You know how some things change and others stay the same. Great story in the LA Times!!

Itll never change because everyone still views AIDS as a gay disease and a 3rd world disease. Oh and the fact its black females in the US probably doesnt help---who in the mainstream white male establishment would care about a poor black girl?

They better have their men use some condoms they are having sex. The HIV rate with black women here is outrageous!

Why don't you guys talk about this? :confused:

This article really is nothing new, which is sad, and is all the more reason to vote Kerry on election day. With the Bush administration's focus on abstinence "education," not to mention kowtowing to the "religious" right and cracking down on condom distribution, the rate of AIDS is only going to get worse, not better.

I work in health care, and serve on the Board of Directors for Brother, Help Thyself, a DC/Baltimore GLBT community chest that focuses on small not-for-profits, particularly HIV/AIDS organizations. This year, the grant hearings for BHT were a real eye-opener, with many prevention programs, particularly those geared to youth, being defunded under the Bush administration rules. More importantly, because of political pressure, even discussing things like condom distribution is no longer allowed - organizations have to refer to "prevention materials" in order to even have their grants looked at.

In the 1990s, we had what seemed to be a coordinated effort of government, entertainment, media (particularly MTV/VH1), and other areas of society to really blast the message that HIV/AIDS could affect anyone, and everyone had to be protected. The rise of protease inhibitors clearly changed the playing field, but the efforts didn't change, and now they are largely non-existent. What should have been a time of massive re-engineering of our efforts to prevent HIV/AIDS transmission became a time of conservative demagoguery and a refusal to face the real facts of AIDS - some of Bush's most ardent supporters still claim there is no heterosexual risk of HIV transmission - that it is still a "gay disease" that can be fought by stopping all the queers from having sex. Even Bush's much-lauded efforts in the global AIDS crisis, where he can at least concentrate efforts on helping the "real" victims - women and children - are a joke, as his own budget proposals have not funded our promised contribution.

What interests me most is the Down Low phenomenon. The New York Times Magazine ran a very interesting article on DL men last year or so. Their lifestyle is amazingly dangerous because of their promiscuity with both sexes and their denial about the risk of infection. Anyone have any thoughts about the DL state of mind?

Thoughts about the state of mind of guys on the DL? Lots - but too many to put in this post right now.

The one thing that does bother me is the notion that this is a totally minority issue. I think the reality is there are just as many white guys doing the same thing (Jim McGreevey anyone?) but that they are more likely to be in rural areas, where they are less likely to be exposed to HIV, which is more prevalent in urban areas. Making it all out to be a minority issue brings up a few too many parallels to the old "all black men are sex-crazed and after white women" stereotypes, although now it's "black men are all promiscuous and spreading AIDS" - certainly the level of homophobia in minority communities is an issue, and may account for a higher prevalence of the DL lifestyle (and maybe a more complex one at that), but you can't tell me all the married/dating guys in America who are fooling around with other guys on the side are minorities.