(Carroll & Graf)

Keith Boykin has no idea what he has just done. Apparently, he thinks he has written a book about duplicity. Nothing could be further from the truth. In the first chapter of his latest book, Beyond the Down Low: Sex and Denial in Black America, Boykin, former Special Assistant to President Clinton and one of the nation’s leading commentators on race and sexual orientation, writes, “This is a book about lies.”  As a literary device, this statement works as a hook to lure readers in.  But as a summary, it fails to capture both the breadth and depth of the text. Boykin has not written a book about lies. What Boykin has instead created is a book of truths.

Beyond the Down Low: Sex and Denial in Black America stands as the most accurate and informed treatment of homosexuality, sex, blackness, and the AIDS epidemic to date. Previous coverage of this topic by Linda Villarosa in The New York Times and Benoit Denizet-Lewis in the New York Times Magazine failed to capture the intricate social and political webs buttressing this “phenomenon.”  Just as the title of his book promises to take readers Beyond the Down Low, Boykin goes beyond the sensationalized and, according to him, fallacious media hype about “down low” (or “closeted”) gay and bisexual black men spreading AIDS to black women, to give us the truth and nothing but the truth, so help him God.  According to Boykin, the truth is that the “down low” phenomenon in neither a new occurrence, nor exclusive to black men.  

Black men lurking in the dark

From racial lynching to racial profiling, the history of black men in the United States is a minefield of stigma and dishonor. And the term “down low,” which refers to black men who secretly sleep with other black men while maintaining heterosexual relationships, is just the latest dishonor to curse black men. Black gay men suffer a double hardship, living as an oppressed minority not only in America at-large, but also in both the gay and black communities. Amidst such doom and gloom, the lyricism of James Baldwin, the activism of Bayard Rustin, and the vocalism of RuPaul serve as beacons of light, flags of hope waving from distant shores. There is, unfortunately, a gaggle of sensationalists and worry mongers who threaten to extinguish these lights. Their tool of choice: the “down low” phenomenon.

Inspired by J. L. King and his book, On The Down Low: A Journey Into the Lives of Straight Black Men Who Sleep with Men, journalists and other media personalities have flurried around this so-call new phenomena of “straight-acting” black men sleeping with other black men.  The New York Times, the Chicago Sun-Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, Jet Magazine, and the Village Voice have all run articles alluding to the down low. Many of the articles related the “down low” men with the spread of the AIDS virus.  

According to J. L. King, the salacious and unsafe practices of down low black men are the primary reason for the increasing prevalence of HIV and AIDS among heterosexual black women. “If I was a gay man, I may want to be in a relationship with another gay man and play house,” King told Oprah during his 2004 appearance on her show. “But when you are on the ‘down low,’ all you want to do is have sex.” Here, King reduced gay and bisexual black men to sex-starved, sex-crazed liars, reminiscent of D. W. Griffith’s 1915 portrayal of black men as villains and violent rapists in Birth of a Nation.  In Griffith’s film, which pays homage to the Ku Klux Klan, an animalistic black character chases an innocent, chaste white woman in hopes of sexual conquest.  The misinformation conveyed in the “down low” media hype is especially deleterious because it fosters the stereotype of black men as devious, sex-starved ruffians, a stereotype activist and civil rights leaders have worked three centuries to unravel.

Let there be light!

In the wake of this skewed portrait of the black male as sex fiend, along comes Boykin, illuminating the intricacies of the down low phenomenon with Beyond the Down Low . Fusing critical analysis with opinionated essay, Beyond the Down Low skillfully deconstructs popular myths about black male homosexuality and bisexuality. In the chapter entitled “It’s Not Just a Black Thing”, for instance, Boykin de-racializes the down low phenomenon by providing examples of prominent white men, such as former New Jersey Governor James McGreevey, former Congressman Michael Huffington, and music mogul David Geffen, who have lived on the “down low.”  

In his book’s aptly titled third chapter, “Everybody’s Doing It”, Boykin launches a rapid-fire attack on the term “down low” itself. Borrowing lyrics from TLC, Brian McKnight, Salt-N-Pepa, R. Kelly, and other music artists, Boykin traces the etymology of “down low,” only to discover that the term has heterosexual roots.  In heteronormative discourse, “down low” merely referred to secret intimacy outside a relationship.  This term, whose roots are centered in black pop culture, not black homosexual culture, rose to popularity in the early 90s.  Heterosexual slang evolved, moving on to terms such as “creepin’” and “playin’” to refer to “down low” relationships, while black gay men continued to employ the latter argot.  “Down Low” was not considered a term specific to black gay men, inside or outside of the community, until it was deemed such by the media.  

The chapter entitled “D. L. Detectives” offers a more critical look at J. L. King’s On The Down Low, the book to which Boykin is obviously responding.  Boykin challenges King’s assertion that there are five  “DL behavior types,” (ranging from the “Rough Neck Players” to the “Brooks Brothers Brother”) bringing to light the circular reasoning on which King’s down low book relies.  After delineating the five behavior types, King states, “DL men don’t stand out.”  “But if that’s the case,” Boykin asks, “then why go through the whole exercise of writing a chapter about five behavior types?”

Boykin’s 32-page reproof of King’s down low book, however founded, walks the floss-thin line of exposé, with such statements as “I knew much more about [J. L. King] than I could say on the phone call … I knew men who had dated him and I knew men he had tried to date.”  At points, Boykin clicks his heels on the side of unabashed ridiculing, after which he straightens his tie and resumes his journalistic composure.  “To listen to [J. L. King] on the telephone,” Boykin writes, “I did not get the impression that he was the most articulate communicator …” Despite these minor bobbles, Boykin balances the bulk of the text well, using an effective combination of personal anecdotes and investigative reporting.  Boykin ushers us through his personal interactions with King to chronicle the evolution of King’s contradictory and misinformed narrative on the down low phenomenon.  

In doing so, Boykin acts as a DNA test for an unjustly convicted criminal. With Beyond the Down Low, Boykin reopens the “down low” debate and performs a second, more thorough autopsy. And the verdict?  Sexuality, as postwar sexologist Alfred Kinsey found, is determined by a complicated fusion of biology, psychology, sociology, and politics.  Black men are not the culprits in the war against AIDS, and the fight isn’t as simple as stitching a scarlet “DL” on the label of same-gender-loving black men in America. Tackling the AIDS epidemic requires open dialogue, not scapegoating. As Boykin suggests, “Sex is a wonderfully healthy form of human expression, and we would be wise to learn to talk about it.” And thanks to Boykin, perhaps we — black, white, gay, straight — can finally begin to engage in that conversation.

In The Fray Contributor