No, Identifying As ‘DL’ Is Not The Flex You Think It Is
One of the more comical realms of social media is the DL mystique — whether it’s guys trying to enhance their desirability to other men by insisting how non-gay they are, or ridiculous captions on freak videos that read like millennial updates of ‘70s porn scripts: My Uber driver was on his way to play basketball and his wife is eight months pregnant with their third child. His shorts started to rise when he talked about missing sex, and since I didn’t have any money for a tip, I gave him this instead!
The origins of the down-low identity are just as farcical, although it’s hard to be amused by the way an African-American colloquialism morphed into a pejorative against Black gay and bisexual men. Given the damage done and the suspicions that remain, it’s disheartening to see the down low — which prioritizes assimilation over authenticity — persist as an aesthetic some gay men aspire to and others chase after.
Before the turn of the century, plenty of Black folks used “on the down-low” as a synonym for discretion; and the term could apply to any private activity, from a teenager smoking weed to a grandma slipping a $20 bill into a child’s hands. The inclusion of “on the down-low” in songs by R. Kelly and TLC gave it sexual connotations in the ‘90s, and “DL” was among the earliest shorthands when arranging covert liaisons in the new world of internet dating.
“While white gay and bisexual men were granted victimhood in the narrative about their lives in the closet, any Black gay man who was not upfront about his sexual orientation suddenly became an AIDS superspreader lying in wait — a pathology whose taint soon splashed onto Black openly gay men, and ultimately Black men altogether.”
While plenty of Black gay and bisexual men described themselves as DL in their online profiles to indicate they were not out of the closet, the casual term underwent a formal redefinition in an August 2003 article in the New York Times Magazine. The Black gay and bisexual experience in America has not been the same since, with “Double Lives on the Down Low” crystallizing the public’s perception of this demographic as predatory, duplicitous, and responsible for alarmingly disproportionate rates of HIV among straight black women.
According to writer Benoit Denizet-Lewis, Black men who identified as being on the down-low, or DL, had an undetectable desire for gay sex, which they sated in the shadows while maintaining relationships with girlfriends and wives. Defining attributes of DL men were their aversion to gay culture and the gay “lifestyle,” and their animalistic ability to sniff out male sex partners in non-gay settings.
It was too titillating a story for many people to question its credibility, or wonder why the members of this homosexual Skull and Bones, the men who attributed their survival to secrecy as much as oxygen and maintained an unsuspicious distance from gay venues, spilled their truth to a reporter for the world’s most famous newspaper while cruising a gay bathhouse.
The Taint of Misinformation
While white gay and bisexual men were granted victimhood in the narrative about their lives in the closet, any Black gay man who was not upfront about his sexual orientation suddenly became an AIDS superspreader lying in wait -- a pathology whose taint soon splashed onto Black openly gay men, and ultimately Black men altogether.
No matter how comfortable a Black gay man was with his same-sex attractions and experiences, a significant portion of society considered him DL if he was slightly more masculine than the stereotypical gay man, with all of the sinister implications embedded in their perceptions. The distrust provoked by DL-themed media coverage also poisoned Black heterosexual relationships, as straight Black women (especially in a city like Atlanta) began fearing whether their suitors or even their husbands, liked dick as much as they did.
Never mind how the overwhelming majority of Black gay men who identified as being on the down-low -- including the porn stars who helped the DL/Hood genre gain dominance over the last two decades -- had little or no intimate contact with members of the opposite sex. With an HIV epidemic raging among African-Americans, the down-low was a convenient rationalization of the numbers and diverted attention from how the most hard-hit populations had been neglected by public health systems and campaigns.
“Hyped as an existential plague for Black America, the down-low has always been, and stubbornly remains, a stylized closet. Those who fight to be respected for being DL (which itself is a laughable paradox) believe this identity preserves their proximity to “real manhood,” but it simply routes them through an imitation of life.”
