This article is based on my experience with translating research about AIDS, masculinity and risk in Malawi into the public sphere. My work was misinterpreted as demonstrating that African men want to get AIDS because they think it reaffirms their masculinity. I use the concept of gender-as-knowledge to organize my analysis of this response. I argue that media representations of AIDS in 21st century Africa are filtered through a centuries-old prism of racialized gender knowledge, in which African men are presumed to be irrational, sexually voracious, and uninhibited. This article concludes with cautions about the complexities of translating social research into the public sphere.