According to the National Cancer Institute, African Americans may have the highest rates of prostate cancer in the world. Furthermore, black men often develop the disease at a younger age than white men, and the cancer is often more aggressive. 

Fact of life: The presence of even a single man in any support group changes the nature of the conversation about prostate cancer.

As one woman told me, “When the men aren’t there, we talk much more freely about how the disease is affecting both of us psychologically—our worries, our fears, our need to put on a brave face. And how we feel about everything that is happening— or not happening—in the bedroom.”