GuyMan’s eyes light up when Bobby walks by. He never looks at you that way. You are competing with another guy and you lose!

What Can You Do? Nothing!
You can do nothing to change GuyMan’s sexual orientation. But you can walk out on him for fooling you about who he really is. As with all of The Dirty Seven, his is an issue of character. It is about deception in this case, even if he means you no harm. You might not know what he really is until it is too late. He fooled you, even if he acted sympathetic and was fun to be with. Sometimes he doesn’t even know he is fooling himself, he wants so badly to look heterosexual.

Wish Him “Bon Voyage”
Let him go on his own journey of discovery without you. You were only a prop anyway. I know. He had feelings for you. But it was more like affection for a sister. Waiting around for him to get over this “phase he’s going through,” is the deluded behavior of a woman who isn’t ready for a fully sexual relationship with a man. It is like standing at the edge of the desert and waiting for it to turn into a garden.

What is DL Culture?
The Down Low is a special organized, underground subculture largely made up of black men who otherwise live straight lives. Most date or marry women and engage sexually with men they meet only in anonymous settings like bathhouses and parks or through the Internet. Many of these men are young and from the inner city, where they live in a exaggeratedly masculine ''thug'' culture. Other DL men form romantic relationships with men and may even be peripheral participants in mainstream gay culture, all unknown to their colleagues and families.

What is the Down Low?
DL culture has grown, in recent years, out of the shadows and developed its own contemporary institutions, for those who know where to look: Web sites, Internet chat rooms, private parties and special nights at clubs. Over the same period, Down Low culture has come to the attention of alarmed public health officials, some of whom regard men on the DL as an infectious bridge spreading H.I.V. to unsuspecting wives and girlfriends. In 2001, almost two-thirds of women in the United States who found out they had AIDS were black.

If the Center for Disease Control is right that nearly 1 in 3 young black men who have sex with men is H.I.V.-positive, then women in relationships with men on the down low better take care.

According to one source many DL guys are in a never-ending search for the roughest, most masculine, ''straightest looking'' DL top. One man on the DL explains: ''Part of the attraction to thugs is that they're careless and carefree. Putting on a condom doesn't fit in with that. A lot of DL guys aren't going to put on a condom, because that ruins the fantasy.'' It also shatters the denial -- stopping to put on a condom forces guys on the DL to acknowledge, on some level, that they're having sex with men.

In 1992, E. Lynn Harris -- then an unknown black writer -- self-published ''Invisible Life,'' the fictional coming-of-age story of Raymond Tyler, a masculine young black man devoted to his girlfriend but consumed by his attraction to men. For Tyler, being black is hard enough; being black and gay seems a cruel and impossible proposition. Eventually picked up by a publisher, ''Invisible Life'' went on to sell nearly 500,000 copies, many purchased by black women shocked at the idea that black men who weren't effeminate could be having sex with men.

"I was surprised by the reaction to my book,'' Harris said. ''People were in such denial that black men could be doing this. Well, they were doing it then, and they're doing it now.''

That behavior has public health implications. A few years ago, the data started rolling in, showing increasing numbers of black women who weren't IV drug users becoming infected with H.I.V. While some were no doubt infected by men who were using drugs, experts say many were most likely infected by men on the Down Low. Suddenly, says Chris Bell, a 29-year-old H.I.V.-positive black man from Chicago who often speaks at colleges about sexuality and AIDS, DL guys were being demonized. They became the ''modern version of the highly sexually dangerous, irresponsible black man who doesn't care about anyone and just wants to get off.'' Bell and others say that while black men had been dying of AIDS for years, it wasn't until ''innocent'' black women became infected that the black community bothered to notice.

Still, for all the defiance that DL culture claims for itself, for all the forcefulness of the ''never apologize, never explain'' stance, a sense of shame can hover at the margins. It's the inevitable price of living a double life. Consider these last lines of a DL guy's online profile. ''Lookin 4 cool ass brothers on tha down low. . . . You ain't DL if you have a V.I.P. pass to tha gay spot. . . . You aint DL if you call ur dude 'gurl.' . . . Put some bass in ur voice yo and whats tha deal wit tha attitude? If I wanted a broad I would get one -- we both know what we doin is wrong.''