Confessions of a "bug chaser" from Rolling Stone Magazine
bobandcarole
The men who long to be HIV+ 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."
I met 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' tone never
changes when switching from one topic to the other.
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." Carlos spends the afternoon
continually calling a man named Richard, someone he met on the
Internet. They met on barebackcity.com about a year ago, while Carlos
was still with his boyfriend. That boyfriend left because Carlos was
having sex with other men and because he was interested in barebacking
-- the practice of having sex without a condom. Carlos and Richard are
arranging a "date" for later that day.
Carlos is part of an intricate underground world that has sprouted,
driven almost completely by the Internet, in which men who want to be
infected with HIV get together with those who are willing to infect
them. The men who want the virus are called "bug chasers," and the men
who freely give the virus to them are called "gift givers." While the
rest of the world fights the AIDS epidemic and most people fear HIV
infection, this subculture celebrates the virus and eroticizes it.
HIV-infected semen is treated like liquid gold. Carlos has been chasing
the bug for more than a year in a topsy-turvy world in which every
convention about HIV is turned upside down. The virus isn't horrible
and fearsome, it's beautiful and sexy -- and delivered in the way that
is most likely to result in infection. In this world, the men with HIV
are the most desired, and the bug chasers will do anything to get the
virus -- to "get knocked up," to be "bred" or "initiated into the
brotherhood."
Like a lot of sexual fetishes and extreme behaviors, bug chasing could
not exist without the Internet, or at least it couldn't thrive. Prior
to the advent of Web surfing and e-mail, it would have been practically
impossible for bug chasing to happen in any great numbers, because it's
still not acceptable to walk up to a stranger and say you want the
virus. But the Internet's anonymity and broad access make it possible
to find someone with like interests, no matter how outlandish. Carlos
surfs online about twenty hours a week looking for men to have sex
with, usually frequenting sites such as bareback.com and
barebackcity.com, plus a number of Internet discussion groups. Most of
the Web sites use the pretense that they actually are about
barebacking, which is in itself risky and controversial but still a
long way from bug chasing. For the Web sites, that distinction is at
best razor-thin and more often just an outright lie. "We got Poz4Poz,
Neg4Neg and bug chasers looking to join the club," the welcome page to
barebackcity.com, which claims 48,000 registered users, up from 28,000
about a year ago, recently said. "Be the first to seed a newbie and
give him a pozitive attitude!"
Within this online community, bug chasers revel in their desires, using
their own lingo about "poz" and "neg" men, "bug juice" and "conversion"
from negative to positive. User profiles include names such as
BugChaser21, Knockmeup, BugMeSoon, ConvertMeSir, PozCum4NegHole and
GiftGiver. The posters are upfront about seeking HIV, even extremely
enthusiastic, possibly because the Web sites are about the only place a
bug seeker can really express his desires openly. Under turn-ons, a
poster called PozMeChgo craves a "hot poz load deep in me. I really
want to be converted!! Breed me/seed me!" Carlos' profile on one Web
site lists his screen name as ConvertMe, and he says he wants a man "to
fill me up with that poison seed." His AOL Instant Messenger name is
Bug Juice Wanted.
It's not uncommon to see people post replies to the profiles
encouraging the men to seek HIV. One such comment reads, "This guy
knows what he wants!! I would love to plant my seeds :)) Come and join
the club. The more we are, the stronger we are." A Yahoo! spokeswoman
confirms that the company shuts down such sites when it receives notice
that the subscribers are promoting HIV infection or any other kind of
harm to one another, but the company doesn't go looking for bug chasers
in its thousands of discussion groups, most established by subscribers
themselves. Recently, it was easy to find two discussion groups on
Yahoo! that promoted bug chasing, one called barebackover50 and one
called gayextremebareback. The first discussion group was established
in 1998 and had 1,439 members at the end of 2002. Yahoo! closed the
group after Rolling Stone inquired about it.
Condoms and safe sex are openly ridiculed on bug-chasing Web sites,
with many bug chasers rebelling against what they see as the dogma of
safe-sex education; constantly thinking about a deadly disease takes
all the fun out of sex, they say, and condoms suck. Carlos agrees and
says getting HIV will make safe sex a moot point. "It's about freedom,"
he says. "What else can happen to us after this? You can fuck whoever
you want, fuck as much as you want, and nothing worse can happen to
you. Nothing bad can happen after you get HIV."
