Chicago Tribune - November 25, 2001
Bob Condor

Particularly disturbing is the recent government finding that most new HIV-AIDS cases occur in blacks, who represent 13 percent of the U.S. population. Statistics indicate that 1 of every 160 African-American women carries the HIV virus, compared with 1 of every 3,000 white females.

Wyatt told Vibe writer Linda Villarosa that African-Americans have an extremely hard time talking about sex, making it difficult for women to have an honest conversation about sex or negotiate condom use.

"Black women react to the idea that we are sexually promiscuous--a myth perpetuated by the slave masters to justify rape--either by denying our sexuality or embracing the stereotype and being perpetually sexually available," Wyatt said. "Whether she's acting like [singer] Lil' Kim or a church lady, if a woman isn't comfortable with who she is and how she feels about her body, it will be hard for her to have an honest dialogue about sex or to apply whatever information she does have to her sexual decision-making."

Studies show that African-Americans typically score high on overall self-esteem, Wyatt said. The numbers fall when sexuality is the question.

"African-Americans are not a depressed population," Wyatt said during a phone interview. "We couldn't have survived this long without high self-esteem. We have weathered many social and economic struggles, such as education and employment opportunities."

The problem in large part derives from a lack of positive role models for sexual behavior, Wyatt said, and "a plethora of bad ones." The argument about young people or poor populations not knowing what causes HIV-AIDS or how to prevent it doesn't hold anymore. Studies show that 95 percent of all Americans know the basics.

Finding a solution is more elusive, although Wyatt said it has to include more African-American sex researchers. For instance, she estimated that only about 3 percent of HIV-AIDS scholars are black.

"African-Americans have long struggled to have the opportunity to define themselves, and the same issue exists in HIV-AIDS research," said Wyatt, author of the 1997 book "Stolen Women: Reclaiming Our Sexuality, Taking Back Our Lives" (John Wiley & Sons, $14.95). "We need to build a bridge to a new understanding. It is easy to label people as engaging in risky behavior and pass out condoms. But we need to understand sexuality to make the breakthroughs in prevention."

Wyatt said that means more open discussion about past sexual encounters and protective measures among potential partners. She is lead researcher on an upcoming multiuniversity study of 800 African-American couples (one partner HIV-positive and one HIV-negative) to discover what sort of communication and support works best. She also plans to publish a 2002 book about how to talk about sex.

The cutting-edge HIV-AIDS-prevention organizations are getting the point on sexual self-esteem and already are trying to develop more one-on-one counseling and related programming to address the issue. Such a strategy might prove more effective than the usual public-information campaigns.

Not that more knowledge about sexual behavior wouldn't help. For example, about 75 percent of new HIV-AIDS cases are created through sexual transmission, a third of those from heterosexual sex. Yet one study of Atlanta black women showed that almost half didn't use a condom during any sexual encounter during the previous two months, and 60 percent didn't know their partner's HIV status.

Another factor is what's called the "down low," a community of black men who have sex with both women and men. Villarosa said the media has overhyped the connection, but it is nonetheless a contributing factor to the African-American AIDS epidemic. A federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study of more than 2,000 young gay/bisexual men in the United States found that nearly 1 in 3 had unprotected sex with men in the last three months, and nearly 1 in 5 also had sex with a woman.

Wyatt said black women face another challenge not confronted by white or Latino women as World AIDS Day is marked Tuesday: A shortage of available African-American men. "There's the old saying about one true love out there for each of us," Wyatt said, "but for African-American women it doesn't mean a match in ethnicity."

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