Meanwhile, the Pied Piper of the Down Low, the main character in Denizet-Lewis’s article, further safeguarded the secrets of his order by appearing on Oprah’s talk show and writing a New York Times bestselling book, “On the Down Low: A Journey Into the Lives of ‘Straight’ Black Men Who Sleep With Men.” Ever since J.L. King has been a national socialite on the Black gay scene -- no shade.
King has always been exceedingly polite and gracious whenever we’ve bumped into each other over the years, even though I was among the first journalists to conduct a skeptical interview and write an article calling bullshit on many of his claims. He’s done admirable good for Black gay organizations and publicly atoned for the misinformation his personal testimony led to; but the archetype he embodied remains a boogeyman in the heterosexual psyche, and, sadly, a role model for some Black gay men.
Disrespecting Self, Abdicating Power
Concealing the truth about one’s identity was long the default setting for homosexuality, although we are hardly the only minority in which some can strategically downplay membership to escape majoritarian judgment or wrath. It’s shameful how the Black gay manifestation of this phenomenon was singled out as being uniquely insidious, and placed at the bottom of the moral hierarchy of “passing.”
Someone who denied their Judaism to avoid Nazi death camps generally receives total absolution for misrepresenting their identity, while empathy for a light-skinned Black person who passed for white during Jim Crow might be accompanied by a side-eye. The latter is a warning to the gay and bisexual men enamored with being DL: There is little honor or dignity for Black folks who run from their identity, and the facade is rarely worth your soul.
Hyped as an existential plague for Black America, the down-low has always been, and stubbornly remains, a stylized closet. Those who fight to be respected for being DL (which itself is a laughable paradox) believe this identity preserves their proximity to “real manhood,” but it simply routes them through an imitation of life.
The closeted men on social media who fetishize fooling people, and revel in the power of supposedly controlling what others know about their double-life, seem oblivious to the weakness betrayed in ceding dominion over one’s experiences, emotions, and testimonies to other people’s perceptions. An outdated coping mechanism cannot be upcycled into a badge of honor, especially when it still results in fear and shame of oneself.
Some defend the continued existence of the down-low based on lingering intolerance, and the suggestion that Black families and communities remain too hostile for everyone to come out. While a handful of people of all ethnicities retain violent opposition to LGBTQ people, Black families and social circles have consistently disproven the myth that they are exceptionally hateful and incapable of loving transformation when one of their own comes out.
“All the blame for the down-low cannot be placed on those who embrace that label. It is a symptom of the gay deification of hyper-masculinity in dating ads and erotic art, as well as the rigidity with which both gay and straight Black people view male sexuality. ”
For some men on the down low, receiving acceptance can seem as intimidating as being rejected, and they fear being consumed by people’s preconceptions of what it means to be gay. Even in the most affirming circumstances, it is difficult to not lose parts of one’s individuality when you are lumped in with others, which is particularly conflicting when the group’s image does not match your own.
All the blame for the down-low cannot be placed on those who embrace that label. It is a symptom of the gay deification of hyper-masculinity in dating ads and erotic art, as well as the rigidity with which both gay and straight Black people view male sexuality. Much has been made about Black women’s unwillingness to date a man who has had any sexual encounter with another man (let alone a fully bisexual man), but gay men would be just as quick to call a man a queen if we learned of the slightest sexual experimentation.
There is no Kinsey scale for Black men, no difference in how the twos and sixes are perceived or treated. He's either gay or straight, and this absence of nuance is intimidating even for men who would like to be more honest about their sexual fluidity. However, grown men silencing their truth is unlikely to lead them to satisfaction, nor protect those who are more vulnerable. I thought of DL men while watching the recent viral video of a young Black boy being abused by a group of family members for being effeminate, and imagined how a gay man who takes pride in inhabiting such hetero-aggressive spaces might’ve been able to expand the adults’ understanding of who gay people are, and who gay children can become.
That would be a far more genuine flex of masculine prowess than indulging in DL cosplay on social media.
Ryan Lee is a freelance writer in Atlanta and a columnist for The Georgia Voice, which focuses on LGBTQ issues in the south.