“…And Then there clearly was the Down Low”: Introduction to Black and Latino Male Bisexualities

Although a current expansion of advertising has drawn awareness of “the brand new Down Low occurrence” (presumably “secretive” homosexuality among married Black males), reasonably small research has explored bisexual behavior and identification among cultural minority males in the usa or elsewhere. Even though the research of bisexuality in Ebony and Latino guys is significant in its right that is own prices of chat porn HIV/AIDS among these males result in the present dearth of clinical information a lot more urgent and concerning. In this section that is special we now have put together a diverse selection of empirical and theoretical views on Ebony and Latino male bisexualities. an extensive number of information regarding the person, social, and intimate everyday lives among these males, and possible relations to risk behavior, are presented. This informative article presents this brand new human body of work and will be offering recommendations for future research instructions for culturally appropriate interventions for Ebony and Latino bisexual males.

Introduction

On April 16, 2004, an episode that is new of Oprah Winfrey Show, “A Secret World of Intercourse: residing in the ‘Down Low’”, had been broadcast on tv screens across the world. A trailer for the episode warned people, “It’s a shocker. It is called in the ‘Down Low’. Guys with wives and girlfriends secretly making love with other guys. One guy blows the lid off this sexual” that is undergroundoprah.com, 2008). Launching the episode, Oprah reported “J. L. King ended up being a gladly hitched daddy of two but had been maintaining a dark secret…living on the ‘down low’ apparently residing a ‘straight’ lifestyle with a spouse and family members, but secretly resting with guys” (oprah.com, 2008). Throughout the span of 60 minutes, unique visitor King, a self-declared “HIV avoidance activist, educator, and author” (along with a “new man”) bore witness to his or her own 25-year connection with existing regarding the “Down Low” as a “secretly” bi-sexual Black man: “The desire overrode every thing we knew,” King recalled. “It created this entire key life and made me compensate stories and attempt to cover-up my songs. It ended up being a life that destroyed my household” (oprah.com, 2008).

King had been scarcely the first to ever “blow the lid off” the existence regarding the evidently extensive bisexuality among Ebony guys. On August 3, 2003, this new York circumstances Magazine preceded Oprah by having a report that is extensive that which was called “an organized, underground subculture mainly comprised of Black males whom otherwise live straight lives” (Denizet-Lewis, 2003). Also almost ten years early in the day, writer E. Lynn Harris had written bestselling novels, including “Invisible Life,” “Just with me,” describing the phenomenon of Black male bisexuality (Frieden, 2002) as I am,” and “Abide.

Few may have expected, nevertheless, the effect an episode that is single of might have on intimate tradition in america and past.

The study of Latino male bisexuality in the United States has been strongly linked to the emergence of the epidemic as with Black men, since the advent of HIV/AIDS. Some scientists attemptedto transpose brand brand new labels onto Latino bisexual guys in the us with little theoretical foundation. As an example, Fox (1996) proposed a separate and distinct typology of “Latin bisexuality,” thought as “male people who just take the insertive role in anal or oral intercourse with another man, and consider themselves heterosexual” (p. 36). This typology reflects a stereotypical representation of specific intimate actions and will not take into account some of the complexities of Latino male bisexuality and prospective relationships between ethnicity and sex. Nevertheless, research on homosexually- and bisexually-active Latino males has suggested that familiar Anglo-American kinds of intimate orientation are culturally certain and that their imposition on Latinos is problematic

It really is of these reasons that people have actually tried to critically re-examine Ebony and Latino male bisexuality in this unique portion of Archives of Sexual Behavior. We’ve wanted to play a role in a knowledge that is new, not merely concentrating on the “new Down minimal sensation,” but on bisexuality among cultural minority males as a whole. While bisexuality it self is offered scant attention within the clinical literary works, Ebony and Latino male bisexuality deserves unique attention. The present Down minimal discussion has elicited numerous concerns. Knowledge on ethnic minority male bisexuality is mainly anecdotal. While fables are distributing, maybe with greater rate and voracity than HIV as well as other sexually transmitted infections, a medical knowledge of cultural minority male bisexuality has lagged. In this unique part, we now have offered unique attention from general general general public health insurance and theoretical perspectives.