Oprah's 2nd interview with JL King airs today. Have you heard of J.L King? This guy in my opinion is the face/spokesperson of the so called 'DL Phenominion'. His book 'On the Downlow' (Being married with kids but having raw sex with men on the side) was a bestseller. I've read it and wasn't feeling it at all.
I hate that the book has been hailed as fact almost by mainstream media that picked it up as newsworthy, and causing a lot of folks without a voice to have a label put on them.
My problem is that his story had a damaging effect on the image black men mainly in the US but also of parts in the UK, portray us as reckless sexual predators straight or not. Another of my main gripes is that this guy has profited off his unsafe cheating which has no gender, yet the issue has been blown up because his unsafe infidely was with men given that being black and gay is still a taboo subject.
What if he had been having unsafe sex with other women? What about discreet/openly bisexual men who have safe sex and get themselves checked out regularly? What about exclusively gay men who are discreet and responsible? Would they be categorised under the 'DL' label? Are they more of a sexual health risk than say a ho that has sex unprotected with many men?
There is a big difference between withholding information on your sexual prefence and having unsafe sex and I think that it is wrong for Oprah to give this guy a big platform of influence like her show without offering an educated guy like activist Keith Boykin or producer Deondre Gossett the opportunity to offer some alternative insight.
After Elton blogger Kenneth Winfrey said it best:
Is it because JL King, author of On the Down Low: A Journey into the Lives of "Straight" Black Men Who Sleep with Men “incriminated” Black men by framing hidden sexuality within an ethnic context? Oprah's presentation of the book and him as an author certainly did.
Check out this clips from the show:
I swear, things that you wanna SWITCH!
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