Posted on 04/21/2007 2:00:08 PM PDT by wagglebee
A Melbourne man who fantasised about contracting HIV before actually being infected by the virus has spoken of a gay subculture in which infection is seen as "desirable".
The 20-year-old man, who does not want to be named, told Fairfax newspapers both complacency about the virus and the wish to have unprotected sex with an HIV-positive man he was in love with led him to become infected.
"I wasn't actively seeking it, but maybe there were parts of me, dark corners, that wanted it, that were thinking, 'Let's just do it and get it over and done with and then it won't be an issue'," he said.
The young professional is the first to speak out about "bug chasing", a behaviour in the gay community in which men seek to become infected with HIV.
The phenomenon was highlighted at the recent committal hearing for Melbourne man Michael Neal.
Mr Neal was accused of deliberately spreading the virus.
A HIV-positive man said in court that "bug chasing" was "a big thing out there" and that he had been pursued on the internet by a man wanting the bug.
"I just kept reminding him that it was not glamorous," a witness told the court.
Dawn Wilcock, of Positive Women Victoria, a support group for HIV-positive women, said the reaction showed a need for Melbourne's gay community leaders to stop dismissing claims of the subculture as an urban myth.
"There's a lot of defensive and protective behaviour going on that is not addressing the potential repercussions of this," Ms Wilcock said.
"It's a real problem. We know that 75 per cent of Victorian women infected with HIV are contracting the virus from long-term male partners, so the health campaigns targeting gay men need to target others in the community who would never publicly identify themselves as being gay, too."
The HIV-positive man said some men going to group-sex parties with HIV-positive men might want to "join the club" and have unprotected sex more freely.
"I have had an extremely intoxicated person claim that he wanted it once," he said. "I fobbed him off and he never came asking for it again."
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I'm not going to say a word. Not one word. Nope. Not one. I refuse.
Ok...I mean wow...darn. I can’t think of anything better to say, this article is just out there.
There is something to this. Some gays want the bug so they will be seen as victims and get taken care of.
Pathetic
Or hope to be...
No offense, but Rush mentioned this bug chasing thing many many years ago. I guess you Australians are lucky and didn’t have it hit down there until recently.
If it's "desirable" and not shameful then why did he ask to be unnamed?
Check this out for what Freepers had to say about this a while back:
I’m a Virginian, I’ve never been to Australia.
Well if homosexuals feel a need to have a.i.d.s to be accepted as on of the gang, then maybe we can get a Jack Kavorkian type doctor to help them in their quest.
You’re missing out. I guess. I’ve never been there, either. :p
I saw your location *after* I posted. Oops.
Yes, you will. Either that or you'll explode.:)
Yeah, but they're being sick on our dimes and dollars. "More funding for AIDS!" "More Funding for AIDS!" they demand, and the government forks over more (and more) funding for AIDS -- with our tax dollars.
And we're never thanked, are we? Just scolded about how we are too greedy and "homophobic" b/c we dare raise our voice above a whisper.
yet more proof that the Democrats are a Death Cult.
I know a lot of people who have been to Australia and say that it is wonderful.
I suppose for the same reason those Islamic hatchet men, (so eager to die for allah and get their 72 virgins) always wear a mask or scarf when they're on film or in photos. I mean you think they'd be tickled pink to let everyone know:
And the sickness is pervasive throughout a mainstream media that will NEVER warn about the health risks of the homosexual lifestyle.
We are all browbeaten into acceptance of homsexuality and are never allowed to question it for fear of being branded homophobic.
Meanwhile thousand die from a variety of diseases that are prevalent amongst them.
I'd wager more people die each year from diseases directly attributable to a homosexual lifestyle than are killed in Iraq.
Yeah, and the media has made this a *glamorous* disease. I can’t understand it, but I guess it’s like kids who get obsessed with being vampires and stuff....
susie
Because he realizes just how stupid he really is?
susie
Oh my goodness, so homosexuality is a quagmire! We need to set a time table to get out!
susie
Darwinism.
