It’s essential when discussing DL men that I clarify what they are. Especially since the word has been used without a real understanding. DL stands for down low. It’s similar to being closeted, but the major difference is that DL men are “dabbling” in the rainbow world while going home to their wives and kids.
I’ve been seeing lots of people: gays, trans, cis women, and even cis men talking about DL men but not acknowledging the real reason why they exist. Let’s talk about all the reasons why.
How It Usually Starts
It’s important to note that DL is traditionally a black gay term, as nonblack queers don’t typically have this type of man running amok. A lot of black gay terms have been taken to mainstream media without any real understanding of them. Trade, for example, is often used in combination with DL when it doesn’t make sense.
DL men are determined to live separate lives at the same time. Let’s make up a name so I’m not typing DL fifty eleven times. If Trey (this is a FAKE name btw) grew up in a very church-heavy suburban area, he would have all sorts of responsibilities placed on him at a young age to be the “respectable” Black man. Meaning his life would be modeled after every nonblack American man, except with more emphasis to stay in line.
Trey likely would grow up with expectations to go to college for a job he doesn’t like, get married to a woman he never loved, and have kids he never planned to have. Throughout his life, he might’ve had an experience or two with other guys, but he suppressed these thoughts so he could play the family man role. At some point, though, he’ll get more and more unhappy and decide to explore outside of his marriage. Playing his loving husband/dad role by day, but having an affair or frequenting queer spaces at night.
On the other side of the coin, you have Black (if you’ve seen Moonlight, you get the reference), a man who grew up in the hood where he had to toughen up fast. Black didn’t have any expectations of school or marriage, just to be a “man” in an environment where manhood has to look a specific way. Black might have a girlfriend or baby mama or two; he shows his masculinity by going from woman to woman and involving himself in dangerous things like drug dealing and gang life. Both spaces where queerness is not accepted. So he tiptoes with the other side every once in a while, he might like a trans woman or a fem queen of some kind, and hook up with them after midnight.
The secret partners of these DL men aren’t supposed to expect anything more than just that. After-midnight sex and the occasional text about when their next fling is gonna be. That is the “trade off” (see what I did there).
The Contribution
Before we get any further, I want to make it clear that all DL men should be held accountable for cheating on their wives/girlfriends and killing people who spill their tea! I’m not caping for DL men at all, just pointing out the nuances of them.
Moving on, the recent discourse around DL men is that they should live their truth and stop tricking women into being their wives and baby mamas. (Which is true!) However, the cultural landscape we live in is so queerphobic that it makes living a loud and proud life as a queer person practically impossible. DL men will always exist until all of these groups stop contributing to it:
Straight Women
Ladies, I come in peace. A lot of these DL men are actually bisexual or pansexual, but because women constantly talk about how they would never date a bi/pan man, this encourages men to never tell them the truth. These women really only reject bi/pan men because they have this preconceived notion that all queer men have AIDS or HIV. Which comes from the media pushing HIV as something only gay people have, WHICH ISN’T TRUE AND NEVER HAS BEEN TRUE!
The Gays and Dolls
When you sleep with a DL man, you enable his behavior. You enable him to view you as not only expendable, but also fuel this idea that you are a deep dark secret he must do whatever it takes to hide (more on that later). Some of the gays like to fuel the flames by exaggerating what a DL man is, so they can drive straight women crazy in exchange for money.
Other Men
These straight guys love to impress each other by showing off. How many girls, money, cars, homes, and shoes they got are things men flex on each other about all the time. Rap music was literally built on this masculine culture. But a queer man can’t be impressive or cool, because queerness is viewed as weak, especially in the eyes of a straight man.
Religion and Politics
The world treats queer people terribly, and even worse if they’re black. Hence, the reason why DL men are much more prominent in Black culture than any other race. We all know Black people LOVE that motherfucking church, and those sermons where they’re talking about sodomy and buck breaking are nothing but fodder to make homosexuality seem against God.
Don’t even get me started on politics….while there are still laws in place to protect queer liberation, politics is so tethered to religion that our rights can easily be put on the chopping block any day. Marriage, adoption, surrogacy, PrEP, and even just the right to get justice after experiencing a hate crime can easily be taken away from us.
When we look at all of the contributors, of course, these men would be on the down low. Why be known as queer when you can continue to benefit from straight male privilege?
