Many of these men are young and from the inner city, where they live in a hypermasculine thug culture.

Other DL men form romantic relationships with men and may even be peripheral participants in mainstream gay culture, all unknown to their colleagues and families.

And people want to turn a blind eye to what prison time is doing to the black man's sexuality.

It is really a process of destroying the mind because he comes out confused and nothing is more strange than to see a man that can actually stomach rolling around in the bed with other men yet swearing (even to himself) that he is straight! I think that is what explains the reason why the rise in "down low" living has taken a serious RISE in the black community, but that does not mean that there aren't men out there NO MATTER WHAT COLOR that somehow, someway, have the desire for crusty male flesh and yet consider themselves straight.

As you continue to journey up the stairs you notice two pairs of jeans sprawled about on the steps. Usually most women tend to dismiss them and overlook them rather than confront them in fear of being incorrect and/or losing a potential lifelong mate. King, author of “On the Down Low: A Journey into the Lives of Straight Black Men Who Sleep with Men” and a former “Down Low” man himself, breaks the mold by coming out and explaining to all women in his book why and how this epidemic got started: “Many bisexual men choose not to reveal their sexual orientation because they dread the negative fallout that such a disclosure would likely cause. We all witness the harsh words and ridicule to which the gay/lesbian community is subjected.Your wonderful man has held employment for the past few years, cleans house better than your grandmother, gives sex so amazing it damn near brings you to tears every time you make love, and just when you think he couldn’t get any more perfect… That is when you see his work shirt hanging off the banister. Tossing your daily mail on the counter top you notice his keys lying on top of the coffee pot.Standing in front of your master bedroom door…all time seems to have come to a stop. and the next image that you see is worse than what you could have ever imagined… The whole while your mind is racing with thoughts; Why me? There are men from all walks of life who are living double lives and demonstrating little or no control over their sexual desires and actions. Whether he wants to give it or he wants to receive it, this could very well mean that he is possibly on the DL. If your partner at the time gets upset and doesn’t want to be protected…LET THEM GO! If it doesn’t look right, smell right, or taste right…it might not be right 3. Ladies how many times can you count throughout your life where your instincts were telling you something and you refused to listen only to later on wish you would have? If it is a situation you have to force yourself to be comfortable with…then it may not be one that you need to be involved in.Sweat pours from your palms as you try to keep your knees from buckling. Many men living on the DL express no reluctance about their behavior and have little insight into the impact of their destructive behavior” King states. This secrecy could mean that he has something to hide. Obviously they do not care about you enough to respect your body and your wishes. For women who have found out that there man is DL J. King Advice is this: “If he has come to her, shared his painful secret, expressed both a willingness to eliminate the behavior and a strong desire to heal their relationship, I would ask her to be open to that; especially if the other aspects of the relationship are solid.How a person can sleep with people of the same gender and not even be able to admit to themselves that they are "at least" bi-curious is beyond me.Unless their sanity has been taken from them by the prison system!But the creation of an organized, underground subculture largely made up of black men who otherwise live straight lives is a phenomenon of the last decade...Most date or marry women and engage sexually with men they meet only in anonymous settings like bathhouses and parks or through the Internet.Some forums can only be seen by registered members.After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.Rejecting a gay culture they perceive as white and effeminate, many black men have settled on a new identity, with its own vocabulary and customs and its own name: Down Low.There have always been men – black and white – who have had secret sexual lives with men.(shrugs)i have no idea if it's more prevalent among blacks but alot more of them as a percentage of their population sure do end up enduring some prison time at some point in their lives due to this messed up society of ours and how it all plays out.i have no idea if it's more prevalent among blacks but alot more of them as a percentage of their population sure do end up enduring some prison time at some point in their lives due to this messed up society of ours and how it all plays out. It is true that alot of skrong, black men have to endure some phase of the prison system at some point in their lives because of the mental assault on the black youth that the only thing they can aspire to being is a rapper, a gangster, or a thug!