It’s a slow suicide ..... if they are really serious about it they should refuse all medical treatment, but no, these idiots will end up soaking up millions in health care claims.
I’m going to say the unpolitically correct thing right now and hope that my comment doesn’t get yanked. Reagan should have instituted a quarantine policy on every person known to have HIV and AIDS in America. With a handful of exceptions, the disease is spread through the recklessness of the infected, namely by allegedly “bi-sexual” men and idiotic, moronic, utter and complete Darwinian byproduct known as “bug chasers.”
There are a lot of gays out there who want to live outrageous, totally uninhibited lives filled with anonymous sex. They are also very into drugs.
If you’ve ever listened to a drug addict they don’t think straight. Some will tell you they are “in love with the needle”. The culture and all the sicknesses around it get tied in all together.
If that’s how you are living, then I would think the stress of worrying about getting HIV is more than the stress of having it.
Has anyone here ever watched the show Intervention? It’s creepy, but an important window into the mind of the addict. There have been several shows about men that live this way, and drugs and disease are more than a passive part of them. They want the lifestyle. Then like all the dirtiness of it.
I’ve heard of this before, this is just a further indication that providing free condoms is not the answer liberals say it is.
Posted on 01/30/2003 7:37:01 AM PST by Tomalak
The posting on the Internet message board is headlined, ‘I want lots of Christmas Gifts: Leeds UK’. The message wasn’t left by a child who had been anxious to maximise his return from Father Christmas. It had been posted by Jon, a gay librarian from Leeds. The ‘gifts’ this 28- year-old is after don’t come wrapped in shiny paper, and, unlike the average Christmas present, they will last way beyond Boxing Day. The gift that Jon wants is HIV.
I came across Jon and other ‘bug-chasers’ while working on a television documentary about the search for extreme pleasure in a risk-averse world. Last week Rolling Stone magazine claimed that 25 per cent of all new HIV infections in the United States come from ‘bug-chasers’. In the past few days controversy has raged in America — the Christian Right taking delight at this confirmation of all its beliefs about the sinfulness of promiscuous homosexuality, and liberals getting angry at the exposure of a practice that even the most open-minded find at best distasteful, at worst criminally selfish.
Whatever the true percentage of new infections caused by bug-chasing, there can be no doubt that the phenomenon is real. There are bug-chasers throughout Britain. Alongside Jon the librarian are Ewan the corporate lawyer and Simon the nurse — to mention only those whom I got to know best. These otherwise ordinary citizens believe that their desire for disease is rational; it is their way of achieving the ultimate intimacy that guides all human relationships. For them getting ‘pozzed-up’ — acquiring HIV — is the greatest gift that they could possibly get, a spiritual experience.
I first met Jon on his recently deleted website, where he went under the name of ‘Pookie’. His homepage was as twee as his nickname. Amid the garish graphics there were pictures of him enjoying Christmas lunch with his mum and gran. Then, almost casually, Pookie invites you to participate in a little questionnaire. Echoing the cheesy Spice Girls hit, he asks, ‘So you want to be my lover?’ Multiple-choice questions follow: ‘I love bareback [anal sex without a condom]?’; ‘I am HIV Poz?’; ‘Pookie is neg. I will still fuck him bare?’ Answer yes to each of these, and the screen flashes, ‘OK, so Pookie thinks you are the hottest thing since sliced bread and wants you to plow his arse Now!’ His email address is offered to allow speedy contact.
Pookie — Jon — told me that he had thought about ‘chasing’ (seeking HIV infection) since he first realised that he was gay as a teenager. To begin with, he used condoms ‘because that was the thing to do’. But he always had a ‘nagging feeling’ that he didn’t want to use them: ‘The only way I can explain it is that there is a whole mixture of feelings and emotions rolled into one. It’s love of bareback; it’s excitement; it’s fear; it’s control; it’s individuality; and a whole host of other emotions as well. A lot of guys have said to me, “Why not just keep barebacking and it will happen sooner or later.” Yes, that would probably be true, but I want to know exactly when it happens, and I want to know who it is that helps me out; a kind of history if you like. I wouldn’t get that from some anonymous fuck.’
