Bugchasing

Small green orbs of HIV around a pink and blue cell

A scanning electron microscope image of human immunodeficiency viria (green) in and around a cultured lymphocyte.

Bugchasing (alternatively bug chasing) is the practice of intentionally seeking human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection through sexual activity.

Bugchasers, those who eroticize HIV, are a subculture of barebackers, men who have unprotected sex with other men. There are some explanations for the behavior and fantasies of bugchasing, ranging from sexual excitement at the idea of HIV-positive status, to finding a shared sense of community with other HIV-positive people, to suicidality.

The concept earned widespread attention after the 2003 publication of the article "Bug Chasers: The men who long to be HIV+" in Rolling Stone. This article was widely disputed for its statistical methods which over-stated the prevalence of bugchasing, and for fabricating statements from medical professionals. The practice may have existed since the AIDS crisis began in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The practice has since been mentioned in or the focus of pieces of media and popular culture. As of 2021, bugchasing behavior still persists as a niche behavior, in spite of the widespread availability of effective PrEP and HAART treatments that protect against HIV transmission.

Origins

The early development of bugchasing subculture is obscure; the practice may have existed from the start of the AIDS crisis. As a subculture, bugchasing became notably more visible and cohesive with the adoption of computer networks in the 1990s. Newsweek reported on it in 1997 and Rolling Stone in 2003. The Rolling Stone article, "Bug Chasers: The men who long to be HIV+", written by Gregory Freeman, was the first to bring widespread concern and attention to the practice. That article claimed that around 25 percent of all new HIV infections in the United States (10,000 of 40,000) were linked to bugchasing activity.

Freeman's statistics erroneously classified as bugchasers all men who engaged in barebacking, regardless of motivation or attempts to seek out HIV infection. The physicians that Freeman cited have since claimed he fabricated their statements, and his data have been widely criticized. In the estimation of sexuality studies scholar Octavio R. Gonzalez, Freeman's article was perhaps most responsible for bringing the term bugchasing to a mainstream audience, and public interest in and understanding of the practice increased following Freeman's article.

Motivation and activity

Bugchasers are men who have sex with men (MSM) who eroticize HIV infection, particularly through engaging in online sexual fantasies of being infected with HIV, or who actually pursue infection with the virus. Since little is understood about the practice in general, the motivations for developing bugchasing identity and behavior remain largely undefined. However, at least four motivations have been suggested:

Once the initial shock dissipated, he felt relieved, like he had been given a free pass to have consensual bareback sex without worry of being infected.

— Journalist Bobby Box on a bugchaser's reaction to HIV-positive diagnosis (2020)

1. Some men may become bugchasers as a result of fear of HIV infection, which had previously altered their sexual behavior, such as men abstaining from sex entirely, committing to one partner, or using preventative measures such as condoms. In this way, bugchasers may view their actions as empowering, both sexually and personally; the transformation of bugchasers from HIV-negative to HIV-positive status is understood by the group as masculinizing, which grants them additional status.

2. Some men view HIV-positive status as erotic or sexually stimulating. It may be a subject of pleasure or the ultimate taboo to overcome.

3. Bugchasers may understand HIV-positive status (or its pursuit) as granting a shared identity and sense of community.

4. Bugchasing has been described as a political device and action against social norms (such as those tied to heteronormativity) through transgression of—or rebellion against—popular sentiments about gay life.

There is a fifth possible motivation—suicide—but this remains an unclear or imprecise explanation for bugchasing behavior.

Bugchasing is a rare sexual taboo. Many self-identified bugchasers do not deliberately seek out sex with HIV-positive people. Many men who self-identify as bugchasers never attempt to become HIV-positive.

The widespread availability of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), capable of preventing HIV infection in otherwise unprotected sexual encounters, has not resulted in the disappearance of bugchasing. Some men incorporate taking PrEP alongside bugchasing behavior, others experiment with bugchasing while on PrEP, and others view it as emasculating and refuse to use it.

Group dynamics

While barebacking and bugchasing are both centered in risky sexual activity, they are distinct activities. Bugchasing is a subculture of barebacking, and intent is a distinguishing characteristic between bugchasers and barebackers: most barebackers do not intend to be infected (or infect others) with HIV, which is the apparent focus of bugchasing behavior.

In the view of ethnologist Jamie García-Iglesias and researcher Tim Dean, bugchasers circulate several metaphors that distinguish their identity from other MSM communities: insemination, pregnancy, and paternity. According to Dean and the psychological researcher Hugh Klein, since HIV is able to spread and reproduce through the sexual activity belonging to bugchasing, its cultural dimensions—institutions, norms, practices, and forms of kinship that, taken together, form a community situated around HIV status—may be transmitted through viral infection, similar to cultural propagation through birth and paternity.

Similarly, bugchasing spaces may reinforce certain notions of masculinity. Sex researcher Ellie Reynolds writes that HIV-positive men who purposely seek out others to infect with HIV—known as giftgivers—are constructed as hypermasculine through a penetrative sexual role, while bugchasers are understood to lack masculinity: penetrated (rather than penetrating), having their rectums described with words relating to women such as "pussy" and "mancunt", they occupy a feminine role in the social order. Whether giftgivers continue to exist is uncertain, given what García-Iglesias calls their "statistically rare" population and "biological implausib[ility] (on the basis of widespread successful treatment)".

Media and culture

American filmmaker Louise Hogarth released a documentary, The Gift, in the same year the Rolling Stone piece was published. It focused on narratives of bugchasers, emphasizing the self-reported positive aspects of HIV infection. Three years later, Ricky Dyer, an HIV-positive man, released a documentary through BBC3 entitled "I love being HIV+", suggesting that most bugchasing activity is simply fantasy. In 2009, gay playwright Erik Patterson ran the tragicomedy He Asked For It, dealing with bugchasing and HIV-positive status in contemporary Hollywood. Bugchasing was also a part of the show Queer as Folk.

In 2012, Canadian Steven Boone was tried and convicted of three counts each of attempted murder and aggravated sexual assault after having unprotected sex with four men after previously contracting HIV. A self-described "poz vampire"—the word poz referring to acquiring HIV—he was immersed in bugchasing culture. His convictions on attempted murder have since been quashed after appealing to the Court of Appeal for Ontario, while the aggravated sexual assault convictions remain. The appeals court said it was not proven in the original case that he intended to kill his sexual partners; it offered the government the possibility of a new trial.

Notes and references

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