Bug chaser gay
Barebacking debate re-ignited; more sparks to come?
The prestigious Berlin International Film Festival (the 53rd Berlinale) begins today (Thursday).
Controversially, one of the eleven short films accepted will explore the subculture of gay men seeking HIV infection. Entitled The Gift, the documentary by California filmmaker Louise Holgarth explores the subculture of gay men deliberately seeking - or who are indifferent to - HIV infection.
It depicts the life of (among others) Doug Hitzel, a 21 year-old gay man who intentionally sought to become HIV-positive. Hitzel who is also featured in a high-profile piece in Rolling Stone magazine (Bug Chasers: The men who long to be HIV-positive) which has met with claims in in the States that the story was fabricated and has been reported subsequently in both The Observer and The News of the World, as well as Scotland's Sunday Herald.
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Nathaniel J. Hall joins +Talk to discuss his fresh documentary film, Big Chasers: The Men Who Desire HIV.
The following is a transcript between Karl and Nathaniel.
KARL
I want your toxic load.
Infect me, give me HIV I want it. These are the words that people who mention to themselves as bug chasers often use. And joining me on plus talk today is Nathaniel J Hall, who has just done a fascinating documentary on this topic. Bug Chasing. Good to see you, Nathaniel.
NATHANIEL
Oh, hi. How are you doing? Thanks for having
KARL
Me. I&#;m doing really well. Your documentary left my jaw on the floor. Now what is bug chasing?
NATHANIEL
Well, so bug chasing is a sexual fetish, a phenomenon. It&#;s, it&#;s, you know, happening in a minority of cases. It&#;s a really, really little minority. A minority within a minority, within a minority almost, if you will. But book tracking are book chases are people who fetishize the HIV virus. So who within the community, you have people who are chasing, so people who are actively seeking to become HIV positive themselves. And then you contain people wh
Why would anybody desire to get infected with HIV? That is what most people ask when they first catch about “bug chasing”. In fact, a number of homosexual men, at least online, appear to clamour for HIV. They are famous as “bug chasers” because they are literally “chasing” a “bug” – HIV.
But do they really want it? To answer this scrutinize, I interviewed men in the UK, US, France and Australia. While they all considered themselves to be bug chasers, their experiences were very different: one year-old male spent his animation working for an HIV charity; another, younger, participant works as a porn performer. For some, bug chasing plays a secondary role within their sexuality; for others, it is all they can think about. Some access bug chasing websites to find hook-ups or masturbate; others just spend many hours online engaging with others.
Bug chasers largely fetishise the HIV virus. They come from a variety of backgrounds, generations, and countries. While one of the participants I spoke with has clear memories of the AIDS crisis in the s, another, in his early 30s, grew up at a time when HIV w
arebacking, bug chasers and offering givers are some of the expressions of a subculture that claims that "safer sex is not real sex, it’s artificial sex," a recent trend of unknown origin and yet-to-be-determined impact on the spread of the HIV epidemic.
Barebacking &#; or intentional anal sex without a condom with someone other than a primary significant other &#; is a sexual behavior that has turn into more prevalent in the last two years. In , a review by Goodroad et al. [PubMed] described it as "a new phenomenon different from previously identified 'relapse' unsafe sexual behavior." Nowadays, the behavior is disseminated by web sites such as and , that market videos showing unprotected sex to the homosexual society, and have the potential to compromise AIDS prevention efforts worldwide.
Earlier, in an article entitled "Protease dis-inhibitors? The gay bareback phenomenon" Nicolas Sheon and Aaron Plant, associate editors of HIV InSite, say that new treatments based on protease inhibitors and other antiretroviral drugs have changed the perception of peril of contracting HIV for many gay men who