Keith Boykin, an openly gay black man who served as a special assistant for media affairs in the Clinton White House and is a contestant on the Showtime reality show "American Candidate," thinks that King is profiting from creating a culture of fear among black women and perpetuating negative stereotypes about black men. "We've had this [AIDS] epidemic for 25 years now," Boykin said. "Black people have been dying for that entire time, and nobody has done anything about it. Suddenly now there's this D.L. story, but they don't want to talk about the issue [of sexual responsibility] -- they want to talk about whether your man is on the D.L.," he said. "I think it's tragic to have another series of stories that portrays black men as predators. Black women are looking for answers [about HIV], and they have no answers to latch onto -- and here comes a guy who says he has the answers."

King wouldn't directly address Boykin's claims, only saying that sure, women are scared -- and they should be. "You can't bring this subject matter to the forefront without causing fear," he says. "It's just natural and going to happen. I think this message has to create fear in order to change behavior."

During the question and answer session after the panel in Washington, a few women asked for advice about discussing sex with a partner. "How many women here have talked to their man about condoms, sexual health and HIV status?" King asked. Only three women raised their hands.

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."

Discovering that your supposedly straight partner has been cheating on you with a man is a shocking betrayal. If you contract HIV because of his infidelity, says Washington social worker and fellow panelist Diane Jones, who runs a support group for women infected or affected by D.L. men, it's devastating. "It's like, what was wrong with me as a woman that made you sleep with another man?" she said. "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."

Jones says that she's seen many women start taking antidepressants -- or illegal drugs for those who can't afford health insurance -- to anesthetize themselves. "For the women in these situations, it's too much pain to even endure consciously," she says.

Stephanie Edgecombe, 53, a single mother of two and an employee of Academy for Educational Development, the not-for-profit organization that hosted the panel, says that hearing D.L. horror stories has her rethinking whether she's interested in a relationship. "When I first heard about the D.L., fear immediately set in," she said. "If I attempted to date again, this is what I have to face? Now you have to be an FBI agent? This is what is so frightening to me. Before, you had to worry about, Oh, is he a criminal. But now, this is always going to be lurking in the back of my mind when I meet someone new."

King says that for many men on the D.L., it's just too hard to be honest about their sexuality -- that the risk of ostracization from friends, family and the church is too real. If gay and/or bi black men "tell the truth," writes King, "they will be called a 'fag.' That's the worst word you can call a black man. It basically strips away your manhood. You're saying I'm soft, that I want to be a woman or that I act like a woman."

For now, many black women are paying for black men's fears about coming out. "It never ends for women -- we're always the ones left holding the bag," says social worker Jones. "And there's always some reason: 'Well, we couldn't tell you because the community is still stereotyping us.' Well, we're all victimized and oppressed in the black community -- who decided that black women are the ones at the bottom of the totem pole?"

Since many D.L. men -- and even many black men who are open about their desire for other men -- don't feel comfortable identifying as gay or bisexual, some have adopted the term "same gender loving," or SGL, as a way to distinguish their relationships from white gay culture. (In fact, King, who recently launched a small publishing company in Chicago devoted to books by and about people of color, is about to release a book about SGL relationships called "Staying Power: The Unofficial Guide to Maintaining Positive African American Male Relationships.") Novelist E. Lynn Harris says he's more comfortable with the term "SGL" than "gay" -- but he also thinks that if a label shows up too often in mainstream culture, African-Americans will eventually let it go. "If it's put out there by the press, then I think African-Americans will reject it and move on to something else," says Harris. "I just think the more society tries to label these young men, they more they're going to be harder to find."

This resistance to mainstream labels has prompted HIV/AIDS prevention organizations to tailor their outreach efforts to reach men who sleep with men but don't consider themselves gay. "I tend to talk more about behaviors," says Jay Blackwell, director of HIV education and training at the government's Office of Minority Health Resource Center. "Sometimes talking about behavior takes away some of the emotional power from some of the words. If I tell a man that his behaviors are getting him in trouble, he's more apt to listen to that than "That gay stuff you're doing is going to kill you." The HIV/AIDS arm of the CDC doesn't even use the word "homosexual" or "gay" in their studies and reports -- opting for "men who have sex with men" or "MSM"; both the CDC and the Gay Men's Health Crisis in New York are taking HIV testing to venues -- like community health fairs -- that aren't associated with gay culture.

The complex issues surrounding sexual identity in the African-American community aren't going away, says King. So he plans to continue promoting his message -- and, of course, himself. He's in the process of selling his second book -- a detailed look at the types of men who are likely to live on the D.L. "I want my second book to have the same impact this is having -- to continue to promote dialogue and provide education," he says. "I want people to say thank you, J.L., for forcing us to take a look at sexuality and sexual orientation. Hopefully when the [HIV/AIDS] numbers start decreasing, people will say it's because of this guy who stepped forward and put a face on this behavior -- that it's because of his vision that we're seeing a decrease."

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