Spend any time perusing sexual hookup sites, and you’ll find countless ads (like this one) from white men claiming to be on the DL. The closet is dead. Everyone is “on the DL” now. So, six years after people erroneously claimed that white men were also on the DL, or that the DL was a myth, they’re finally kind of right. White men are now on the Down Low, which means that the Down Low has, for all intents and purposes, ceased to exist.
—Benoit Denizet-Lewis, who wrote about (but was certainly not the first to chronicle) SGL black men on the down low for the NYT Magazine in 2003, declares the phenomenon over [via]
GMB
This is an idiotic post. Simply renaming something doesn’t make it cease to exist; it’s just a way of saying, “I’m closeted, I want to stay that way, and I prefer to date other closeted guys too.” The DL hasn’t ceased to exist; it’s simply a new meme for what it was like to date back in the 1970’s. Social and political pressure are keeping us hidden, and that’s dangerous and sad.
Black Pegasus
@GMB: You are so right.
I’m a Black Man and I find this post silly if not race baiting.
The “Down Low” is simply another name for being in the closet, and most people with common sense can see that. And being White or Black has nothing to do with it! Just because some jackass wrote a book pegging all Closeted Black Men as “DL Brothas” doesn’t mean we have some new phenomena.
Down Low = Closeted
Case Closed!
Fitz
I wonder if “On the DL” isn’t supposed to make people more butched up or some other BS. I don’t fu@k with closet cases or “on the side” guys… if you can’t man up to being real, then you aren’t ready for sex anyway.
whatever
str8, masc, straight-acting, dl, bi, discrete (sic) jock seeks same. not fats or femmes. no offense.
that’s my a4a profile. 😉
scott ny'er
i thought the DL was when a dude messed with guys on the side but had GFs, wifes, etc. While closeted is someone who just isn’t open about being gay. They may mess around with guys in private but aren’t married, have GFs, etc.
whatever
@scott ny’er: to-may-to, to-mah-to
Aaron
@whatever – not really. there’s a major difference, as anyone who works in STD prevention will tell you — hence the need for the “MSM” classification
Bill
It’s the 21st century. We really should be moving toward acronyms.
Mr. Enemabag Jones
I wanna see the rest of that picture.
Chitown Kev
LOL at queerty’s race baiting.
TED HAGGARD was on the DL.
mk
@scott ny’er: “Closeted” is used for guys who beard as well as ones who don’t. Guys like Charlie Crist, Tom Cruise and John Travolta are referred to as closeted and they have girlfriends/wives.
The DL is a black culture word for closeted. Some people outside of black culture have taken up using it for themselves because “I’m on the DL” has a cooler ring to it than “I’m a closet case”.
Bill Perdue
Colored people are no good. They drink liquor and smoke crack. They’re no-good cheaters and they try to break into your home. They gang-bang at the playground and give kids drugs. They’re stupid. Tell them to learn how to read. They’re not real people, they’re a problem. If you see one, call a policeman. I don’t want any of my pals getting hurt by a dumb nigger.
Sieg heil!
hudson
@Bill Perdue: you are so unbelievably offensive. go away.
scott ny'er
@hudson: I think he was being sarcastic.
Hilarious
@mk: Actually “keep it on the DL” is old as shit and had nothing to do with being gay period in it’s original use. It just meant to keep something a secret and many black people used it and still do use it for it’s original intent.
My parents both use it without anything to do with homosexuality.
All this garbage about black men being “down low” was just media buzz to once again stir up anxiety and paranoia in black women and belittle straight black men at the same time. We(gay black men) weren’t even an afterthought in the matter, but we’re still black so they didn’t mind running us over either.
Before “the DL” there were statistics about most black women dying single and never married. There were also the statistics about all black men abandoning their wives/girlfriends with children.
It’s the same type of racist “science” that stems back to slavery when they tried saying our brains were smaller and that we weren’t even human.
I really wish more black people would just stop buying into and spreading this crap around because we’re the key to ending it. If we stop taking the bait they’ll stop chumming the water.
I think the DL nonsense irritates me the most just because common sense should kick in and highlight the fact that anyone else who exhibits this very common behavior is merely referred to as closeted. I have yet to hear anyone call a married white man who rents a kid off the street “DL” or one of the many gay republicans “DL” yet they are exhibiting the exact same behavior and fit the so called definition to the letter.
I’ve been in many arguments with white gay men who swear up and down what makes you “DL” is being black while exhibiting that behavior. Anyone else who does it and isn’t black isn’t “DL” according to them.
Like I said above, this usage of the phrase is not black culture. It was perpetuated by the media just like those ridiculous “statistics” without a shred of proof or validity. Even the most educated black women spread this shit around like it’s gospel as soon as they hear it and it freaks me out because they won’t stop and think “Where did this come from and who stands to gain from me believing this?”.
SBC19
Hilarious is right.
When the term “Down Low” first crept up in black pop culture, back in the early/mid 90s, it was a general term that referenced *anybody* doing something in secret. Remember TLC’s song “Creep” that went: “So I creep, just keep it on the down low…” R. Kelly and Brian McKnight also had songs out in the middle 90s with ‘Down Low’ in the title. All were about straight relationships where the partners were either cheating with the opposite sex, or were having scandalous hetero liasons that had to remain quiet. Eventually it just made sense that closeted gay black men would also be included in this equation — since men having sex with other men could be seen as the ultimate taboo/sneak/secret, and from there the term “Down Low” got swallowed by this one distinction. Since the late 90s, it has pretty much exclusively referenced closeted gay black men…but it didn’t start that way.
