Keith Boykin '87 is sick of people blaming the "down low" -- the phenomenon of men who identify themselves as straight but have sex with other men -- for the spread of AIDS in the black community. Boykin's new bestseller, "Beyond the Down Low: Sex, Lies and Denial in Black America," aims to set the record straight.
"There was so much disinformation and misinformation about the down low in the past year or so that I thought it was important to set the record straight," Boykin said.
Boykin said his book is a response to the popular "On the Down Low: A Journey Into the Lives of 'Straight' Black Men Who Sleep with Men," by J.L. King, which chronicles King's own struggles with life on the down low.
In his book, King, neither a sociologist nor medical professional, said the down low is the reason that African-American women represent 68 percent of new HIV cases. The book purports that the 30 percent of gay black men who are HIV-positive spread the virus to men on the down low who, in turn, pass it on to female partners who are unaware that these men have participated in homosexual relations.
On his website, Boykin rebutted that only 1.6 percent of all black female AIDS cases reported "sex with a bisexual male" as their means of exposure.
"It's outrageous to connect the down low with the AIDS epidemic in the black community," Boykin said. "Rather than demonizing men on the down low, we should create a climate of acceptance where these men do not feel the need to be on the down low in the first place."
Anthropology professor Joanne Cullinane agreed that King's book inaccurately blamed gay men for rising AIDS rates among black women.
"It's clear that black gay men are simply the latest scapegoats in the long and tortuous history of the American AIDS epidemic," Cullinane said. "The way in which gay black men are being scapegoated in the down-low rhetoric is akin to what happened with other groups before them: homosexuals in general, Haitians, heroin users, hemophiliacs and, of course, hookers."
Boykin said he found it unfair for an author to "manipulate the American public" for a profit, and Cullinane noted the potential effects of such manipulation on furthering the down-low phenomenon.
"Such scapegoating does little to curb the epidemic and it may in fact fuel it by driving certain populations underground and away from HIV counseling and testing," Cullinane said.
Boykin also disputes King's statement that being black made it harder for him to come out of the closet.
"I'm not convinced that the black community is that much more homophobic then the white community," he said.
Boykin noted that, while 65 percent of blacks oppose gay marriage, a similarly high proportion of whites express opposition to same-sex matrimony. Further, in other issues of gay civil rights, Boykin said blacks are equally if not more supportive than whites.
"It's time to stop blaming other people and start accepting personal responsibility for the spread of HIV," Boykin wrote in an online article.
Boykin was editor-in-chief of The Dartmouth in 1986.
