• Join The Fed
• Advertise with The Fed

• About Us
• Contact

In This Issue

• Scandal Pol Denies It All
• Hipster Ironic Since Age 14
• Baby Names May Be Lame
• AIDS Continues Dance Marathon Win Streak
• Jeff Sachs, Meet Anna Nicole
• Tales of the Inexpressible: Plumbing
• Iraq Gets Improbably Pale Spring Break Vacationers
• Compare, Contrast.
• Pics Worth 978 Words
• A Primer for the Primaries
• SEXILED: The Board Game
• Online Dating Adventures
• Well Bread
• Men Secretly Letting Their Hair Down and Asses Up
• Anthropomorphism
• Lerner Hall: Time to Take Out The Trash
• Fed Bash, Fed Bash, Fed Bash

Doreen Lam

"Aww, honey! You shouldn't have!"

Every so often, a fad sweeps the nation, altering everything in its wake. One can change societal notions as to what constitutes normalcy in practically every realm. Recently, one fad has become so prolific it has already infiltrated most major cities, redefining societal standards of sexuality. From Atlanta to L.A., men are getting married and going gay. No, they are not pursing gay marriage, nor are they leaving a heterosexual marriage after having realized they were gay. These men are in serious, heterosexual relationships but have open, unattached sex with other men on the side. They are having their cake and sucking it too.

This subculture has grown exponentially within the past several years in larger American cities like Cleveland and New York. Married and single men alike, who consider themselves heterosexual outside the intoxicating, humid air of the bathhouses they flock to for no-strings-attached hookups, are escaping to have noncommittal relations with other men. They tell no one about these trysts except one another. Thus the term, "on the down-low" or "DL" was born.

According to The New York Times, these men "date or marry women and engage sexually with men they meet only in anonymous settings." For them, married is now the new gay.

This trend has become so popular it has spurred fads of its own. Other men, uninterested in homosexuality but enamored with the idea of secretly engaging in acts their wives would not allow, have begun to form "DL" circles of their own. For instance, in Philadelphia, one of the most obese cities in the world, overweight men forced into diets by their wives have formed the HDL-a group that meets late at night in obscure pizza and cheesesteak restaurants to secretly eat high cholesterol foods.

In the south, the Gown-low has begun to attract many members. In this group, southern gentlemen, jealous of their daughters' large, opulent cotillions, get together and throw all-male debutante balls, complete with music and flowing champagne.

In New England, the Zounds! Low has become incredibly popular among secret Shakespeare enthusiasts. A member explains, "Methinks my wife doth protest too much. Does a man who loves florid words not make a man? The weaker sex shall never understand our woes!"

In Midwestern cities, the Clown-low is quickly growing. Men in these areas, wanting desperately to act out their clowning fantasies without dealing with any of the societal implications of doing so, get together and put on face paint and large pants in secret. These men refuse to be associated with "carnies" a member who goes by Sillybottom tells us. Between long drags on a cigarette he explained that their families and friends find the lives of circus-folk appalling and indecent. "For now," Sillybottom explains, "until society grants us the same rights as they do non-clowners, this will have to do." With two honks of his nose and a heaving sigh, he left the room.

Men the world over are casting society's role aside and following what their heart desires. Their acts are inspiring to many, but equally horrifying to others. A teenage girl, requesting to remain nameless, confided in a colleague that she found her cotillion gown in her father's polo bag. "Sure, I had, like, heard about weird guys having those fake cotillions, but I thought Daddy would never! Now I know what he really meant when he said he was going to tack up Cynthia! It's not only the name of his Polo pony, it's also his debutante name! Mummy started sleeping with the gardener, and now my life is like, totally ruined!" We have no idea what the greater implications will be down the road, but this is for certain: things will never be the same.