In the twenty year history of her Emmy award-winning talk show, Oprah Winfrey has covered just about every issue of sociopolitical importance in American culture. Along with standard talk show fare like weight loss, child rearing, and relationships, The Oprah Winfrey Show has investigated complex topics like racism, poverty, domestic violence, and sexual abuse.

From the beginning, Winfrey's show distinguished itself by personalizing, rather than sensationalizing, divisive topics, and this was accomplished in part by Winfrey's provision of a thoughtful, discussion-based atmosphere in which real people could answer questions posed by the smart, curious, and ethical host herself.

Gay people, our stories, and discussion of the discrimination we face have long been a part of Oprah. Whether covering the Brokeback Mountain phenomenon, bidding farewell to gay-centric sitcom Will & Grace, or inviting a formerly homophobic man to talk about the transformation of his beliefs after rooming with a gay man in the Castro for thirty days, Winfrey has long treated gay people as just another part of the human landscape. Perhaps even more importantly, she has also treated homophobia as a social-ill just as egregious as racism or sexual violence.

However, some critics believe that certain segments of the gay population have received better representation than others on The Oprah Winfrey Show. Two episodes in particular have been criticized for misrepresenting the lives and struggles of black gay men: the episode “A Secret Sex World: Living on the ‘Down Low'” and “Terry McMillan Confronts Her Gay Ex-Husband.” Some felt that the episodes portrayed black gay men as dishonest about their sexuality and at least partially responsible for the increase in rates of HIV and AIDS in black women.

In the “Down Low” episode (air date April 16, 2004), author J.L. King promoted his book On the Down Low: A Journey into the Lives of 'Straight' Black Men Who Sleep with Men, which examines the phenomenon of purportedly heterosexual African American men who secretly have sex with other men.

Winfrey herself introduced the subject in the context of a larger issue, as one of the “big reasons” for the rise of AIDS in African Americans, particularly African American women. King joined Winfrey onstage and discussed his own history of clandestine sexual encounters with other men while he was married and raising a family.

King was adamant in his assertion that life on the “down low” was about “gratification, not orientation” and made it clear that he did not identify as gay. He told Winfrey, “The act of the sex is homosexuality, but I don't want to get caught up in the whole gay culture, because the media and people look at gay people as being less than a man [in the black community]. The media has let white gay people feel more comfortable in their skin and it's accepted. The greatest taboo is to be black and homosexual, and I refuse to be labeled and classified that folks will look at me as something different. I am a man."

Women who had contracted HIV and AIDS from male partners who were secretly having sex with other men followed King's story with their own comments.

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