Reaching out to the down low: a look inside the clubs where men have secret gay sex reveals why many can't be convinced to play safe.

Most visitors to Hollywood would never notice the Study, a gay bar tucked into a side street about two miles east of Grauman's Chinese Theatre. On a recent Sunday night, however, the place is packed with mostly African-A3nerican and Latino men who squeeze by each other along the aging paneled walls. A song by Lauryn Hill bleeds into a Madonna classic as customers play pool, chat up the bartenders, or watch spogs.

The Study is a place to find a quick same-sex hookup, although many of the men here say they don't consider themselves to be gay at all. They keep their sex with other men a secret, refusing even to tell their wives or girlfriends.

A man named Ezel, a volunteer with Minority AIDS Project who declines to give his last name, is staffing a table in a corner of the bar, offering free condoms and information on STDs to help educate patrons about safer sex. He is bisexual, although his new 24-year-old wife has no idea he sleeps with men. "She's open-minded, but I don't think she'd be that open-minded," says Ezel, who calls the men he sleeps with "associates" and never has boyfriends. "I meet people at work, on the bus, and on the street. You meet people in casual, everyday contact, just as you would a female."

Ezel prefers effeminate men and always insists on safer sex. "I consider that whenever I have intercourse with another man that I have a wife to go home to. But if I were to take something home to her, be it HIV, gonorrhea, or chlamydia, it's going to be a question of, How did this happen?" he says. "As I become more comfortable with my sexuality, it will eventually be something I will express to her."

By now most Americans are far0ilinr with the term "on the down low"--at least those who read national newspapers or watch the Oprah Winfrey show. In April the talk show featured men who identify as straight and have wives or girlfriends but also have random, often unprotected sex with men on the sly. The women in Winfrey's studio audience were furious that they were being kept in the "dark and ran a high risk of contracting HIV from their supposedly monogamous husbands and boyfriends.

One of Winfrey's most controversial guests was author J.L. King, whose book On the Down Low: A Journey Into the Lives of "Straight" Black Men Who Sleep With Men is stirring up controversy among African-Americans because most see black men in very specific ways, images that have been cultivated by and co-opted from hip-hop stars and rap videos. Fearful of being shunned by their families, friends, and churches, men who desire other men sexually stay in the closet.

Even with the increased media attention, health groups are fighting an uphill battle to convince men on the down low to practice safer sex. They are blanketing bars, clubs, and bathhouses with prevention information and starting support groups in an effort to curb rising HIV rates, which are disproportionately high among straight black women, in part due to the down-low culture. In light of this, outreach efforts are truly a matter of life and death. According to various AIDS groups, African-Americans make up just 12% of the U.S. population but account for more than half of all new HIV diagnoses. Black women make up 72% of new HIV infections among American women. African-American women have an AIDS rate 23 times greater than that of white women, and African-American men have a rate nine times greater than that of white men. Among blacks, AIDS is the leading cause of death for women age 25-34 and men age 35-44.

Men living on the down low are not exclusively to blame for these figures, but they are certainly exacerbating the situation. "We need to talk about whether we should be using condoms in this relationship. We need to talk about safer-sex interventions," says Stephen Simon, AIDS coordinator for the city of Los Angeles and an openly bisexual black man. "Saying 'spy on your man; he might be sleeping around on you' is not getting us there. The goal seems to be to find a man you can make sure won't sleep with another man, and that's just a preposterous goal."

Another problem that safer-sex advocates ran into when they speak with men of color, says openly gay television producer Maurice Townes, is that "our society, America, has only shown the world that gay equals white, that AIDS equals white, so that anything that comes on television or in the media that's gay, it's always been white. Outside of To Wong Foo and Six Feet Under, there is nothing that is black and gay." Townes and business partner Kevin F. Allen have created a DVD series titled The Closet, which follows several African-American men who have sex with men, and they hope to deal with issues of bisexuality and the down-low culture in a positive way. The series has been popular among gay men and straight black women.