Straight Male Privilege
There are so many privileges straight men have that the girls and gays will never have access to. Coming out of the closet and admitting to being queer would close too many doors that once benefited these men. A lot of them are passable; they don’t look or act queer, so people just assume that they’re straight.
However, the people that these down low men are attracted to usually are trans women (who may or may not be passable) or fem boys/butch queens (who definitely aren’t passable). So owning up to their queerness would also mean owning up to dating a person who doesn’t fulfill the ideal structure of what a man is. (Trans women are WOMAN and trans men are MEN btw!) Which, in a DL man’s mind, puts him in a vulnerable position because now people will be able to judge him.
At the core of DL men, they are deeply insecure and traumatized by the straight agenda we’re all forced to follow from birth. In my Yes, Girls Can Be Homophobic Too post, I brought up how the gays and the girls experience the same type of bigotry, just in different, more specific ways:
Women experience misogyny because there is a deep-rooted hatred for these people who weren’t born as men; they are “lesser”.
Queer men experience homophobia because rejecting manhood by daring to not fall in line with the other boys makes them “lesser”.
See the similarities, both marginalized groups reject masculinity—not even on purpose—we just dared to be born this way! The social power that straight men have is so rewarding in our culture that these DL men have no intentions of ever letting it go. Because as long as they appear straight, they’ll never lose their power. “The blood STILL works, it will never lose its power!” If you understand that reference, congratulations, you’re a traumatized church gay lmfao!
DL Men Kill
Some of these down-low men are so gung-ho about keeping their secret that they will kill themselves or even you. You know it’s serious when he and you are both on the receiving end of the gun. And if you don’t believe me, did you know that the life expectancy for Black trans women was 35?! Mostly due to lack of healthcare, poverty, and primarily violence in the community.
It’s not normal for someone who likes you to want to take your life from you. And while I know some of these men can be hella fine and sexy, is it really worth it? The DL men like “Black” (the fake hood n**** I came up with) will pursue you, have sex with you, be mad that they enjoyed having sex with you, and then strangle you to death while you’re still trying to get cleaned up!
DL men like “Trey” (the fake Black family guy I came up with) would likely just pay you off to keep his secret cause remember, he has a “respectable” image to uphold, so he won’t kill you (at least not himself, hitmen do exist).
Even if you’re not the secret lover of these DL men and just a passerby who saw him with another man or trans girl, they’ll kill you too to keep the secret safe.
You Need To Value Your Own Life (And Dignity)
I say this with love, but why is it that some of y’all (speaking to the gays and dolls) will just go seeking DL men and be shocked when he breaks your heart or worse? All of this rah rah straight women are having right now over DL men is absolutely driving me crazy too, cause some of y’all are just saying nonsense. I once saw a girl say, “Men who go to the movies are gay cause he should be a real man and go to work,” bitch please!
If you really want to know how a man might be DL, you have to use your fucking brain and stop listening to hacks like the Dl Whisperer cause he doesn’t know wtf he’s talking about either! (that psycho ponk told these already gullible straight women that men who like sports are gay……..) It’s the men who can never be honest with you, it’s the men who are constantly defensive over their masculinity, it’s the men who devote their lives to playing tough! Those are the men you should be scared of being DL!
I beg of all of you reading this to value your own life and dignity. When I am on the actual dating apps, and I see men who don’t put their sexuality on their profile, I immediately abort mission!!! That’s the #1 sign with online dating! Literally today, I had a car appointment, and the mechanic was looking me up and down with this curious look in his eyes, but didn’t say anything, though clearly wanted to. That’s the #1 sign for real-life interactions! And for my cishet women, simply pay attention to the way he treats other women, but especially the gays! If he’s constantly ranting about women and/or talking about how he hates sissies, that’s your cue to exit stage left!
Before I go, I’ll leave you all with this: I do not condone the behavior of DL men, but I understand that they exist because the system forces them into believing they have to. Until this fucked place magically becomes the land of the free that it is promised to be, we’re just simply going have to disengage with these men! Stop fucking them, stop dating them, stop having kids with them! And if they’re really serious about you, maybe they’ll own up to their attraction towards you. But let’s be honest, DL men are the toxic scaredy cats of the community, so all we can do is leave them in the dark where they’re clearly the most comfortable staying.
love this! it's also sad seeing how many gay men fetishize straight masculinity so much that they ignore their political liberation from heteronormativity & masculine ideals for sexual desires rooted in preserving gender expression hierarchy.