Bug Chasers–Gay men who want HIV
“Bug Chasers”. That’s what they’re calling them–people who long to be HIV+. Sounds scary right?
Here is the excerpt from the Rolling Stones article:
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.”
What frustrates health-care professionals the most is that these gay men have no idea what they are doing. They’re totally self-absorbed, the article states. They don’t have any idea what’s going on with the epidemic in terms of the world or society or what impact their actions might have.
Dr. Marshall Forstein, medical director at Fenway Community Health goes on to say that “The sense of being my brother’s keeper is never discussed in the gay community because we’ve gone to the extreme of saying gay men with HIV can do no wrong. They’re poor victims, and we can’t ever criticize them.”
This is a very telling story. It was hard for me to believe that gay men would do this. Moral fiber in this country…..quickly dwindling.
May 18th, 2004 at 8:54 pm
I want narcolepsy; does that make me a bad person?
May 18th, 2004 at 10:30 pm
no. I’m not sure you do though man. I have a friend at work–she’s posted here–who has it. She doesn’t like it. She said she lives life in some ’surreal’ existance. She says it is sometimes hard to discern reality from dreams.
That’d scare the hell out of me.
May 18th, 2004 at 10:51 pm
this man doesn’t just want HIV; he wants revenge on the world. something happened to this man that has caused him to have some kind of grudge against mankind and his penisless counterparts - women. he wants HIV to spread it to other people.
i’m willing to bet this is his ultimate goal. he wishes to spread hiv.
fucker.
May 18th, 2004 at 11:18 pm
Nah. He was probably molested by a priest when he was a kid.
May 19th, 2004 at 7:51 am
I agree with Deadjimm, This guy wants to spread HIV. Plus, Poeple with AIDS are looked at as victims because it is obviously not their fault.
This dude is just plain stupid
May 19th, 2004 at 2:20 pm
Did you read the end of the article?
‘Stepping out of the cab into the rain, I ask what he will do if he finds out one day that he has succeeded in being infected — ending the fun of being a bug chaser. He stops, then says he might move on to being a gift giver: “If I know that he’s negative and I’m f*ing him, it sort of gets me off. I’m murdering him in a sense, killing him slowly, and that’s sort of, as sick as it sounds, exciting to me.”‘
May 19th, 2004 at 3:43 pm
I didn’t even read the article and I was right.
I’m so good.
May 19th, 2004 at 4:09 pm
It is actually against the law in this country to knowingly give someone a deadly virus, I think. I maybe wrong but I think it is.
May 20th, 2004 at 10:15 pm
Fun stuff, this whole Tolerence movement.
“Not that there’s anything wrong with it….”
I bet we’ll all feel differently about many of these topics 30 years from now. If any of us make it that far. I wonder what it will be like to live in a 2nd-World country called America.
May 21st, 2004 at 8:54 am
I think instead of a bug chaser he should be a bullet catcher. That way we all win, one less nut in the peanut butter. I save my sympothy for the children and rape survivors, the rest know better.