Bug chasing: Gay Men deliberately trying to catch HIV
Men deliberately trying to catch HIV for sexual thrill in astonishing craze
Quote:
Regular vanilla sex no longer getting you off? That assortment of nipple clamps and valiant attempts at Shibari failing to spice up your sex life? How about the ultimate sexual thrill: a mixture of sex and Russian roulette. Welcome to the world of “bug chasers”: a terrifying subculture of gay men who seek out unprotected sex with HIV+ partners in the hope of getting infected with the virus.
For a while, bug chasing was dismissed as mythological. But now anyone with an email account can sign up to a gay social network and surf around, reporters can see that bug chasing is rapidly colonising online gay forums and geolocated hook-up apps as well as the more feature-rich gay social networks.
As with other extreme fetishes, bug chasing is enabled and propagated by anonymity online. For obvious reasons, asking a stranger whether (a) they have HIV and (b) they are willing to be a “gift giver” (that’s the terminology, by the way) would be a tricky proposition in real life. On the internet it’s easy to place a personal ad, which, through the ubiquitous “profile”, is precisely how most gay social networks are organised.
A quick search of terms such as “hiv”, “poz” and “bareback” reveals profiles such as one we found on a major gay dating website created by a user calling himself “bareback_horny”. It contains two essential expressions of preference: “Never” under “Safer sex”, and a profile description that reads: “horny tops who wanna **** bareback are welcomed.hiv top guys r also most welcomed”.
Have a friend that's kind of like this.
Loves bare sex with poz guys more than anyone else but doesn't want HIV. he's on PrEP but obviously that's not foolproof
Yikes. I saw the profiles on grindr who condone this behavior. Stay safe guys