For some, the chase is a pragmatic move. They see HIV infection as
inevitable because of their unsafe sex or needle sharing, so they
decide to take control of the situation and infect themselves. It's
empowering. They're no longer victims waiting to be infected; rather
they are in charge of their own fates. For others, deliberately
infecting themselves is the ultimate taboo, the most extreme sex act
left on the planet, and that has a strong erotic appeal for some men
who have tried everything else. Still others feel lost and without any
community to embrace them, and they see those living with HIV as a
cohesive group that welcomes its new members and receives vast support
from the rest of the gay community, and from society as a whole. Bug
chasers want to be a part of that club. Some want HIV because they
think once they have it they can go on with a wild, uninhibited sex
life without constant fears of the virus. Getting the bug opens the
door to sexual nirvana, they say. Others can't stand the thought of
being so unlike their HIV-positive lover.
For Carlos, bug chasing is mostly about the excitement of doing
something that everyone else sees as crazy and wrong. Keeping this part
of his life secret is part of the turn-on for Carlos, which is not his
real name. That forbidden aspect makes HIV infection incredibly
exciting for him, so much so that he now seeks out sex exclusively with
HIV-positive men. "This is something that no one knows about me,"
Carlos says. "It's mine. It's my dirty little secret." He compares bug
chasing to the thrill that you get by screwing your boyfriend in your
parents' house, or having sex on your boss' desk. You're not supposed
to do it, and that's exactly what makes it so much fun, he says,
laughing.
Carlos carries another secret that he says heightens the thrill of
pursuing HIV. Sometimes he volunteers in the offices of Gay Men's
Health Crisis, the pre-eminent HIV-prevention and AIDS-activist
organization in New York. And about once a month, he does outreach
volunteering in which he goes to clubs to hand out condoms and educate
men about safe sex.
Carlos should meet Doug Hitzel, but he probably never will. A year ago
they might have been online buddies, both sharing a passion for HIV
that few others understood. Now Hitzel understands all too clearly what
bug chasing can do to a young man's life, but it's too late for him.
After six months of bug chasing, Hitzel succeeded in getting the virus.
He's now a twenty-one-year-old freshman at a Midwestern university, so
wholesome-looking you'd think he just walked out of a cornfield.
Hitzel's experience started when he moved from his home in Nebraska to
San Francisco with his boyfriend. When that relationship broke up,
Hitzel was at the lowest point in his life, and alone. He sought relief
in drugs and sex, as much of each as he could get. At first, he started
out just not caring whether he got HIV or not, then he found the
bug-chasing underground and embraced it. He was sure he'd get HIV soon
anyway. He thought he would always feel exactly like he did then; he
was certain that ten, twenty, thirty years later he'd still be partying
every night. It lasted only six months -- then Hitzel got sick with
awful flulike symptoms and lost a lot of weight. A doctor's visit
cleared him of hepatitis and other possible problems, but the clinic
sent him home with an HIV test he could do himself. Hitzel waited
before doing the test and decided to go home to Nebraska, to give up
the bug chasing and the rest of the life that was killing him. Once he
got home, he did the test and found out he was positive. He now wakes
up each day with a terrible frustration that's just below the surface
of his once sunny demeanor. He hates the medication he has to take
every day, and he realizes that HIV affects nearly every part of his
life. While he was bug chasing, Hitzel couldn't imagine ever wanting to
be in a relationship again. But now that he's getting his life back in
order, he realizes that being HIV-positive can be a roadblock to new
relationships.
"Whenever I have to deal with things like medication, days when I'm
really down," Hitzel says, "I have to look myself in the mirror and
say, 'You did this. Are you happy now?' That's the one line that goes
through my head: 'Are you happy now?' " He says it with a snarl, full
of anger. "Some days I feel really angry and guilty. I'm pretty much
adjusted to the fact that this is my life, but about forty percent of
the time I look at myself and say, 'Look what you've done. Happy now?'
"
Looking back on it, Hitzel says he was committing suicide by chasing
HIV, killing himself slowly because he didn't have the nerve to do it
quickly. Hitzel is ashamed and embarrassed that he actually sought HIV,
but he's willing to tell his story because he hopes to dissuade others
who are on the same path. He gets angry when he hears bug chasers
talking in the same ways he talked a year earlier. The mention of "bug
chasing" and "gift giving" sets him off.
" 'Bug chasing' sounds like a group of kindergartners running around
chasing grasshoppers and butterflies," Hitzel says, "a beautiful thing.
