HIV Bug Chasers

OP, are you the ghost of 1999?

Y2K-era homophobic urban legend for Repubs to masturbate to.

Watch and learn, op.

That film is from 18 years ago, R3.

I remember this in the 90s. It was a real thing.

I remember hearing about 'Russian roulette parties' i.e. one HIV positive person in an orgy. Of course, I've never come across a real account of it.

I knew a guy who wanted to get it. His reasoning was “it’s bound to happen sooner or later so I’d rather just get it over with.” Well, he did, and he makes being Poz part of his identity now, always posting about it. This was just a few years before PreP became mainstream and readily available. He was a complete idiot, I never could stand him.

The mistake was letting people get away with calling it Poz. Something less hip and carefree like plague victim or diseased whore should have been the used instead.

It is a real thing.

[quote]makes being Poz part of his identity

This is the goal.

Someone asks this fucking question every three months like clockwork.

Yes, there are some people in the world who have fetishized this and do it.

But it was never quite the huge number suggested in that magazine article (Rolling Stone?) years ago. It was vastly overstated.

Watching a Treasure Island Media video is like seeing this happen in live action. I feel like I’m catching something through my computer screen.

I remember when barebacking was considered very taboo and shocking to see on film. Part of Sean Cody’s popularity was due to them switching from condom porn to bareback porn. It wasn’t common to have hot, healthy, young jocks like Brandon and Calvin doing bareback with such polished production and editing. ChaosMen and Corbin Fisher did much of the same but it wasn’t as well done. Prior to that, it was more of a niche thing—you’d see it in the same category as Fisting and BDSM. Nowadays, it’s the standard.

We moved from HIV being seen as an agonizing and lonely life to it being a personality trait. Sure, there are medications and other prevention measures now but back then it was either you had it or you didn’t and there was a huge prejudice separating the two. Some guys figured if they just caught the bug on their terms it would be empowering somehow and then that meant they could have all the raunchy bareback sex that they wanted with the fear of contracting HIV removed which meant that they could fully enjoy the experience.

there were many types of bug chasers. but obviously, the hiv variety especially among m2m hit the headlines more. . . paired and mirrored with aggressive public transmission laws that seemingly targeted only gay/bi lads. though unhelped was the rise of bareback vids from indie companies as most studios were more heavily scrutinized and primarily the rise of meth. though there was also a scam among some in the upper financial brackets or with a sugardaddy, to up their worth via life insurance and sought to get paid to cash it out early when it was more or less known as stable in the gay community but fearmongering persisted in the str8 world.

most lesbians never practiced any measure of safe sex.. so hardly a surprise when they took a significant hit for ovarian cancers related to sti - minor infections but multiple often presented and untreated which corrupted their immunes and laid out the foundation for a higher rate of ovarian cancers. but no one could really call them chasers just bloody ignorant about it and generally daft. toss in alcoholism and a few shades of committed crazy.

hep was more rampant among heteros and in some communities, particularly indigenous communities and everyone in fly over territories, they actively sought it out because most of their local population, from hookups to family, had c/d which paved the way for continuing the alphabet of mutations.

also, followed by syphilis - while not actively sought out, hetero men suffered the same problems as lesbians, confusing symptoms of sti with the effects of chronic alcoholism.

women in general suffered, even in the major cities as after the 80s, lasses stopped routinely seeing a gyno even now, it's a rarity unless a physical reveals a problem. latinas and south pacific women were the hardest hit overall but inevitably it creeped into african american community but was ignored in favor of crack baby headlines. while whites had to contend with satanic panic and asians couldn't even drive stick, so the thought of sti was a foreign concept.

all in all, the majority out there getting tested regularly was and remains m2m. so, hardly a wonder the stats remain inflated. most heteros assume their annual physical will cover testing. and now, hardly anyone shares the details of their sex lives with their gp. not even gay men. . . but we could toss that off on the loss of the gay ghettos.

I don’t get this trend of not capitalizing. This world...

the new (old, throwback to modern primitives really) are the trans-disabled... most attach it to the self diagnosis craze of tumblr, tho. disability as an identity on par with exotic pronouns.

r15

r16

r18

r17 is horrifying.

^^ the world is a deeply fucked up place......

[quote] We moved from HIV being seen as an agonizing and lonely life to it being a personality trait. Sure, there are medications and other prevention measures now but

Surely the medications and preventative measures have diminished the already insignificant bug chasing fetish? In the age of PrEP, why would HIV even be a thing to be proud of, or to want to make it part of your personality, or to “chase”? It would just be pathetic now to get it. Bareback sex is hot (I won’t have it any other way), but there’s no need to involve HIV in it. There’s just no excuse for it.

They’re working on a vaccine for HIV using mRNA technology. Will the bug chasers, if there any left by that point, refuse that vaccine? By then, it might be really, really difficult to become infected. It should already be very difficult. I haven’t followed the data, but are HIV infections way down as they should be by now?

R17 I remember seeing her on one of the talk shows maybe like 5, 6 yrs ago. Just ugh. And she was upset because she wasn’t 100% blind & could still see lights/darks. I also remember a story on Grey’s Anatomy, maybe like 12 yrs back, about a man who wanted one of his healthy legs amputated, because he felt it wasn’t part of his body. I think it was based on a true case, & the drs were conflicted, but in the end decided to amputate.

[quote] But it was never quite the huge number suggested in that magazine article (Rolling Stone?) years ago.

I remember that article being an incredibly shocking and irresponsible [hit]-piece of 'journalism.' I was shocked Rolling Stone published such a sloppy and easily-refuted piece.

They covered big chasing in a later season of QAF, I think that must’ve been during its heyday. With PrEp, I would think it’s a dwindling phenomenon.

What will all the sex negatives bitch about if there is a vax for HIV? They will start bitching about how all the barebacking, that their parents do too, will start a new virus undoubtedly. Sometimes I think covid is payback for all the stigma that is leveled at people with HIV. And I smile really big too.