More Black Women Are Getting HIV From The Men They Love

By JEANNIE KEVER
Houston Chronicle

Like others of her generation, Samantha Gafford has never known a world without HIV. Still, she didn't think it had anything to do with her. HIV was for gay white men. Drug users. Not people like Gafford: Young. Female. African-American. She discovered differently in 1999, when she was diagnosed with the virus that causes AIDS, becoming part of a troubling trend. Increasingly, the Americans diagnosed with HIV were African-American women with no history of intravenous drug use or promiscuity, infected by their husbands or boyfriends.

Almost 25 years after gay men in the nation's big cities began dying from a baffling array of infections and cancers, the epidemic continues its constantly evolving advance. Its wake now includes women like Gafford, mothers raising children, coping with a virus and its still-potent stigma, anxious to keep their sisters from being hurt by things they don't know.

Read the entire article at:

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/headline/features/2670945

HIV'S CHANGING FACE

• AIDS is the leading cause of death for African-American women ages 25-44.

• 16,371 people died of AIDS in the United States in 2002, a figure that has been dropping steadily since 1995.

• As many as 950,000 people in the U.S. are believed to have HIV or AIDS, with 40,000 new infections each year.

• Worldwide, an estimated 40 million people have HIV or AIDS, including 5 million who were infected in 2003. Three million died of AIDS last year.

Brother Aqil,

I have been reading various articles on this topic over the last few months. Essence even has A 2 part article interviewing a few of our black men living this lifestyle. As my friend and I read through some of their responses, we were shocked and disgusted to read that one justification they use for doing this is because they cannot get nurturing from black women. I find that hard to believe that they haven't come into contact with a loving and supportive black woman so to make up for her shortcomings, he has to get it from a black man. These men weren't effeminate either. Not what has been typically stereotyped as a homosexual male. As a single sister, it is very disheartening and scary.

Thank you for this article. The more I read, the more enlightened I feel.

I only have one thing to say: Use Condoms, each time, and every time!

Dat don't always help. If it did, my relative wouldn't be facing the death he is facing now. The problem is in the attitude you have about sex period. If one knows there is a danger, you don't face it with a thin wall of plastic, if the best thing to do is go "around" it in the first place.

The best thing to do is to teach "avoidance" ...with rubbers being the second priority. If you are not teaching them to avoid a bad habit but rather encouraging it by providing them with rubbers and patting them on the back, saying go get it boy, what can you ultimately expect. WE should teach the right thing even in the midst of the possibility the wrong choice being made. For we all know that in the heat of the moment, a condom is not always around nor is it always desired. There is just something about lust, when it overtakes you, there's this rush that many people get when doing something they know they ain't got no business doing. It's hard to explain, yet this explains why we have so many teenage pregnancies and people having unprotected sex. It's like the sistah whose sexing another woman's husband. She know it's wrong, but there's just something exhilirating about lust... :puke2: it's called temptation. I feel if we teach the young to "resist" temptation rather than "assist" them in doing so, we can bring this under a larger degree of control.

Assuming that they are going to do it anyway is no excuse for not at least teaching them to do otherwise. Believe me, many of the young are not without commonsense and a degree of strength when given the right tools that will help them to avoid a path of suffering death.

...My 2 cents on the matter. :wink:

it's always the mixture safe sex protected sex and even none sex
can help curb the out cry of HIV

Brother Aqil,

I have been reading various articles on this topic over the last few months. Essence even has A 2 part article interviewing a few of our black men living this lifestyle. As my friend and I read through some of their responses, we were shocked and disgusted to read that one justification they use for doing this is because they cannot get nurturing from black women. I find that hard to believe that they haven't come into contact with a loving and supportive black woman so to make up for her shortcomings, he has to get it from a black man. These men weren't effeminate either. Not what has been typically stereotyped as a homosexual male. As a single sister, it is very disheartening and scary.

Thank you for this article. The more I read, the more enlightened I feel.

This phenomenon is sickening and the excuses are ridiculous. These are just gay men that wont admit it and are putting our women at risk but doing it in an unsafe mannor and having the nerve to think they are normal if they got a woman for the apperances. Yall women got every right to be furious with those men who do live this lifestyle....most of us are not like that but it only takes a few to kill the community. :cuss:

Joyce...I wholeheartedly agree with your position on this...I for one can not understand why there isn't a bigger push to CONTINUALLY teach our kids as well as other sensible adults the horrors of HIV and how easy it is to get it and pass it along. Passing out condoms in schools and clinics without a stronger push for educatiing about abstinence or avoidance is community suicide if you ask me. Those brothers living on the down low are the lowest of the lowest scum. I can't understand how they can justify their behaviour and then come home like it's a day at the park and then put their wives or girlfriends lives at risk like that as if it was nothing to worry about...selfish selfish selfish...

