Beyond the Down Low: Sex, Lies and Denial in Black America

by Keith Boykin

 

Beyond the Down Low: Sex, Lies and Denial in Black America

Keith Boykin

Carroll & Graf, an imprint of Avalon Publishing Group, Inc.

 

Last year J.L. King brought the term “on the down low,” referring to black men who have sex with men yet retain relationships with their girlfriends and/or wives, to the mainstream’s attention.

In Beyond the Down Low: Sex, Lies and Denial in Black America, Keith Boykin responds to King’s written and televised statements and takes it one step further, examining the down low phenomenon in terms of history, cultural conception or misconceptions and its relevance to the problem of HIV among women. Boykin, in fact, targets King directly and takes issue with King’s opinions on the subject.

The heart of this book is not simply about black men, or gay men, or men at all, but about the societal forces that create secretive behaviors. It’s about betrayal, lies, shame and fears that extend to human life as behavior and not as identity. It explores the complicated and unexposed inner-workings of all human relations.

Boykin, a graduate of Dartmouth College and Harvard Law, served in the Clinton Administration and is one of the nation’s leading commentators on race, sexuality and politics.

(as published in Family & Friends Magazine, April 2005)