The closet by any other name

There's an article in Salon about men "on the down low", which is a new catchphrase of course for the old-fashioned closet. Whether or not being in the closet is a bigger problem for black men than white men, I couldn't tell you. Obviously, there are subtle differences between the two phrases, but the essential behavior is the same--claiming to be straight while being gay or bisexual, and usually while have some sort of same-sex relations. What concerns me about this new downlow thing is that there is the implication that a lot more black men than white men are playing straight while sneaking out and having sex with men; I'm skeptical.

What really struck me about the activist that this article focuses on, J.L. King, is that his message doesn't seem tailored so much to who you would think he would be interested in speaking to--gay and bisexual men who are closeted and engaging in dangerous behavior they hide from their wives or girlfriends and putting those women's lives in danger. It seems to be common sense that he would speak directly to that audience, tell them, look I was in your place. But not only is the closet bad for you, you're hurting the woman in your life, and possibly putting her life in danger with irresponsible behavior. No, instead of this he is speaking to the potential victims of male irresponsibility. Not that there's anything new about that. The vast majority of work done to curtail male behavior that hurts women is done in the area of teaching women to protect themselves, not explaining to men with problematic behavior why they need to cut it out. Part of this is that our culture puts all the responsibility of what happens in relationships on women; part of this is that it's easier to tell a group that all members are potential victims rather than tell a group that all members are potential victimizers.

But there is a huge difference between men who abuse women and men who are putting women's homes and lives in danger with closet case behavior. When a man abuses a woman, his intention is to victimize her. A man who tells a woman he's straight and then cheats on her with men isn't trying to hurt her, he's just acting badly in response to a bunch of pressures that he's as much a victim of as she is. You could speak to such a group of men while avoiding accusing them of trying to hurt women. So why is this message tailored to women and not to men?

I think that the downlow thing is about way more than just the serious but relatively rare situation of a woman with a closeted man who is in real danger of contracting HIV. Relative that is to the countless women who's lives depend on the goodwill and responsibility of the men in their lives in so many other ways, that is. And this whole discussion touches on this larger issue, is in fact a way to talk about male responsibility and women's disempowerment. Take this quote:

Talking with men about sex can be a challenge for black women, says Tricia Rose, American studies professor at the University of California-Santa Cruz and author of "Longing to Tell: Black Women Talk about Sexuality and Intimacy." Too often the attitude from men is "if you want to use condoms, you must be sleeping around," says Rose. "So it puts women in this classic patriarchal bind: If they protest then it looks like they're criticizing the guy. So a lot of women won't have sex -- or don't protect themselves."

The word "classic" almost underrates the bind that women are in. But it's classic indeed--and is about way more than just the potential to contract a fatal disease. Witness the controversy that won't die over the fact that there now exists a contraceptive method that allows women to avoid the nightly struggle over his way(aka not using pleasure-reducing devices) vs. her way (aka using devices that would prevent conception), a fight that's weighted heavily in favor of the one whose salary keeps the other in a house to argue in. This eensy weensy modicum of power for women, not the power to actually win any power struggle, mind you, but just the power to avoid one altogether, still seems like too much female power for a good number of men, many of whom run the government and the church.

The problem is there isn't a disease prevention method that ducks having to fight it out with your man in bed. And the problem still persists that male power manifests in thousands of tiny ways that can destroy a woman's life. As this social worker puts it:

"We take it personally. And this level of deceit is like nothing we've known before. We've dealt with men cheating with other women. I think we've become numb to that. But now I'm HIV positive, as a result of your behavior that you couldn't talk to me about? You made a conscious decision to cover your front using us. Now I'm taking 16 medications a day -- and I still have to take care of the children."

In this unfortunate situation, both people suffer of course. They both have HIV. But he had an informed choice (and without information, you don't have a real choice). He knew he was out having risky sex, but she was under the impression that she was having safe, monogamous sex, the sort that the government touts as the best prevention for HIV. That's why feminists consider the abstinance until marriage model for disease prevention to be so loathsome and misogynist, as that's a model that forces women to rely on male goodwill and responsibility to protect them. To make the whole situation even uglier, social conservatives are out there actively telling gay and bisexual men to get back into the closet and marry women.

It's a typical enough situation for women--we are given a half-assed method of empowerment, in this case, abstain until marriage (right) and then trust in your man to take responsibility. This whole discussion is about a lot of things, but it seems to me that no small part of it is giving women an opportunity to express frustration with a society that tells us that we can avoid trouble by embracing marriage, motherhood and male authority and then does almost nothing about men who abuse that authority or help women who are in trouble precisely because they have given over their autonomy to a man who is using it against them. But this discussion troubles me--by focusing on such a small issue (men who cheat with men), we are ignoring the larger issue of how it is that so many women are unable to extract themselves from such troubling relationships.