......
The best thing to do is to teach "avoidance" ...with rubbers being the second priority. If you are not teaching them to avoid a bad habit but rather encouraging it by providing them with rubbers and patting them on the back, saying go get it boy, what can you ultimately expect. WE should teach the right thing even in the midst of the possibility the wrong choice being made.......(cont)

Assuming that they are going to do it anyway is no excuse for not at least teaching them to do otherwise. Believe me, many of the young are not without commonsense and a degree of strength when given the right tools that will help them to avoid a path of suffering death.

...My 2 cents on the matter. :wink:

i agree mr. blak...
these men are gay...no if ands or BUTTS )( about it(sorry cheap joke :lol: )...anyone that can look at another man as a lover is nologer considered str8...everyone gets treated bad in relationships at one time or another...will this ever push a str8 man into another mans arms? only if that person entertained homosexual thoughts to begin with...these men are making black men look bad and i wish they would take responcibility for their deceitful actions and grow up...
one love
khasm

One Million Americans Living With HIV/AIDS Now

By Sue Mueller

More than one million Americans had lived with the HIV virus that causes AIDS by the end of 2003, according to U.S. government researchers who presented a report on Monday, June 13, at the National HIV Prevention Conference in Atlanta, GA. In the report, researchers say progress is being made to cut the rate of new HIV infections, although the goal the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) set to cut the rate by half has not been met.

Also, health officials say that AIDS patients live longer now than before due to the medical advances in the treatment of AIDS. However, critics suggest that the prevention efforts have failed. Some suggest that the real cases of HIV infections may be about 60,000 per year instead of 40,000 a year as estimated by the government.

(45% of the HIV infections are found in gay and bisexual men, according to the CDC estimate...47% of the infected are Blacks, while Blacks account for only 13% of the U.S. population. Researchers predict an even higher infection rate in the Black population in the coming years. In contrast, whites and Hispanics account for 34% and 17% respectively of the U.S. HIV-positive population.)

Often times, people infected with HIV do not know they are infected. Because of this, HIV is easy to transmit from one person to another. There are no cures for HIV and AIDS. Drugs can only slow the progress of HIV into AIDS. People with AIDS are vulnerable to many diseases that otherwise normal immune systems can protect against.

The UN set its goal to stop the spread of HIV by 2015. Kofi Annan, Secretary-General of the UN, noted progress in some countries. But he also noted that there were more new cases of HIV infections and AIDS-related deaths last year than ever before. Mr. Annan suggested that treatment and prevention efforts were not enough, particularly in the low and middle-income countries where only 20% of needy people received treatment.

As estimated, about forty million people worldwide are living with HIV, and more than 8,000 people die from AIDS-related conditions every day. About 50% of all people infected with HIV are women, and 50% of the new cases of HIV infections are in young adults.

Southern Africa is hit the hardest by HIV and AIDS, and AIDS or AIDS-related diseases have already killed about 500,000 Americans and at least 22 million people worldwide since 1981.

http://www.foodconsumer.org/777/8/One_million_American_living_with_HIV_now.shtml

This "Men on the Downlow" facination is rediculous. There is no proof that says that gay black men are or "Men on the Downlow" are the only ones infecting black women. In Italy, it is very common for married men to cheat on their wives with other men and then return home. Why is there no "Italian men on the Downlow" talk going on? Let's no believe everything we hear people. Even J.L. King, the guy that wrote the book "Men on the Downlow" admitted that he ONLY used his life and experiences to support his "theory". He did no research on "Men on the Downlow". Again, we believe everything that white people and sell-out black folks wave in front of us to make a dollar. Hell, they have articles saying Malcolm X was gay and was living on the "Downlow" , are we going to believe that too?

http://www.globalblacknews.com/blackmen_nodownlow.html

http://www.southernvoice.com/2004/12-10/arts/feature/debunk.cfm

This "Men on the Downlow" facination is rediculous. There is no proof that says that gay black men are or "Men on the Downlow" are the only ones infecting black women. In Italy, it is very common for married men to cheat on their wives with other men and then return home. Why is there no "Italian men on the Downlow" talk going on? Let's no believe everything we hear people. Even J.L. King, the guy that wrote the book "Men on the Downlow" admitted that he ONLY used his life and experiences to support his "theory". He did no research on "Men on the Downlow". Again, we believe everything that white people and sell-out black folks wave in front of us to make a dollar. Hell, they have articles saying Malcolm X was gay and was living on the "Downlow" , are we going to believe that too?

http://www.globalblacknews.com/blackmen_nodownlow.html

http://www.southernvoice.com/2004/12-10/arts/feature/debunk.cfm

Needle sharing is another very common source of HIV transmission that seems to be dismissed.

Needle sharing is another very common source of HIV transmission that seems to be dismissed.

Yes, there are many factors that need to be considered before blaming it on one group of people. They never take these other factors into consideration. They are more than willing to pin it on any black face that's in the area. They even blamed it or tried to blame it (The origin of Aids) on an African Monkey until the Chinese proved them wrong repeatedly. This author J.L. King writes a book about men on the downlow, then his wife comes out with a follow-up book of her own on this very issue, but I think her's was geared toward prevention on the part of women. This sounds like a money-making ploy to me. Also, as much as we hear about the growing rate of black men dating interracially, why isn't any other race of women getting infected by these "Downlow brothers"?

smh.............................

as much as we hear about the growing rate of black men dating inter racially, why isn't any other race of women getting infected by these "Downlow brothers"?
once you get yourself a white woman, you straighten up and drop that down low action.
:donttell:

These so-called "down low" bruthaz have always existed, but the contemporary phenomena of down low black men spreading AIDS is just more propaganda directed at women to keep them away from black men.