Jon is not alone. Other men I talked to also want to be aware of the moment of infection. As far as the ‘bug-chasers’ are concerned, the man who gives them ‘the gift’ is a hero, brave enough to ignore convention. One man told me that he had taped his ‘conversion’; it had pride of place in his VHS collection — just as videos of the birth of a child do in millions of suburban front-rooms.
These men know that what they want is overwhelmingly likely to hasten their death. ‘The excitement, I guess, comes from the risk aspect; as does the fear, I guess,’ says Jon. ‘I don’t want to reach 70 or above! The control aspect is that with something as final as HIV I have to take focus of what is left of the time I have.’ The language that he uses is macabre, very like that of the patient told he has unwittingly caught a terminal disease. ‘Yes, it could only be a matter of a couple of years, or it could be 15 or 20; however long, it will make me put some focus to my life.’
The bug-chasers want to belong to the most exclusive club of all, one that will make them feel special permanently, and from which they can never be ejected. Ewan, the corporate lawyer who ‘chased’ and then ‘converted’, said to me, ‘I got to the point where I want to live my life, not worry about what other people think. I want to be who I am, out of the rat race. I am fed up with my life being about work. I want to be a real man.’
Real men such as the bug-chasers are not frightened of unpalatable truths. Jon told me, ‘As for the repercussions when I do “convert” [become HIV positive] — yes, it will be painful both for me when I get ill, and for my family and friends. I know I will die from this disease — assuming no major jumps in medical science in the near future. I know it will be extremely hard on those around me.... I know it will be very painful.... But I still want to do this.’ It may seem bizarre but the ‘chasers’ see themselves as responsible in that they are planning and thinking about their conversion. They draw a distinction between their behaviour and that of those who ‘bareback’ casually, knowing the likely consequences but desperate to pretend that it won’t happen to them.
Getting ‘pozzed’ is not as easy as one might think. HIV is difficult to catch. In an age when so many positive people are being successfully treated with combination therapy, unprotected sex with a positive man is in no way an automatic ticket to infection. Post after post on the Net speaks of the desperate search for the elusive ‘high viral load’ needed to improve the chances of infection: ‘London. Irish lad here wants to be converted by a hung pozy top. Make me positive now so I can collect as many strains as possible. Want gentle top, want nice easy conversion.’ One chaser even describes how before his conversion his poz impregnator had abandoned medication for a fortnight to increase the potency of his seed.
The desire to have unprotected sex free from fear is undoubtedly part of the attraction for the bug-chasers. The pro-barebackers believe that gay sex has been sanitised and medicalised by the practice of safe sex, and are desperate to reclaim it. They even have a logo, a play on no-smoking signs, that shows a condom-covered penis with a big red line through it.
But for the bug-chasers I spoke to the search for HIV was about a good deal more than the enhanced pleasure of raw intercourse. They wanted HIV to change their lives. Principally they wanted to emphasise the otherness of ‘queer identity’. Not for them the gay image of the soap-opera hero, ‘out’ entrepreneur or reality-TV winner: ‘I don’t want to be a straight gay, with a his-and-his Ikea chargecard and a standing order to Stonewall,’ one told me.
It is this rejection of acceptance, this two fingers to tolerance, that frightens the mainstream gay lobby. The bug-chasers are not afraid of desire, and they are not afraid to pay the price for expressing themselves so totally. I reaffirmed this with Jon via Instant Messenger: ‘Matthew: u r prepared to die? Jon: yes. Matthew: crumbs — how come? Jon: well if i wasn’t then I wouldn’t be chasing — i don’t think you can be a serious chaser without accepting all the eventualities of your actions — sickness and death are two of the major ones.’
Bug-chasing is out there. No amount of outrage can stop it. For Jon and those like him, ‘the gift’ is the ultimate high. These are determined men. As Jon says, ‘Each time I arrange to meet a poz guy and he doesn’t show up, it’s like a huge kick in the stomach, and I start all over again.’