And gift giving? What the hell is that? I just wish the terms would
actually put some real context into what's going on. Why did I not want
to say that I was deliberately infecting myself? Because saying the
word infect sounds bad and gross and germy. I wanted it to be
sexualized." He's particularly angered by the idea of HIV being erotic:
"How about you follow me after I start new medications and you watch me
throw up for a few weeks? Tell me how erotic that is."
Though he's older, Carlos lives a life that has a lot in common with
Hitzel's in San Francisco. Carlos estimates that he has had several
hundred sex partners throughout his life, and he routinely hooks up
with three or four guys a week, all of them HIV-positive or at least
uncertain about their status.
That's a common trait among bug chasers, says Dr. Bob Cabaj, director
of behavioral-health services for San Francisco County and past
president of both the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association and the
Association of Gay and Lesbian Psychiatrists. Cabaj (pronounced
suh-bye) calls bug chasing "a real phenomenon." Some bug chasers are
more likely to have a defeatist attitude, to think they'll eventually
get HIV anyway, whereas others are more likely to add the element of
eroticizing HIV, Cabaj says: "For kids who have had a really hard time
fitting in or being accepted, this becomes like a fraternity."
As a public official, Cabaj is familiar with how the topic makes people
uncomfortable. Most AIDS activists prefer to deny that the problem
exists to any significant extent, he says: "They don't want to address
that this is a real ongoing issue."
When I asked about bug chasing, leaders of groups such as Gay Men's
Health Crisis in New York, the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, the Stop
AIDS Project, and the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation
weren't interested in providing much education or increasing public
awareness. To the contrary, most were dismissive of the issue and some
actively dissuaded me from writing the article at all. A spokeswoman
for the Stop AIDS Project, Shana Krochmal, characterized bug chasing as
"relatively minor acting-out" and aggressively encouraged me to drop
the article idea altogether, saying the issue is "not big enough to
warrant a trend story." Krochmal cautioned against focusing on "just a
bunch of really vocal guys who want to continue this image of being
reckless, hedonistic gay men who will do anything to get laid. I think
that does a disservice to the community at large." The San Francisco
AIDS Foundation labeled the issue "sensational" and would not provide
further comment. GLAAD spokeswoman Cathy Renna was more helpful, saying
she had heard enough about bug chasing to be concerned, emphasizing
that her group's focus would be whether people use bug chasing as an
easy way to disparage all gays and lesbians as sex-crazed and reckless.
"The vast majority of the gay community would be just as surprised and
appalled by this as anyone else," she says.
At GMHC, where Carlos is one of more than 7,000 volunteers, spokesman
Marty Algaze calls bug chasing "one of those very underground
subcultures or fetishes that seems to have sprung up in recent years."
The assistant director of community education at GMHC, Daniel
Castellanos, acknowledges that bug chasing exists but claims there's
not much need to discuss it because it involves such a small
population. But would he try to talk a bug chaser out of trying to get
HIV? "If someone comes to me and says he wants to get HIV, I might work
with him around why he wants to do it," he says. "But if in the end
that's a decision he wants to make, there's a point where we have to
respect people's decisions."
Cabaj, the San Francisco psychiatrist, says those arguments sound
familiar. Then, without being asked, he adds, "But I don't know if it's
an active cover-up." He pauses for a moment, then continues, "Yeah,
it's an active cover-up, because they know about it. They're in denial
of this issue. This is a difficult issue that dredges up some images
about gay men that they don't want to have to deal with. They don't
want to shine a light on this topic because they don't want people to
even know that this behavior exists."
Public-health officials also tend to dismiss the bug-chasing
phenomenon, he adds, assuming that it is just an aberration practiced
by a few, nothing more than a curiosity. Cabaj adamantly disagrees,
though he admits numbers are very hard to come by. Some men consciously
seek the virus, openly declaring themselves bug chasers, he says, while
many more are just as actively seeking HIV but are in denial and
wouldn't call themselves bug chasers. Cabaj estimates that at least
twenty-five percent of all newly infected gay men fall into that
category.
With about 40,000 new infections in the United States per year,
according to government reports, that would mean around 10,000 each
year are attributable to that more liberal definition of bug chasing.
