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None of the gay black men I know have been incarcerated, and very few were victims of sexual abuse.
Personally, I believe that what's "new" in this equation is HIV, and to a lesser extent, the internet.
The internet is allowing sexual minorities to form their own communities and enable contact in areas that were previously unheard of. A man who is not out of the closet no longer has to go to a gay club to meet a potential love interest. He meets them on gay websites of course, but also BlackPlanet, blackvoices, MegaGreek, GREEKCHAT....anyplace that there are men, there are men who sleep with men.
Conversely, women are able to communicate with each other through the internet better as well, increasing the "hype" about the phenomenon. I am not saying that women should not be careful, observant, and probing when it comes to their relationships -- they should be, because there are now fatal STD's out there that people can be bringing home.
But I do not feel that there is an explosion of black men who are in the life. They are just finding each in the same ways that society as a whole is finding itself -- through the internet. I don't think more black men will "come out" just because women want them to. But I do think women have a continued responsibility to be vigilant about their own lives, since clearly not everyone cares.
Not everyone on the DL lives a "double life"......that term originally was meant as a synonym for "discreet" not "double life." It was meant as a term for men who do not want to be spectacles, or have themselves made into spectacles. To avoid this, they remain in the closet in certain arenas: work, school, fraternity meeting, whatever. Some men date women at the same time, many do not.
I think the reason that this appears to be in crisis proportion is because of AIDS. As I said, prior to AIDS, I don't believe that any "symptom" of cheating was fatal and so even if a woman became infected with an STD, that didn't necessarily mean that her boyfriend/husband cheated with a man.
Anyway......I don't think that women should be riled up over a website that could be rife with stolen pictures. The world is smaller because of the internet, and perhaps it creates an environment that allows men of similar minds the opportunity to explore with each other sexually. But, the problem is those men who are not honest with their spouses. Not everyone who is discreet with their sexuality is dishonest about their sexuality.
And as far as so many gay men being masculine....that's because masculinity doesn't have anything to do with sexuality.
And those gay men who are attractive....hell, that's genetics.
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