Matthew Laza works on BBC 1’s Politics Show. The names of the ‘chasers’ in this article have been changed to protect their identity.
“...of a gay subculture in which infection is seen as “desirable”.
In the liberal socialist culture, a person’s value to society is defined by their need. The greater their need, the greater their value.
But you want other people to pay for your medical bills and prescriptions to treat it.
When I contracted TB in the ‘70’s, I was locked in a TB ward at Milwaukee General for more than half a year before the docs figured out I had “atypical” TB and was not contagious, aaand,,, that I probably got it from working in the garden. I wasn’t happy about my confinement, but I understood the need for it. I will never understand why AIDS patients weren’t locked up for the good of society in general!
How does a bunch of homos in Australia trying to get AIDS prove anything about the Democrats?
What a great deal..! They get FOCUS and society gets what? A treatment bill until death of a MILLION DOLLARS OR MORE...?
The rational for motorcycle helmet laws is that in an age of more or less socialized medicine the riding decisions of the individual end up impacting society's wallet in the hospital.
What kind of outcry would we hear if instead appreciable numbers of men were going out and DELIBERATELY (non-fatally) crashing their motorcycles...?
Stand in their shoes for a minute.
The ‘positive’ members of their community will have their names on quilts, have candles lit for them in solemn remembrance, perhaps get some airtime on a PBS special.
That’s some serious perks for a narcissist.
Of course this conflicts with God's desire that one man marry one woman, stay married for the rest of their lives, have children and teach them to love the Lord.
It is, and Howard is a true leader.
What a surprise. Australia was populated by prisoners, so this makes perfect sense.
Now kids, that's what we call an oxymoron.
My wife HATES flying and there is no way that I can convince her to sit on a plane for that long (even in first class, which is the only way I would get on a plane for that long). I’ve looked into cruises there from the west coast, but I don’t know when we would both be able to take five weeks of vacation at the same time.
These fools will really be in a fix if the “bug” were to mutate and have a shorter incubation period. Let’s say that one were to die within the year of contracting AIDs. Then, the world would find quick relief from this culture of zombies.
I fly to Asia a few times a year(17 hour flight)and it is grueling to say the least. Yeah, 5 weeks off is nearly impossible to take off.
www.settingcaptivesfree is a great website if anyone needs help in addictions and porn or whatever their problem is.
Plus, the cost of the cruise I would want to take with a big enough cabin would be about $30K a person. Which is about ten times what we spend on a really nice trip to the Caribbean for two weeks.
This reporting concerns a phenomenon that began getting news reports as long ago as 1998. So, its not new. The reporting has, since then, often referred to the insane young men that intentionally seek infection as “bug chasers”.
You sold me!
‘...I am fed up with my life being about work. I want to be a real man.’
Does he not realize his lifestyle is the opposite of being a real man?
These “men” have watched their friends waste away in hospital beds being cared for. I often wonder if that’s what they’re really chasing.
If homosexuals want to get this disease, why are there so many tears in the homosexual ‘community’ about why government isn’t giving enough money to researchers to find a cure?
Carlos nonchalantly asks whether his drink was made with whole or skim milk. He takes a moment to slurp on his grande Caffe Mocha in a crowded Starbucks, and then he gets back to explaining how much he wants HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. His eyes light up as he says that the actual moment of transmission, the instant he gets HIV, will be “the most erotic thing I can imagine.” He seems like a typical thirty-two-year-old man, but, in fact, he has a secret life. Carlos is chasing the bug.
Carlos in New York’s Greenwich Village, the neighborhood where he usually hangs out. He is tall, with a large build, and plenty of gay men find him attractive. His longish, curly-wavy hair is jet-black with golden highlights, and his face is soft and just a bit feminine. He has a very appealing smile and laugh, and he’s a funny guy sometimes. The conversation veers from the banal — his fascination with the reality show The Amazing Race — to his desire for HIV.
Carlos dismisses living with HIV as a minor annoyance. Like most bug chasers, he has the impression that the virus just isn’t such a big deal anymore: “It’s like living with diabetes. You take a few pills and get on with your life.”
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