As On the Down Low exposes, the closer a secret is kept, the more powerful the impact once it is finally revealed. Author and activist JL King here takes an intriguing look at the lives and lifestyles of black men who sleep with other men but do not consider themselves to be gay. These men live "on the down low", the "DL" for short, and their sexual activities have gained significant notice as the rate of HIV/AIDS infection in black women has skyrocketed, with the vast majority of cases coming from heterosexual sex. King is a veteran of the DL himself and his book serves partly as a social and psychological survey of the other men he has surveyed and partly as highly candid memoir. King was well regarded in his community, popular at his church, successful in his career and married to a woman who had no idea that his secret life existed. But when she caught him in a lie and with another man, the marriage collapsed and King's long and painful path to self-awareness began. King cites the negative image many socially conservative black men have of homosexuality as an obstacle to those men being honest with their partners and themselves about who they are. Among the more intriguing elements of On the Down Low are the peculiar approaches men on the DL have to the sexual act, seeking a strictly physical sexual relationship with their secret male partners while remaining in more traditional arrangements with women. Whether this discrepancy is a product of scrupulously guarded secrecy and shame or the natural preference of an understudied sexual identity is one of the numerous questions raised by this book. Though the infection statistics make the DL a huge public health issue, King is neither a sociologist nor a medical professional. And while a more clinical look at this issue would be welcome, King accomplished what he set out to do: provide light and insight into a world that so many have worked so hard to keep in the shadows. --John Moe, Amazon.com

2006-02-12 Learning about the Down Low

I was engrossed by J L King's book and its revelations about African-American sexual sub-culture. I was particularly struck by the statistic that straight African-American women are 18 times more likely to be HIV positive through sex with their partners than straight American white women. It raises the question of whether same sex encounters between "straight" African-American men are disproportionately high, and, if so, why. The explanation could lie partly in the high number of African-American men in US prisons who become HIV+ and infect their partners on release. However, the statistic also suggests (and it would be interesting to have data on other ethnicities) that the more repressive a majority belief - in this case that homosexuals should fry in hell - the more likely it is to be secretly transgressed. King makes the point that many African-American Christian pastors preach homophobic sermons monthly, and the more virulent they are, the more likely the pastor is to be "on the DL". Hypocrisy and its consequences are ubiquitous, but thanks to King's courageous revelations, they will hopefully have a less disastrous effect on African-American family and community life in the future.