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.Īccording 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. 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. 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. The inclusion of “on the down-low” in songs by R.
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.īefore 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 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. 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!
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.