Jet: Men on the down low: author J.L King exposes the sex secret that is devastating Black women

For 25 years, James Louis "J.L." King hid a dark secret. A secret that would dismantle his 8-year-marriage to his high school sweetheart, the mother of his two children.

King was living a double life and having sex with men and women, but he did not believe he was "gay." In his mind, he was living on the down low (DL).

Described as a discreet sexual lifestyle, being on the down low has become a term most often associated with Black men who identify themselves as "straight" because they have relation strips with women--many having a wife or girlfriend--even though they have sex with men on the side.

As a national HIV/ STD prevention educator, King put a face to that type of behavior in 2001 when he became the first DL man to publicly make his identity known. He has been credited by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention for exposing this lifestyle.

Today King's mission is to give a wake-up call to DL men and the women they put at risk. He is telling his secrets and the secrets of all Black men living a double life in his new book, On The Down Low: A Journey Into the Lives Of "Straight" Black Men Who Sleep With Men (Broadway Books, $21.95). It will be published on May 11, but the demand has been so high that it is being presold.

"Once you become a public figure, you can't hide anymore," King tells JET. "Once you accept who you are, you are no longer lying and hiding who you are. I want Brothers to know they don't have to continue to hurt and to hurt others."

The DL behavior is generating discussion in the Black community because it is complicating the efforts to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS with Blacks. This DL behavior has been cited as the No. 1 reason that women are being infected with the HIV virus.

King, who resides in Chicago, interviewed more than 2,500 DL men from across the country. They ranged in age from 18 to 78 and were police officers, ministers and thugs on the street.

"This is a desire that you have no control over," King explains. "The desire will hit him out of the clear blue. He may say no a few times, but eventually he will fall. DL men prefer women over men. They will always have a woman in their life. This is not a learned behavior. Who would want to live like this where you're constantly lying, hiding and scared of being busted? This desire makes some men lose all common sense. Look at the many celebrities caught with a prostitute, with a man or in the wrong place. Sex is powerful."

He says that nearly all of the DL men he interviewed in his book wanted to stop living a lie and tell the women in their lives the truth. Fear keeps them silent.

"How many women would stay with their man if they knew he was bisexual?" King asks. "Our society would never accept that a man can have a man and a woman. Not many women will share their man with another man, but it's okay to share with another woman."

King says that he can recall an "attraction" for the same sex as early as third grade. It wasn't until the age of 19 that he "tested the waters."

"I was in the military and the guys were older and from big cities," King recalls. "They exposed me to same-sex relationships and all of us had girlfriends. In the military, with that 'don't ask, don't tell' thing, we kept it on the 'low.' We used the influence of alcohol and got drunk on the weekend. We would always use the alcohol as the excuse, but it was our need and desire. It would keep happening week after week."

Men having sex with men and women is nothing new. The "down low" title may be new-fangled; but the behavior is known as bisexuality.

"Down low means masculine, unreadable, unclockable," King says. "It means I've got a girlfriend or a wife. It means you can't tell I'm having sex with men. In the Black community and in most communities, you can't have sex with both. If it was okay for DL men to have both, there would be no such thing as down low."

"On the down low" became popular in songs like TLC's 1994 tune Creep, Brian McKnight's 1995 tune On The Down Low and R. Kelly's 1996 tune Down Low (Nobody Has To Know). All the songs centered around infidelity between heterosexual men and women.

The AIDS rate among Black women is three times higher than Latina women and 18 times higher than White women.

And 75 percent of Black women who have contracted the disease have gotten it from heterosexual sex. One of the main methods of infection for the HIV virus is through heterosexual sex.

Men on the down low usually don't use a condom, says King, "because it makes them stop and think of what they are doing. Many DL men don't want to face the fact that they want to have sex with men. And most do it when they can get it. Many don't carry condoms on them, especially if they are married."

Don, a 40-year-old DL man from St. Louis, says, "Some men just like it raw and don't mind playing Russian roulette. Some have a disease already and don't care who they are with."

A CDC study in 2000 of 8,780 men found that the percentage of HIV-positive men who have sex with other men, but identified themselves as heterosexual was 25 percent Black, 15 percent Latino and 6 percent White.

College students are also being impacted by this behavior. North Carolina health officials released a study a few months ago that found of 84 male college students newly infected with HIV in the state over the last four years, 73 were Black. Of those Black men, 67 said they had sex with men and 27 of them said they also had female partners.

"We have to talk to young people about sexual orientation before they go off to school," says King. "But we don't. Most of them learn from their peers. I learned from my peers. We can't afford not to have those kinds of conversations, no matter how uncomfortable they are."

Studies also found that Blacks make up the majority of AIDS cases in the southern U.S.

"Wherever there is a larger concentration of African-Americans, there is a greater chance for this behavior," says King. Places like Washington, D.C., Atlanta, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Cleveland, he says, have a high percentage of DL men.

And studies have found that figures for people over the age of 50 affected by HIV/AIDS has increased. Older men who use Viagra are now sleeping with younger women who have unbeknownst to them been intimate with young DL men, says King.

Typically men on the down low are Black. White men, says King, often have a strong support base in place when they disclose their bisexuality. Blacks, he contends, are often met with harsh reactions.