When I was a teen, and messing around with guys, I used to describe myself as ‘on the DL.’ As would the other guys. We’d sort of snicker at it; dismissing it as having fun/doing dirt on the low, because quite frankly it’s easier on the psyche to view indulging in your gay predilections as a ‘mischievous’ thing that you’re in control of than to reconcile “I’m gay, in the closet, and I don’t want anyone to know that I’m attracted to other men, because people will think less of me for it.”
After I aged out of my teens, I finally connected with ‘Down low’ meaning closeted and realized that it wasn’t cute that I had to hide this truth about myself from everyone I know. So I stopped using the term. Plus I thought that the term was played out and assumed that (even though it gets tossed around in the mainstream) no one still personally used it. I mean I first heard “Down Low” back in 1993/1994. It’s 16/17 years later. Plus the mainstream had gotten hold of and shined a spotlight on it. You have middle of the road white news archers using it to describe news reports of homosexuality in the black community, etc., etc. When a term that was originally meant to describe acting in secret is repeatedly exposed by the mainstream media and everybody knows about it, I just think it loses something. Now practically every black man who has a best friend who he spends X amount of time with gets questioned on their downlow status; no matter if they’re as straight as a vertical line. The mystery and intrigue is gone. It just seemed like it would be a STALE tag at this point. Then recently I started chatting with another brother who used it to describe himself, and I was quasi-shocked.
I’m ready to retire the whole “down low” terminology/culture. If you have to be closeted for whatever reason, I totally respect that…but don’t act like it’s cute or funny that you can’t be your complete self around the people you interact with in general. It is what it is, and what it is is being in the closet.
JoeyO'H
This a silly post.
The DL does not and never has known race. It’s been known and still is as “closeted” str8 men who go to parks, bathrooms, rest stops, etc., for men seeking sex with other men. Period.
jason
Why isn’t there a “down low” for women? Oh, I remember, it’s because females dabbling with females is considered “hot”. We can’t have ugly, negative terms like “down low” for women, now can we????
Mike in Asheville
The “down low” simply means ANY TRUTH being hidden from those who matter.
Race nor sexuality have anything to do with being on the DL. Hiding sexual exploits from one’s wife, husband, girlfriend, boyfriend, whether the wife, husband, girlfriend or boyfriend is white, black, or green, is being on the DL.
That NY Magazine published an idiotic and offensive article years ago labeling black men who sleep with other men as being on the DL was irresponsible enough. Black men who cheat, white men who cheat, black women who cheat, white women who: all on the DL.
In my marriage, we both have slept with many other men, sometimes together mostly on our own. Its not a case of either of us being on the DL. Each of us has sexual interests that the other isn’t into. Instead of denying ourselves those urges, we enjoy them now and again. Part of the strength of our 25 years of togetherness is that our love for eachother is far more important than any threat of some this-and-that fun.
DL is all about being dishonest.
Mike in Asheville
Oh, and I sure wouldn’t mind one bit getting to be the white filling between those two very sexy black men. Yummy. And I wouldn’t be on the DL at all; I’d be a bragging to my hubby about that fun!
Mike in Asheville
@No. 14 @scott ny’er: Just check post 21 and you’ll see that Bill Purdue WAS NOT being sarcastic in his post 12. Purdue trolls this site and other gay sites spewing his xenophobic racist bigotry. He is as vile as every other hypocrite bigot who believes that his own personalisms (ie, being gay in a straight world) are superior to others’ equal right to pursue their own happiness. Sixty years ago, Purdue would have been a happy Hilter youth stringing up all non-Aryans; and then shocked, shocked, that they would turn on his faggot ass.
L.
@Bill Perdue: Um. In order to prove the Holocaust didn’t happen, you use an image depicting… the Holocaust?
I know trolls are like zoo animals, and also actually believe the First Amendment to be an absolute, so you can go on and spew any untruth you see fit, but stupidity I can’t condone.
Anthony in Nashville
This is a stupid article, and FAIL on Queerty for trying to stir up some racial arguments.
“Secret” sex has been around for a very long time, and all races and genders participate in it. Tea rooms, truck stops, sex clubs, parks, chat lines and now internet sites allow people to engage in sex without identifying as a certain orientation. To single out black men is wrong.
Bill Perdue
Racist pig james-from-the-great-city-of-cambridge is posting yet another mountain grown folger’s crystals, No 22, because he’s flibberty and globbity by correctly characterizing him as Islamophobic nigger mick, an Obot, a Democrat and a racist zionist kike.
Too bad it he doesn’t like it. All his infantile folgers and pies won’t stop me or anyone else from sending him to the gas chamber. His petula clark at being pinned down as a crackhead nigger mick (just like Ella Fitzgerald and Shaquille O’Neal) leads him to sew a needle pulling thread with his folger’s crystals. Heil Hitler!
This brings me back to the good old days when I was a slave driver in Alabama. I used to get such joy strapping a big black buck to a tree so I could crack my whip over their firm, supple, muscular backs. Then when they were unconscious I would whip out my three inch penis and rub it against their gorgeous butt cracks until I came about three seconds later.
Dmitriy
@Bill Perdue:
that’s right bill, blame the zionists…
isn’t it funny that in most commie and muzzie countries that you defend, you’re gay ass would be imprisoned or executed?
DDPL
@jason: Unless you’re their partner. Then the DL woman is just a cheatin’ H-O-R-E and
you go on Maury together.