Finding Out: An Introduction to LGBTQ Studies by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, LGBTQ+ Studies, Gay Studies
ISBN: 9781071848036
Google: F8P2zgEACAAJ
Publisher: Sage
Published: 2022-08-18T20:25:47+00:00

Boykin’s discussion is intersectional in that it deploys an analysis of race, sexuality, social class, and gender dynamics to help us understand why a phenomenon such as the down low so fully captured the American imagination. The enormous interest in the idea of Black men meeting regularly to engage in sexual acts—and the idea that such behavior was somehow predatory and that it threatened the precarious hold many believed the United States had on the spread of HIV/AIDS—confirmed myths about Black men that have been part of the public consciousness in this country since slavery. It also helped confirm what many people believed about gay men—namely, that sexually insatiable gay men spread disease through their behavior, which constitutes a sin punishable by painful death. What’s more, stories about families affected by men on the down low confirmed what many have come to believe about different-sex relationships by portraying women as the unwitting victims of men’s sexual promiscuity. A single-issue analysis of media hype around the down low might have encouraged LGBTQ people to “adopt” the men portrayed in the coverage as gay men oppressed by a society that provides few outlets for the more open expression of their sexuality and pushes them into different-sex relationships. And the statistics delivered by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which seemed to indicate that more Black women were getting AIDS than at any other point in the history of the disease, appeared to confirm the existence of a covert down low. However, Boykin points out that the CDC reported 4,000 fewer new cases of AIDS among Black people in 2001 than in 1991, while the percentage of AIDS cases among Black women rose because the number of AIDS cases among white women decreased sharply during that same period (167). A misreading of the statistics, particularly the percentages, seemed to indicate a widespread down low phenomenon, while a closer look at the numbers challenged this assumption.

J. L. King, who is a primary focus of Boykin’s criticism, as well as other men interviewed for stories on the down low, disagree with Boykin’s claim that “America’s recent obsession with the down low is not about the truth” (5), but it seems obvious that, whether the cultural phenomenon exists, Boykin’s point about the reasons for its prominence in the collective American psyche makes some sense. After all, as the discussion of Kinsey in Chapter 2 illustrates, thinking about the private sexual lives of our neighbors titillates many Americans. What’s more, on a very real level, confirmation of our stereotypes is comforting. When we examine the issue as it intersects—that is, when we consider how not only queerness but also race and gender are understood and constructed in American society—we can easily see how panic about the down low arises. Many in the United States fear not only queer sexualities but also people of color; the combination of queerness and Blackness, coupled with basic assumptions of male aggressiveness, led to a scenario in which it was easy to imagine covert Black gay male predators infecting women at an alarming rate.

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