J.L. King was a woman’s worst nightmare.
While married, he had sex with men and lied to his wife about what he was doing.
His behavior broke up his marriage. It also could have been deadly, and he said that’s why he has broken the silence about what he calls a taboo.
“In the black community, you can be anything you want, but you better not be gay or homosexual,” he said. “You better not ever come out of the closet. [It means] you lack masculinity.”
Consequently, he said, many men live “on the down low.” They are, he said, men who prefer women to men but love having sex with men, or bisexual men. He has many friends in the down-low network who are infected with HIV, dying or have died from AIDS.
When King decided to go public by writing the book, “On the Down Low: A Journey Into the Lives of `Straight’ Black Men Who Sleep with Men” (Broadway Books), he said he was thinking about the risk bisexual men posed to his then 25-year-old daughter.
The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention calls bisexual behavior “a bridge” for HIV transmission to heterosexual women.
While it is difficult to determine how many women may be infected by bisexual partners, Mark Ishaug, executive director of the AIDS Foundation of Chicago, called the down-low phenomenon “a significant issue confronting women all over the world who are at risk for HIV.”
News of a small but alarming surge of HIV infections among male African-American college students in North Carolina was reported in the spring. Of the 84 new HIV infections discovered in college men from 2000 through 2003, 73 occurred in African-Americans. Of the 73 men, 67 acknowledged having sex with other men, and of those, 27 said they had also had sex with women.
Tormented by desires
Tormented by dueling sexual desires, some men, not only African-Americans, have always led double lives. Decades ago some men thought heterosexual marriage might repress their homosexual orientation and psychologists officially categorized homosexuality as a mental disorder.
Bisexuality, of course, is a recognized sexual orientation. “People who are bisexuals sometimes have greater preferences for one gender or the other,” said Joe Catania, director of the health survey research unit at the University of California at San Francisco.
University of Chicago sociologist Edward O. Laumann, lead author of a sex study, “The Sexual Organization of the City,” said that surveys have shown repeatedly that the African-American community in general is homophobic.
In interviews with black ministers, he said, “there was a definite impression that there was awareness that HIV was a problem in the black community, but a lot of denial, refusal to face up to it. It’s a don’t ask, don’t tell kind of thing.”
In addition Laumann said that because African-American men are less likely to marry, it is common for men and sometimes women to have two or more partners during the same period, a fact related to the spread of sexually transmitted infections of all types.
Darryl Sardin, a black gay man who works as a peer counselor in an HIV clinic on the South Side, provided a dismaying view of the secret lives of men.
“I messed around with a guy, and he has a woman,” Sardin said. “He’s on the down low. If I ran into him and he was with her, I wouldn’t say anything to him. Because she might say, `Who is that gay guy? Are you messing with him?’
“I saw him with his friends, all straight guys, the other day and I didn’t say anything to him. Friends might react and say something. [Men on the down low] want to keep up an image that they’re macho men.”
King, who moved to Chicago from Atlanta last year, has found a ready audience for his story and book among African-American women, a group whose HIV/AIDS diagnosis rate is 23 times greater than white women.
Some of them may be living with a false sense of security, unaware that their husbands or steady boyfriends are putting them at risk for HIV infection by having sex with men.
King would never have called himself “homosexual,” “gay” or even “bisexual.”
Down-low men, he said, would never leave their wives or girlfriends to be with a man or in any way jeopardize their social standing in the neighborhood, the church or on the job.
And they encounter plenty of women who allow men to control sex. King said that “before [he] saw the light” he rarely encountered a woman who would insist that he use a condom if he said he didn’t want to.
“Think of my behavior,” King said one afternoon in a Streeterville cafe. “How destructive to all of the women I could have taken out, all the men around this country.
“It scares me, it shakes me, because I used them. I wasn’t thinking about anything but myself.”
King said it took his wife years to “recoup” after she discovered his extracurricular activities with men. “Women can compete with another woman,” he said. “But they can’t compete with another man.
“Women [tend to] say, `What did I do wrong, what could I have done better?’ …
“We tell our preacher, and the preacher might be doing the same thing. The preacher will say [to the wife], `Sister King, brother King is a good man. You all got a beautiful home, cute little kids. We’re not going to talk about this. We’re going to pray for you all. You try and make it work.’
“That’s what the preacher told my wife.”
King said he was raised to be a perfect gentlemen and that demeanor provided the perfect cover for his behavior. An Ohio native, he married his high school sweetheart and went into the Air Force.
When he returned home with his wife and baby, King accepted a social invitation from a church deacon. His wife encouraged him to accept, because he didn’t have many male friends. King said the churchman drew him out sexually, and his down-low life started.
Anonymous encounters
Although King said there is an underground network of down-low men in cities across the country, many of his encounters involved anonymous sex.
Speaking hypothetically, King said it goes something like this:
“I don’t have time to talk to you about your status, your sexual history. You don’t know my name. I don’t want to know your name. You look good. You tell me you’re married. That’s all I need to know. That in my mind means no disease, because the media or health industry have not educated me enough to tell me that AIDS is no longer skinny, white, coughing, with lesions on the body. That’s what I’m thinking …
“We can find a place. You can come to my house, a hotel, an office. We can go to your truck. It’s strictly about gratification, not orientation.
“We have unprotected sex, no condoms … I go home. I feel guilty. I make love to my wife. I’ve been married to her for seven years. I can’t wear a condom. I’m trying to have kids. If I do this over and over, my risk [of HIV infection] is greater. All of a sudden she gets pregnant, goes to the doctor, gets a test. She’s HIV positive. What? How? Where?”
In researching his book, which came out in the spring and quickly became a best seller, King interviewed dozens of men by promising them anonymity.
He said he asked all the men a hypothetical question. If there were a pill developed that you could take and abort all the desire you have for men, would you take it?
“Every man who was living a double life said yes. I would take two for backup. None of us wants this internal conflict.”
King said his openness resulted in friction in his own family. It’s regarded as “a black mark on the family name.” His 82-year-old father has been shielded from the truth about King’s sexual orientation. King said he is “too scared” to tell him. His father just thinks he’s a motivational speaker and still asks when he’s going to get married again.
