I have recently
watched a documentary called "I Love Being HIV Positive", in which an
HIV+ gay man comes across the term 'bug chasers'. 'Bug chasers' are men who
seek out HIV+ men for unprotected sex, with the sole purpose of contracting the
horrible disease themselves. I was so disgusted with the thought of someone
intentionally infecting themselves that I had to stop watching for a bit.
The filmmaker
baits these bug chasers with an online ad to get to the bottom of this trend,
what he finds is that most of these men are just playing out sexual fantasies
and disappear when asked to meet in person. There are a few cases of men
actually following through with this horrible plan and there are a few reasons
that I can think of why they would want to do such a thing:
1. They are not
fully educated about the disease and/or they are minimizing the negative
effects.
2. They want
the attention and people to care for them, 'oh poor Gary, I’ll take care of
you'.
3. They want to
be on disability and have the state take care of them.
4. Or, they
have a death wish.
The thing that
bothers me about the last point (putting aside that suicide is never the
answer) is that there are so many more ways to kill yourself that don't involve
years of suffering. I will never forget the two individuals that came into my
Intro Human Sexuality class in University who had contracted HIV; their lives
have been filled with medication, side effects, and near death experiences. I
cannot conceive of someone wanting that life.
What needs to
happen is a resurgence of the campaigns of the 80's, it was almost a scare
tactic to get young people to use condoms. While I do not agree with scare
tactics, I think something needs to be done to increase the education to the
public about HIV and AIDS. STI and AIDS education is present in schools, but
education needs to go beyond the schools to reach adults who may not have been
made aware of the perils of unprotected sex.
For those of you who wish to
watch this documentary, it can be found here: http://watchdocumentary.com/watch/i-love-being-hiv-video_07b858486.html
