The Director of Behavioral Health Services for San Francisco County,
Dr. Robert Cabaj, has told Rolling Stone magazine that at least
one-quarter of newly infected gay men may have sought out the fatal
disease.
There are no hard numbers to back up his estimate, Cabaj said, but men
known as “bug-chasers” are alarmingly common in the gay
community–both men who consciously seek the virus, and those who are
in denial about their wish to become HIV-positive.
According to Rolling Stone, Cabaj charged that gay organizations are
actively covering up about the problem because “it’s a difficult issue
that dredges up some images about gay men that they don’t want to have
to deal with.”
Some gay men say being HIV-positive “opens the door to sexual Nirvana”
because they need no longer worry about safe sex, Rolling Stone noted,
while others say they can’t stand the idea of being different from
their HIV-infected lover.
The newly published magazine article, entitled “In Search of Death”
(February 6th) tells the story of Carlos, a man who considers
HIV-transmission “the most erotic thing I can imagine.”
Carlos estimates that he has already had several hundred sex partners;
he eagerly awaits the day when he tests HIV-positive–at which time
his erotic interest, Carlos says, will then turn toward infecting
another person–which is known as “gift-giving.”
“As sick as it sounds,” Carlos said, “killing another man slowly” is
exciting.
The thrill of unsafe sex is further heightened for Carlos by his own
duplicity as a volunteer at the offices of the Gay Men’s Health Crisis
(GMHC), where he teaches other men how to protect themselves with
condoms.
At the GMHC, an assistant director of community outreach, Daniel
Castellano, admitted that “bug chasing” does exist. But Castellano
told Rolling Stone that although he would try to “work with” a
counselee who said he wanted to get infected, if that’s a decision a
man wants to make, he would ultimately respect that decision.
The Director of the office of HIV/AIDS at the Miami-Dade Department of
Health confirmed that deliberate HIV infection is a “definite problem”
in the Miami-Dade area as well.
The author of the Rolling Stone article, Gregory Freeman, said
representatives of some gay organizations “actively dissuaded” him
from writing the article.
In a follow-up to the Rolling Stone report, the Sunday Herald
(www.sundayherald.com) described internet sites dedicated to
bug-chasing, where “conversion parties” are celebrated, in which
HIV-positive and HIV-negative men gather with the goal of having the
HIV- positive men infect the others.
The Sunday Herald mentioned that a new documentary film, “The Gift,”
is to be shown at the prestigious Berlin International Film Festival
this February. It features Doug Hitzel, a 21-year-old gay man from San
Francisco who chose to become infected with the “gift” of his fatal
infection. Dealing with the day-to-day reality of illness, Hitzel now
says he regrets his decision.