Doug Hitzel says he fits that description. Though he now says he was a
bug chaser for six months, he explains that he would not have admitted
it to anyone outside the subculture, and he sometimes even lied to
himself about what he was doing. Even if you consider only the number
of self-proclaimed bug chasers and not the overall group of men seeking
HIV, Cabaj still sees cause for concern because of the way one bug
chaser's quest can spread the virus far beyond his own life. "It may be
a small number of actual people, but they may be disproportionately
involved in continuing the spread of HIV," he says. "That's a major
issue when you're talking about how to control the spread of a virus. A
small percentage could be responsible for continuing the infection. The
clinical impact is profound, no matter how small the numbers."
The problem is not restricted to any one community. Cabaj's counterpart
in Boston reports a similar experience with bug chasers. Dr. Marshall
Forstein is medical director of mental health and addiction services at
Fenway Community Health, an arm of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
that specializes in care for gay and lesbian patients. Forstein is on
the medical-school faculty in psychiatry at Harvard University and
chaired the American Psychiatric Association's Commission on AIDS for
eleven years. He says bug chasers are seen regularly in the Fenway
health system, and the phenomenon is growing. He adds that bug chasers
can be found in any major city, though officials might be reluctant to
discuss the issue either because it is unseemly or because it has
escaped their notice. A spokesman for the Los Angeles County Department
of Health confirms that bug chasers are known in its health system.
Public-health officials in New York refused multiple requests for
comment.
One standout in public-health circles is the Miami-Dade County Health
Department in Florida, which is taking steps specifically to address
bug chasing. Evelyn Ullah, director of its office of HIV/AIDS, readily
admits that bug chasing is "a definite problem" in the Miami area,
having become more common and more visible in the past few years. Miami
health officials regularly monitor Internet sites for bug chasing in
their community, and they keep track of "conversion parties," in which
the goal is to have positive men infect negative men. The health
department also is launching new outreach efforts that include going
online to chat with bug chasers and others pursuing risky sex.
Cabaj and Forstein stress that more should be done, particularly on a
national level. For starters, federal health officials will have to
familiarize themselves with the problem. Dr. Robert Janssen, director
of the division of HIV/AIDS Prevention at the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention in Atlanta, says he has never seen the Web sites
that promote bug chasing and does not know of any organized efforts to
spread the virus. There is virtually no research on people who
intentionally seek HIV, he says, but he notes that several studies have
shown a growing complacency among gay men and the population in general
about the risk of HIV and a misconception that HIV infection is
completely manageable. Ongoing outbreaks of syphilis and gonorrhea
(which Carlos recently had) in large cities indicate a tendency to
forgo condom use, he says. Recent data from the CDC show that syphilis
rates among men in the United States rose 15.4 percent between 2000 and
2001, which the researchers attribute to outbreaks among gay and
bisexual men in several U.S. cities. Janssen says the CDC has not
addressed bug chasing in any way but might if researchers determine
that it is a significant method of spreading the virus. "I'm interested
that you're saying there's that much out there on the Web and that it's
easy to find," Janssen says. "If we can confirm that it's happening to
any real degree beyond just an anecdote here and there, we may need to
address it."
What frustrates health-care professionals the most, Forstein says, is
that "gay men who are doing this haven't a clue what they're doing," he
says. "They're incredibly selfish and self-absorbed. 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. 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."
Furthering the epidemic doesn't bother Carlos. Bug chasing requires a
great deal of self-delusion, and he easily acknowledges the
contradictions in what he's doing. He notes that while he seeks HIV, he
doesn't eat junk food or smoke, and that he drinks only socially. "I
take care of myself," he says proudly. He also notes the hypocrisy in
his doing volunteer work at GMHC, in which he tells other men to use
condoms and practice safe sex, while he's hunting for partners for his
secret hobby. The conflict doesn't bother him in the least.
Forstein says that attitude is disastrous for gay men. "We're killing
each other," he says. "It's no longer just the Matthew Shepards that
are dying at the hands of others. We're killing each other. We have to
take responsibility for this as a community."
After several phone calls to work out a time, Carlos is ready to go see
Richard. He's had sex with Richard about thirty times in the past year.
"Knowing he's positive just makes it more fun for me," he says. "It's
erotic that someone is breeding me." Richard is in the entertainment
business, in his mid- to late forties.
"Lots of guys want to know who breeds them," Carlos continues. "When I
have sex, I like to always make it special, a really good time,
something nice and memorable in case that is the one that gives it to
me."
