Trudy Simpson, Staff Reporter
J.L. KING in his novel, "On the down low - A Journey into the Lives of 'Straight' Black Men Who Sleep with Men, talks about Mike. Mike was employed, an upstanding member of a Greek fraternity, a deacon in his church and married to a pretty wife who was six weeks pregnant.
But Mike had a secret. During lunchtime or whenever he could, Mike snuck away to have sex with men. He liked to be penetrated.
As Mr. King tells it, time came when Mike wanted to increase the sum on an insurance policy to take better care of his now expanding family. He had to undergo a complete medical to do it. One HIV test later, his request was turned down. In tears, he speculates to Mr. King that the only way he would be turned down is if he is HIV positive.
CONDOMS
It is then that Mr. King asks him if he wears condoms with his lovers. The answer is no. After all, Mike's married lover told him that Mike was his only partner outside of the marriage.
Mr. King responds with a lesson. He says that if a bisexual man is lying to his wife and sleeping with other men, it is likely that his male lover is lying (being unfaithful) to him too.
The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) 2004 AIDS Epidemic reports that this "down low" behaviour leaves women vulnerable to HIV. According to UNAIDS, sex between men is an often neglected aspect of the HIV epidemic, although "there are strong indicators that the main risk factor for women acquiring HIV is the often undisclosed risk behaviour of their male partners."
In Jamaica, where sex between men remains heavily stigmatised and illegal, the National HIV/ AIDS/STI Control and Prevention Programme estimates that three per cent of the adult male population or between 30,000 to 50,000 Jamaican men are having sex with other men. A 2003 study shows that as many as 64 per cent of these men may be bisexuals, meaning that they are also having sex with women.
"There is need for interventions within this group because they are vulnerable. Men who have unpro-tected anal sex with men have a 10- fold risk of contracting HIV. Hence, an infected person could easily transmit HIV to his partner and if he's bisexual, then he could transmit it to a female partner, creating a bridge between women and men who have sex with men ," Dr. Yitades Gebre, former executive director of the National HIV/AIDS/STI control programme said recently.