Back at the Study, "Terrance," a 33-year-old black man who has just broken up with his fiancee following her discovery that he also dates men, points out a man across the parking lot whom he has dated in the past. Terrance recently found out that his cousin is gay and has been talking to him regularly about his sexuality. "I want love, I want commitment, I want intimacy," he explains. "But I'm not sure if that will he with a man or a woman. I haven't figured it out yet."

In Los Angeles a group of African-American men have established what may be the next step in helping men determine their sexuality and perhaps embrace safer sex more fully. In 1999, Jeffrey King founded In the Meantime, a group that explores the mental, physical, and spiritual needs of African-American inert, particularly those who consider themselves gay, bisexual, or "same-gender-loving"--a term popular with members. On Tuesday nights the group gathers in the bottom-floor meeting room of a cavernous disco popular among gay, lesbian bisexual, and transgendered people of color. The meetings draw a wide variety of people--retirees, businessmen, and college students mix easily--and might feature a guest speaker or a discussion about a book or HIV awareness. In the Meantime also sponsors men's retreats and a telephone hotline and has organized cross-cultural events to reach out to other populations.

Simon, a regular at the Tuesday meetings who declines to give his last name, says the group "can bridge these community gaps, bridge the gap between the old-school gay and lesbian community. They don't have an agenda that says 'Same-gender-loving is good, gay is bad--pick one.' They don't have an agenda that says 'You're either black or gay--prioritize.' They, I think, allow the space for people to serf-identify a lot morn comfortably."

While many black men completely shun gay sex, Latinos often consider it culturally acceptable to have gay sex on the side provided flint one assumes the top or dominant role. There is much more discrimination against men who take receptive roles.

On a recent Tuesday neat" downtown Los Angeles, men are lining up, waiting for a bathhouse to open--at noon. Once it opens, it becomes crowded with a racially diverse group of inert: older guys, 20-somethings, skinny club types, gym rats, and overweight men. As they cruise the hallways--occasionally darting into rooms to have. Sex--some peer into the third-floor TV lounge. About half a dozen men hi towels are, for now at least, forgoing sex to have a safer-sex discussion in Spanish, organized by Bienestar Human Services, a Southern California outreach group for Latinos.

Two Bienestar staffers hover over condoms, dildos, and literature about STDs. The group is getting animated. The conversation touches on issues of machismo and cultural expectations, topics that few of the men have ever discussed with anyone. These men don't want to reveal information about themselves; they are there, for sex only. Victor Martinez, director of prevention and education for Bienestar's GLBT unit, explains that the group can't talk about Latinos as one monolithic entity in trying to identify people at risk. For example, he says, Latinos from the Caribbean tend to be more comfortable talking about sexuality than those from Central America.

"We have immigrants; we also have families who have been living here for generations and generations," Martinez says. "For monolingual Spanish speakers, the 'down low' is not in the vocabulary. However, for some groups that are more acculturated, it is getting more popular."

Also, some new immigrants are turning to sex to make money. Bienestar has learned that home improvement centers and lumberyards--where itinerant Latino day laborers congregate looking for work--have become popular cruising spots where workers can exchange sex just as easily as other services for money. The results for their unsuspecting female partners at home are the same as in African-American households: an exponentially increased risk of HIV infection. "They go back to their families and their houses and give the virus to their [wives and girlfriends]," Martinez says. "And what we see here at Bienestar, most of the female clients have been infected by their primary male partner."

Townes has always considered himself gay and never lived life on the down low. Still, he sees what's happening in his community.

"This has been going on forever in every culture," he says. "It's always been looked down upon to be homosexual. Men who were ashamed of it have done everything in their power to hide. These men are in denial. They are lying to their intimate partners, their sexual partners, and they are lying to the person that they see in the mirror."

Lisotta has written for The Nation and L.A. Weekly.