It just another attempt to demonized black men and keep other women from reproducing with us.

Personally, I think the primary reason for the rise in HIV in our community is from black men being injected with it in prison....and prison rape.


I also think the figure is much higher than 1 million.

Hell, I definately rememer hearing that over a million Americans were infected with HIV 15 years ago.

What happened...did the disease stand still or something?

These so-called "down low" bruthaz have always existed, but the contemporary phenomena of down low black men spreading AIDS is just more propaganda directed at women to keep them away from black men.

It just another attempt to demonized black men and keep other women from reproducing with us.

Exactly, it's also a form of population control. They put the fear that black men are much more likely to give you AIDS (remember the flyers that were going around about black men havinf AIDS), and all of a sudden no one is having unprotected sex with black men (even in monogomous relationships), which translated into NO MORE BLACK BABIES. Every opportunity they have to put the words "black man" and "AIDS" together, they jump at it. There are white boys out there that are probably engaging in as many or more homosexual acts than black men, but no one ever says anything about that. Why, because they want those white boys and girls to continue making those "Beautiful White Babies". It's all propoganda, and unfortunately it's working. More and more black women are actually believing this out right lie that has no support for it's theory.

This "Men on the Downlow" facination is rediculous. There is no proof that says that gay black men are or "Men on the Downlow" are the only ones infecting black women. In Italy, it is very common for married men to cheat on their wives with other men and then return home. Why is there no "Italian men on the Downlow" talk going on? Let's no believe everything we hear people. Even J.L. King, the guy that wrote the book "Men on the Downlow" admitted that he ONLY used his life and experiences to support his "theory". He did no research on "Men on the Downlow". Again, we believe everything that white people and sell-out black folks wave in front of us to make a dollar. Hell, they have articles saying Malcolm X was gay and was living on the "Downlow" , are we going to believe that too?

Does anyone remember Jim Mcgreevey:

New Jersey governor quits, comes out as gay McGreevey announces resignation after telling of affair

Friday, August 13, 2004 Posted: 8:04 AM EDT (1204 GMT)

(CNN) -- Dropping a political bombshell, New Jersey Gov. James McGreevey announced his resignation Thursday after revealing that he is gay and that he had an adulterous affair with a man.

With his wife standing by his side, McGreevey -- a father of two -- spoke in calm tones as he described his struggle with his sexuality, "a certain sense that separated me from others." It was something that he said began as a child.

"At a point in every person's life, one has to look deeply into the mirror of one's soul and decide one's unique truth in the world, not as we may want to see it or hope to see it, but as it is," McGreevey said."And so, my truth is that I am a gay American," the Democrat said. Speaking at a packed news conference in the Statehouse in Trenton, New Jersey, McGreevey admitted to an affair with a man and asked for his family's forgiveness."It was wrong. It was foolish. It was inexcusable," he said.And McGreevey said he was stepping down from the state's highest office.

McGreevey said his affair and sexuality -- "if kept secret" -- would leave the governor's office "vulnerable to rumors, false allegations and threats of disclosure."McGreevey did not identify the man with whom he had the affair.
Even as he acknowledged his sexuality, McGreevey spoke of the "suffering and anguish" he had brought to his family and friends, saying he would "almost rather have this moment pass." McGreevey and his wife, Dina, have a 2-year-old daughter, and he has another daughter from a previous marriage.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/08/12/mcgreevey.nj/

This scandal happened around the same time JL King's book caught fire, yet white women have not started worrying about "DL Dudes". As brother Kente stated:

-Obviously white men behave in similar ways, so what is the reason for the HIV disparity?

-Why hasn't the media concentrated on bisexual white men who have homosexual affairs on their wives?

-How exactly can the HIV rates in our community automatically be assigned to DL behavior?

I agree with all that has been said re: the so-called "DL" syndrome. And you're right, Pan...what is not public information is the fact that the first humans to die from AIDS in this country were homosexual Caucasian males...hundreds of thousands of them...including Catholic "priests"!! The reason AIDS spread to the Caucasian heterosexual community so quickly is because married Caucasian males would come home from their offices, take off their 3-piece business suits and put on a pair of pink panties and go man-hunting at night...then come home and bed with their wives...and their wives passed the disease on to both the their own heterosexual community and, subsequently, the African-American heterosexual community as well...

Food for thought:


http://www.ourcivilisation.com/aids/indexa.htm

http://www.virusmyth.net/aids/data/cjtestfp.htm

Can you say population control.

once you get yourself a white woman, you straighten up and drop that down low action.
:donttell:

Even though I know your teasing...I bet someone will read this and take it to heart.........