Something’s afoul in the black community. Women are being slaughtered, intimately. According to the Center for Disease Control, this government’s health and medical watchdog, the number one killer of young black women is HIV/AIDS. Check these statistics:
* the leading cause of death for black women (including African American women) aged 25–34 years.
* the 3rd leading cause of death for black women aged 35–44 years.
* the 4th leading cause of death for black women aged 45–54 years.
* the 4th leading cause of death for Hispanic women aged 35–44 years.
Center for Disease Control website.
Part 1
There’s an epidemic in our bedrooms. We are having relationships with people we think we know, but we really don’t. We want to believe our man is faithful, ’cause after all, didn’t he say he was? We want to believe that our casual affair with a new unknown man is not too risky, because he’s so yummy. We are delusional, be it for adventure, loneliness, hoping for a love connection, or just plain ignorance.
HIV/AIDS is the number one cause of death for young black women, but what, or who, is the catalyst? Our sexual partners, be they lovers, casual encounters, or a stranger, are. Having sex these days is a new form of Russian Roulette – you know, placing a single bullet in the chamber, spinning it, placing it at your temple, and pulling the trigger. If you’re lucky, you’ll get to have unprotected sex yet another day. If you’re not. Oh well.
Who are you sexing these days? And who are they sexing or have been sexing? Do you know anything about your “companions?” Do you know the status of your own health? Why are you having unprotected sex? Sure, it might feel better to go au naturale, but those days are over. He’ll protest. He might even leave. You have to weigh what you’re really losing. You’ve lost NOTHING if your Prince turns out to be a Queen (unless you’re into that). If you have a man who will have indiscriminate, unprotected (and even protected) sex with other males (and females) and live in a lie about it, then being alone is a small price to pay.
There are too many men who have sex with other men, the original ways of spreading HIV/AIDS, who turn around and have sex with women. These same men will argue that they are not gay, they just ‘sleep’ with men. Well hells bells, that’s GAY ALL DAY. They are opportunists. They will screw whomever, whenever the situation presents itself. Now you probably would not volunteer to be a lab rat, but you are. Every time you have unprotected sex, you are experimenting with your future health.
Is sex so important that you have become complicit in your demise? Are you suicidal?
If someone you had sex with had HIV and knew it, are they an attempted murderer? In the first degree, perhaps? I mean if your infected lover knowingly has unprotected with you (or you with them), are they not guilty of devising a plan to slaughter you? Yet, you traipsed off to the lair, in heat, and willingly had sex with someone who’s history you do not know, and who could care less about your well-being.
Part 2
Being gay is not the topic here. Being on the DOWN-LOW is. A brother on the Down-low is a man who is a heterosexual publicly, but having sex with men privately. They are husbands, fathers, brothers, uncles, brothers, and boyfriends. No this is not about being Gay, but about acknowledging one’s sexuality, which trumps hiding it and exploiting others. Being on the Down-low and having unprotected sex makes the down-low man, at the least, low-down, selfish and greedy, but at it’s worse – a murderer. It would be more merciful to just pull the trigger and blow out the woman’s brains than to have her go through the suffering, displacement, and loss from being infected with AIDS. Some municipalities even have laws on their books against this type of ‘(wo)manslaughter.’
Selfishness and Carelessness. He’s guilty, and so are you. You see a man. He’s sexy, well dressed, maybe successful in his career, has a nice car, and you just got to have some of ‘dat. If all you can think of is getting your swerve on with the latest dude, with no care for the risks, then you are just as guilty. If you are more responsible than that, then ask questions and pay attention. Pay attention to the little signs – his activities, companions, habits -, and expecially pay attention to those ‘gut’ feelings you have. Sometimes they are all that you have. When you’re in it, you don’t want to see it, but you must. Tis better to err on the side of caution than to be the recipient of the gift that keeps on giving.
Is 5-20 minutes of sex worth an abbreviated life filled with misery and ending in death?
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The media doesn’t help either. All the glamorous men and women jumping each other’s bones. They’ve got everybody hopping into bed and nary a mention of a condom, forget about ‘just saying no,’ or opting to go bowling.
And watch for the latest trend that’s slyly being presented by the media under the guise of comedy – bestiality. I swear if I see another dog going at someone’s crotch — *sigh* — not funny, and there’s no telling what exotic diseases can come from that kind of activity.
Is having all this sex suppose to keep our minds off more important things like: the economy, the wars, the decay of society? Hmmm…
We must be the most foolish people on earth.
I agree that Black men and women need to take responsibility for themselves, in regards. I was having a discussion with my brother just a few weeks ago. Anytime, I make a statement regarding the foolishness of Black men and women for not taking responsibility for their own health and wellness, he retorts with the disenfranchisement argument. Just how long is that argument supposed to be valid? It is 2010, more than 25 years since AIDS became a [i]known[/i] epidemic?
The staggering numbers that are affecting the Black female population may very well have begun with low down, down low men, but it seems to be more about indiscriminate sex and the failure to believe, with all the evidence, that fat meat is greasy. I mean, the AIDS issue seems to be more about Black on Black sex than it is about gay sex, and that could only be because the very population that is most affected, still, are refusing to protect themselves. How embarrassing is that? We are not living in a remote village without exposure to media and healthcare information, yet we are the only demographic that have succumbed to this degree.
That the men are secretly down low, is definitely, an issue. However, if women have become so infected, then the threat has crossed into the core of the community. Every potential sexual partner of everyone is a risk–not just a down low brothers–EVERYONE!