Bugged about Bug Chasers
Bugchasing (or bug chasing) is a slang term for a subculture of gay men who desire, and actively pursue HIV infection. Bugchasers “chase the bug” by seeking sexual partners who are HIV positive for the purpose of having unprotected sex and sero-converting; giftgivers are HIV+ men who attempt to infect bugchasers with HIV.
Bugchasing is viewed with disdain by many in the gay community who consider it a dangerous and self-destructive activity, and some may be concerned that the behaviors of bugchasers may contribute to a public perception that the practice is common or encouraged by all gay people.
Rolling Stone, Jan 23, 2003:
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.
“I know what the risks are, and I know that putting myself in this situation is like putting a gun to my head,” he says. Some of that mountain music that’s so popular is playing, making the moment even more surreal as a Southern voice sings, “Keep on the sunny side of life” behind Carlos. “But I think it turns the other guy on to know that I’m negative and that they’re bringing me into the brotherhood. That gets me off, too.”
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When asked whether he is prepared to live with HIV after that “erotic” moment, 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.”
We just don’t know. There is evidence to point to the role of fatalism, depression, and hopelessness—all characteristics described in the Rolling Stone article—within HIV prevention efforts. Whether bug chasing is a big phenomenon or a tiny fetish, we have a responsibility to know the magnitude of the behavior and to try to develop interventions to address the problem.
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The Rolling Stone article is a little sensationalistic. Some of the people quoted in the article say they were misquoted or their quotes were used out of context, and Freeman did get one of the most important stats in his story wrong. He reports that an estimated 25% of all newly infected gay men are infected through “bug chasing.”
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What Freeman misses is that those 40,000 new cases are not all gay men. Only 42% of new infections annually are among men who have sex with men; 33% are through heterosexual sex, and 25% from injection-drug use.
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It is legitimate for AIDS activists to be concerned about how the general public will react to the news that there are some gay men—no matter how few—who are intentionally getting infected and knowingly infecting others. But our first and primary obligation is to stop the spread of HIV. That requires us to look at the ugly and hard questions before us. AIDS is being spread in small towns all over America, and there are people who are bug chasers. That much is clear. We all need to be less concerned about image and funding and more concerned about creating a world without AIDS.
Wah? There are people who want to catch HIV? Assuming that Carlos actually exists, he must be fatalistic indeed. Despite recent advances in treatment, I doubt anyone would find diabetes and HIV to be comparable, and yet, there it is, quoted in black and white. Completely outrageous and actually saddening.
Dusting off my degree in fictional Arm Chair Psychology, what are the surrounding factors that contribute to this phenomena?
First let’s talk about the group of gay men who already have HIV. It makes complete sense that this group would socialise together for a variety of reasons, not least of which is general rejection and lack of understanding from the rest of society. The community of HIV+ men pre-exists the supposed phenomena of bugchasing. Is this this close-knit and interdependent community a strong reason for otherwise uninfected men to want to join the “Brotherhood” The need to feel like one belongs can be very powerful. Is it self-loathing and a general dissatisfaction with protected sex? Carlos has found it OK to pursue an HIV infected man, AKA “The Gift Giver.”
It must be difficult to be Carlos. A promiscuous gay man constantly under the fear of catching the virus. Maybe his view is once you have HIV you no longer have to worry about getting it. Once you have it, and your partner(s) have it too, you can have as much unprotected sex as you’d like - OK, not really, there are other STDs - without worry that you will be transmitted the disease, because you already have it.
Furthermore, if you decide that you want HIV then, when you eventually you do contract it, you had consented to it’s influence in your life, expected to be just a nuisance like diabetes.
When I realized people could make fun of my name I started making fun of it myself. I took the power away from others by afflicting myself with abuse. I think that Bug Chasing is an attempt to take the power away from the virus by consenting to it. It has not invaded his life, it has been welcomed in.
I realize condoms aren’t as fun, but is bareback sex really worth becoming a carrier of an epidemic virus? Is contracting a virus that will kill you in about 11 years worth a hypothedical “erotic” moment?
Carlos cannot donate blood in an emergency, or if he is injured and bleeding in an accident, he could, while there is only a small chance of this, infect others if his blood gets mixed up with theirs. Moreover, when the cocktails stop working, and HIV gives way to AIDS, I think Carlos will regret his decision.
Maybe not. I suppose he has simply come out of the closet as a suicidal nihilist.
About HIV… Has killed 25 million since 1981. Check yourself before you wreck yourself.