Carlos offers, not for the first time, to have me come along and watch
him and Richard have sex, but I decline. In the taxi to Richard's
place, the conversation falls silent. He hasn't been tested in a couple
of years, and he's reluctant to get a test now. He might very well be
positive already. But as long as he doesn't know for sure, he can
always hope that tonight is the night he gets the virus. Every date is
potentially The One. 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 fucking 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."
Bailey Legull
wrong with you. Mentally, you're just not right. Your life seems to
revolve around attacking homosexuals. You're totally fixated on them,
probably dreaming about them at night, doodling little pictures of them
in your third-grade notebook.
Just for comparison, the well-adjusted HETEROSEXUAL doesn't think much
about homosexuals.
In contrast to you. Which means either the word "well-adjusted" or
"heterosexual" doesn't apply to you.
I have no idea how to fix whatever is wrong in your brain. Maybe you
need to grow up, and maybe you need psychotherapy. But at some point
you need to acknowledge that you *have* a problem, and realize that if
you want your life to mean ANYTHING -- if when lying on your deathbed
you don't want to be horrified that you were such a mentally-deficient
asshole -- you need to act.
As far as the Rolling Stone article, it's homophobic BS. Doctors
quoted in the article have called it "totally false" and "a complete
fabrication." (Site:
http://www.medialifemagazine.com/news2003/jan03/jan20/5_fri/news5friday.html)
bob&carole
Bailey Legull wrote:
> Okay, bud. Somebody's got to come out and say it. There's something
> wrong with you. Mentally, you're just not right. Your life seems to
> revolve around attacking homosexuals. You're totally fixated on them,
> probably dreaming about them at night, doodling little pictures of them
> in your third-grade notebook.
Another faggot takes his tongue out of bubbas asshole long enough to
babble
>
> Just for comparison, the well-adjusted HETEROSEXUAL doesn't think much
> about homosexuals.
We all hate you faggot
>
> In contrast to you. Which means either the word "well-adjusted" or
> "heterosexual" doesn't apply to you.
>
> I have no idea how to fix whatever is wrong in your brain. Maybe you
> need to grow up, and maybe you need psychotherapy. But at some point
> you need to acknowledge that you *have* a problem, and realize that if
> you want your life to mean ANYTHING -- if when lying on your deathbed
> you don't want to be horrified that you were such a mentally-deficient
> asshole -- you need to act.
You need to set psychiatric help
>
> As far as the Rolling Stone article, it's homophobic BS. Doctors
> quoted in the article have called it "totally false" and "a complete
> fabrication." (Site:
> http://www.medialifemagazine.com/news2003/jan03/jan20/5_fri/news5friday.html)
Rolling Stone is a respected publication and you are a fucking faggot
liar
"Stop the spread of AIDS, sew up a queers asshole"-Bob
"The MOST idiotic and loathsome bigots
America has been infested with since segregation
became extinct".-Craig Chilton
tulle
Bailey Legull wrote:
> Okay, bud. Somebody's got to come out and say it. There's something
> wrong with you. Mentally, you're just not right. Your life seems to
> revolve around attacking homosexuals. You're totally fixated on them,
> probably dreaming about them at night, doodling little pictures of them
> in your third-grade notebook.
>
> Just for comparison, the well-adjusted HETEROSEXUAL doesn't think much
> about homosexuals.
Even well-adjusted homosexuals don't think about homosexuals as much as
Bob does.
>
> In contrast to you. Which means either the word "well-adjusted" or
> "heterosexual" doesn't apply to you.
This is my totally unsupported theory...Bob found out he was attracted
to men as much as women. So he went and tried it out a few times, BUT
he did the on-line anonymous sex thing, and got HIV infected from some
underage guy on the net. When Carole found out she left him. When his
work found out that he did it with an underage kid, they fired him from
his job. So now he sits at home unemployed without Carole because he
did it with an underage HIV+ kid. He blames everyone else but himself,
so he spends his time posting hate here to get back at the "homos",
but he doesn't understand his posts only makes him look stupid
>
> I have no idea how to fix whatever is wrong in your brain. Maybe you
> need to grow up, and maybe you need psychotherapy. But at some point
> you need to acknowledge that you *have* a problem, and realize that if
> you want your life to mean ANYTHING -- if when lying on your deathbed
> you don't want to be horrified that you were such a mentally-deficient
> asshole -- you need to act.
>
Maybe he will get help someday, but I won't hold my breath
tulle