Nobody Is Supposed to Know: Black Sexuality on the Down Low

Index

 Index ABC World News with Diane Sawyer, 105 Abdur-Rahman, Aliyyah I., 42, 46–47 abolitionist politics, 46. See also Douglass, Frederick abortion: politics of, 60 ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power), 22, 29–30; North Carolina protest, 30–31 Adorno, Theodor: Dialectic of Enlightenment, 162n19, 171n70 African American family, 39, 52; criticized as deficient, 54, 76–77, 96–97 (see also Moynihan Report); hierarchy proposed as an ideal for (Long), 109–10, 112 African American folklore, 104 Ahmed, Sara, 101 AIDS. See HIV/AIDS Akon: and Devyne Stephens, 131, 132 AllHipHop.com (AHH), 135, 137 Althusser, Louis: and Étienne Balibar, 148, 160n91, 182n3 Ang, Ien, 69; on melodrama, 72–73 anglonormativity, 23 Anthony, Captain (slave owner in My Bondage and My Freedom), 43, 44–45 anti-blackness, 21, 41, 58, 153 antigay movements, 40 antigay organizing, religious, 107–8 antiprimitivism, 48 antiretroviral drugs, 11 Antonio (Tony/Tonio) (co-narrator in On the Downlow), 38 anxieties: class, 76, 78; sexual, 65 Arnold, Kokomo: “Sissy Man Blues,” 50, 52 Arnold, Tichina, Tisha Campbell, and Duane Marin: parody of Trapped, 74 Ashe, Arthur, 8 Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC), 112–13 Atwater, Lee, 60 Aunt Hester (precursor of Esther in My Bondage and My Freedom), 45–46 authenticity, 13, 126, 134, 179n27; performance of, 83, 84–85, 91 “bad object” (Ang), 73. See also objectification Baldwin, James: “Everybody’s Protest Novel,” 63; Just above My Head, 172n14 Well-known people are listed by their known names unless further identification is significant.   INDEX Bamberger, Michael, 145 Barthes, Roland, 1 Bataille, Georges, 92–93; on death and eroticism, 82, 87, 91; on eroticism and religion, 82, 88, 170n48 Baudrillard, Jean: on simulacra, 14, 133 “behind the closet” (King), 2 Belafonte, Harry, 108 Bentham, Jeremy”: Panopticon design, 28 Berlant, Lauren, and Michael Warner: “Sex in Public,” 145 Bernstein, B. J., 110 Beyoncé: rumors about her and Jay-Z, 130, 143 Bigger Thomas (character in Native Son), 61–62, 63 Big Glass bar, 14–15. See also glass closet Big Man (character in Trapped), 74, 76, 77 Billy (co-narrator in On the Downlow), 38 binaries, 21, 31, 57, 63, 68 biopolitics, 7, 26, 28–29, 40; biopower (Foucault), 25, 161n13 bisexuality, 6, 8, 38, 129; in the blues tradition, 49 Bishop Craig (character in “Trapped”), 76 Bissinger, Buzz: “Tiger in the Rough,” 144–45, 146 black body, 52, 150, 164–65n74; and black religion, 106–7, 120; hypervisibility of, 14, 22; and queerness, 30, 132, 145–46; as the site of knowledge and ignorance, 78–79 black celebrities: assertions of heterosexuality (“No homo”), 127–28; claims to privacy, 104; coming out, 2, 135–36; speculations about queerness of, 36, 126–27, 145. See also celebrities; rumors about black celebrities black church, 94, 118; antigay rhetoric and action by church leaders, 96, 98–104, 107–8; choir leaders and a queer aesthetics in, 98–99, 100–102, 103 (see also male femininity); down-low men in Trapped involved with, 68, 69, 73–74, 80, 82; eroticism and power intertwined with, 95, 105, 111–12, 173n30. See also religion; syncretism black culture, 90–91, 116; and cultural vestibularity, 116, 118–20; religion and (see black church); temporal aspects, 40, 118–19 Black Entertainment Television (BET), 142 black masculinity, 9, 38, 46–47, 77, 81, 96, 122, 134; constraints and strictures of, 25, 100, 102; as hypermasculinity, 40; linked with criminality, 59–60, 61, 172–73n21; performance of, 83, 84–85, 91; stereotypes of, 3, 60, 68, 72. See also sexuality of black men black women, 83, 109; HIV/AIDS rates for, 1, 2, 7; migration of, 51; multiply marked bodies, 20. See also African American family blues: blue notes, 5, 156n13; as migration narratives, 39, 47, 51 (see also Great Migration); recodification of African American themes, 48; sexualities in, 48–52. See also sissy blues tradition INDEX   “Blues Highway, The,” 47–48 bodies without shame, 87 body. See black body; embodiment Bol (Brian Crawford), 143–44 Bond, Julian, 108 boogeyman, 63–66 Bordowitza, Gregg, 160–61n3 Boris Max (character in Native Son), 61–62 Bossip.com, 122, 131–33 Boyd, Anthony, 113 Boyd, Melba Joyce, 62 Boykin, Keith: Beyond the Down Low, 7 Bridget (character in Trapped), 76, 77 Brooks, Daphne, 156n12 Brooks, Daphne A.: Bodies in Dissent, 168n19 Brooks, Peter, 4, 69, 156n11 Brown, Michael, 17–18, 19 Bush, George H. W.: 1988 campaign, 39, 59, 61. See also “Weekend Passes” ad Butler, Judith...