Loose Lips	Loose Lips Archive

HIV educators have recently been directing their attention to black men who describe themselves as being on the down-low or on the D.-L. These are men who have sex with other men while maintaining a public identity as straight. Guys on the down-low have gotten a fair amount of attention in the media as well. Black Entertainment Television aired a special on D.L. brothers, and down-low characters also feature in the popular fiction of African-American authors James Earl Hardy and E. Lynn Harris. We also find Internet groups and chatrooms with names like DLThugs, where black men hook up for sex.

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The phrase (on the) down-low seems to be a variant of low-down, which the Oxford English Dictionary defines as "the fundamental, though not generally known, facts about a person or situation." Low-down is American slang that dates back to at least 1915. A typical 1920 quote is " He calls me back, and in about twenty minutes I have got the low down on Monsieur Kane Halliday." Low-down is frequently used in phrases like "to get the low-down (on something)" or "to give (someone) the low-down (on something)."

The down-low means essentially the same thing as the low-down. Both refer to the secret truth about something, though they are used in slightly different contexts. The most typical usage for down-low is with the verb keep, e.g. I'm keepin' it on the down-low, dog. The range of use shows that these secret truths are not necessarily sexual-- one can keep other kinds of activities on the down-low as well.

Of course, since sex is one of the most secretive of activities, it's not surprising that many uses of the phrase refer to sexual activity. The earliest instance of on the down-low that Miss Poubelle could locate is ten years old, and occurs in the lyrics of the 1993 song Whatta man by Salt 'n' Pepa, which contains the lines "...although most men are ho's, he flows on the down low, cuz I never heard about him with another girl."

Translated, the line seems to mean that although most men have some sex on the side, this guy is discreet enough that the singer's never heard anything about it.

There's really very little difference between the down-low life that some black men lead today and the sort of life that the great majority of gay men led 50 years ago. In many larger cities at that time, "straight" men would regularly stop by certain parks or public toilets for a quick blow job on the way home. Of course they had to keep it on the down-low, even if that's not the language they used then.

There is still a lot of action in public toilets and parks. But when "straight" guys engage in this kind of sex, there is a subtle difference between what happens now and the sort of same-sex activity that went on 50 years ago. From the outside, it all looks the same-- a kiss is still a kiss, a blow job is still a blow job.

But on the inside, sex with men now falls into a different mental category for these guys. In 1950, there was no possibility of a public identity as a gay man. All men needed to be publicly regarded as straight for social purposes, or they would face jail, mental hospitals, or worse. So for most men, the quick blow job in the park was pretty much the only form of same-sex action available.

What changed everything in the larger urban areas of North America and Western Europe was the increasing public acceptance of homosexuality. Unfortunately, the level of homophobia in many African-American communities has kept same-sex activity at the same secretive, anonymous level that was nearly universal 50 years ago.

Many African-American websites express alarm at down-low guys who expose themselves to HIV and then pass the virus onto wives and girlfriends. The writers talk a lot about the moral failings of black men, but very little about the homophobia of the black community. It seems to Miss Poubelle that the long-term solution is reducing the stigma of homosexuality in these communities so that men who have sex with men don't have to do it on the down-low. The road to responsible sexuality starts when guys are able to lead lives that are on the up-and-up.