Almost 10 percent of men who say they're straight also happen to be having sex with men, according to a new study, one of the largest ever to specifically address "down-low" behavior.

The study, based out of New York City, found that most of the down-low men did not use condoms and that 70 percent were married. Researchers said they hoped their report would change the way doctors asked patients about their sexual behavior.

"Everyone talks about it, but it's the first time I've seen data on this issue," said Thomas J. Coates, a psychologist who specializes in sexual behavior at the University of California at Los Angeles. Even so, he said, the numbers were probably low estimates.

The results, released yesterday for the latest issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine, came from a 2003 random phone sampling of 4,193 New York residents, part of an annual household health survey. Christine Laine, senior deputy editor of the journal and an internist in Philadelphia, said the study was a heads-up to doctors that they should not make assumptions about their patients.

"If you're just asking the question 'Are you gay or straight,' the information you get may not be the information you need to know whether or not the patient has sexual behavior that puts them at risk," she said.

In a telephone interview monitored by city public-relations personnel, researchers at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene said a majority of the straight men having sex with men were born elsewhere or were minorities. But they were surprised at how many were married.

"We found that those who identified as straight but had sex with men were also less likely to be HIV tested within the last year and less likely to use a condom" than men who said they were gay, said Preeti Pathela, a research scientist at the department.

Of all the "straight" respondents, 9.4 percent had slept with a man during the previous year. Many of the men said they had just one same-sex partner over that period, but the survey did not ask about whether it was a long-term situation. The survey also did not ask about whether the men had told their female partners.

The down-low behavior has recently come into the open with former New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey now talking about being married while sleeping with men. He is scheduled to speak today on The Oprah Winfrey Show about his life as a closeted gay man.

Researchers had two thoughts about why more minority men reported being straight while having sex with men: The stigma of homosexuality is stronger in minority communities, and, in some cases, there is a culturally different definition of "heterosexual."

African American men on the "down-low" are still small in number, and Kearney worried that they would be unfairly targeted as the main source of spreading HIV through their community, where the disease continues to climb.

The survey found that only 22 percent of "down-low" men used condoms, compared with 55 percent of men who identified themselves as gay, and researchers said there could be a variety of reasons.

"It may sound simple to just use a condom, but if men are having sex on the sly, they may not want to carry condoms with them because their partners may find them," said Coates, of UCLA.

He hoped that doctors would simply start asking about sexual behavior. In one of his studies, he found that only 24 percent of doctors who specialized in HIV-positive patients asked about risky behavior.

This is cache, read story here