"Until we as a people start accepting different lifestyles and stop trying to degrade and ostracize and hurt men who are suffering and trying to deal with this behavior, we are going to continue to be the No. 1-fastest growing group of new HIV cases in the country. Until we get to a point of acceptance and love and understanding, we'll continue to go down this path of destruction."

This DL behavior has people talking. Oprah Winfrey addressed the DL lifestyle on one of her recent shows, NBC's "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" aired an episode that tackled the issue and the Showtime series "Soul Food" recently aired an HIV/ AIDS-themed episode.

Not everyone wants to hear King's message. He says some Blacks are angry that he is "airing our dirty laundry" and putting a black mark on men already looked down upon because of those unemployed and imprisoned.

"What's more important, saving lives or ruining reputations?" he says. "Should we keep this under the cover because it's a big taboo and let women continue to get infected or put a spotlight on the behavior? I can't understand. There is a play by E. Lynn Harris (Not A Day Goes By) about the DL behavior and people are laughing and making a big joke. I talk about it and people want to ridicule and crucify me for stepping forward and talking about the behavior. I'm a real person talking about my life and we get scared. People want me to stop talking about it. But no one else stepped forward."

Ebony King, 29, is J.L.'s daughter. The eighth-grade teacher in Landover, MD, stands by her father's effort to get the word out about this devastating secret.

"He once told me that once you find out your purpose in life, it might not be the easiest tiring for you to do," she explains. "When I found out about his work, it made me respect him more. It took a lot to put himself out there and have an impact on those you know and love. He's my hero for putting it out there. People are hush-hush and this needs to be put out there."

Ron Simmons, Ph.D., president of Us Helping Us (UHU), People Into Living, Inc., an AIDS community outreach group in Washington, D.C., supports King's work because it is empowering women.

"It's important that women know what is going on," says Simmons, who is openly gay and was diagnosed as HIV positive in 1989. "Women don't ask men questions. People tend to not say something and just go along rather than confront the obvious. Something like HIV is too serious not to talk about."

UHU's mission is to reduce HIV infection in the Black community. The organization provides counseling, holistic ways of maintaining health, condom distribution where they reach out to beauty salons and barber shops and an anonymous DL telephone help line, 888-547-3235.

Simmons believes churches must begin more dialogue.

"The churches don't talk about sex," he says with disappointment. "That's not realistic. That would mean that there would be no such thing as a minister who cheats on his wife, but we know they do. No such thing as a minister who has a child out of wedlock, but we know they do. No such thing as a deacon or minister on the down low. But they are. It's real."

Unfortunately, there are NO signs that a man is on the DL.

"That's why it's called the down low!" says Don of St. Louis. "You are with someone who is of masculine character and does not frequent gay settings. DL brothers hang with other Brothers who are masculine. 'Never say never' I've learned in this life. Women take for granted that if he's a big man and giving the glory and laying on the charm, he's all man. You have to always have one eye open."

Women are encouraged to follow their female intuition when looking for "signs," says King.

"Women have a powerful weapon against men living on the DL (or men who are cheating and scheming, period): their intuition," he writes in the book. "Many women have a sixth sense, an inner voice, and they are almost never wrong about things when it tweaks them. Women know deep inside when something's not right. They may not be able to put their finger on it ... But when a woman gets that little feeling inside, when that little voice tells her, 'Something ain't right,' she has to listen."

Simmons says that men who are "overly homophobic" tell a story as well. "There is no sure way of telling if a man is on the down low because a true down low man knows what he's doing. You wouldn't know. But if he's protesting gay people too much and gets upset when he sees one or is in their presence, be careful."

Asking questions is also important as well as investigating if you need to, says Don.

"Don't be too embarrassed to ask and be upfront. Yes he might lie, but just remember the lie. A Brother will prove himself over time. And if you get that feeling in your gut, investigate. Some people think it's being dishonest to look up a person and find out information, but these are the times we're living in."

King hopes that women begin to at least demand that men use a condom. Simmons agrees.

"You can't take any excuse like "the condom is too small," says Simmons. "A condom can go over a person's arm if you know what you're doing. Hold off before having sex so soon. Women do too many things to keep a man. If he wants to leave if he doesn't want to use a condom, he needs to go. This is serious."

King tells women there are "100 percent heterosexual" men around. "Don't give up on love and finding a Brother who will love you, who will commit to you and be with you. Even though there are a lot of Brothers out here living this lifestyle, I pray that there are a lot of good Brothers who are not."

Intellectual property attorney John S. Kendall of Chicago is a straight, "traditionally heterosexual" man. King is Kendall's client.

"There are a lot of straight men, like me, still out here who love and will only love women," says Kendall. "He respected my lifestyle. Even though we may live, date and love in different worlds, there's no reason to say that we couldn't have a certain respect for each other. As long as you give me the respect that I'm going to demand, I'm going to give the same to you."

Weslee Pullen, a crime victims advocate in Columbus, OH, is straight, and like Kendall, "traditionally heterosexual." When other male acquaintances severed their friendship with King for fear of "guilt by association," Pullen didn't.

"Some people are homophobic and society dictates that," explains Pullen, who has been King's friend for 10 years. "I'm not the jury or the judge. I'm not in a position to judge a man. If a man is secure with himself and as long as what another man is doing isn't affecting you, what a person chooses to do is his business. That's not my call. That's between you and the good Lord."