Ask Beastly: I Think HIV Is Sexy. Is That Wrong?
You’re not alone in this. But your life still matters.
I think getting HIV from a positive man or woman would be sexy. Where to find them , I don't know?
Howdy,
I receive numerous messages like this. So many. I never answer them, because they are not really what this blog is for, and they open up an ethical can of worms.
I’m one of a very small number of kinky people who are friendly towards bug-chasers and bug-chasing—“friendly” in the sense that I believe it’s a legitimate and even understandable fetish, albeit one that is heavily tabooed and generally not welcome in the kink and fetish community.
The sheer number of messages I receive like this (at least once a month) suggests that I must be one of the few voices on the internet discussing something that, by all accounts, is very hush-hush, even online. The volume of messages also proves something that will likely be no surprise to HIV-positive men: There are so many bug-chasers out there, men who fetishise my illness, the thing that killed a generation of people before me and continues to kill people like me every day.
People have strong opinions about bug-chasers. For many HIV-positive people, as well as for those who have loved and lost HIV-positive people, bug-chasing is so offensive, so angering, that they cannot set aside their personal, visceral reaction to see that, in many ways, it makes sense that it should exist—that HIV would become a deeply fetishized thing.
Why do things become fetishes? We don’t fully know, but it seems to have something to do with how humans process emotions like fear, shame, and revulsion. Our fetishes tend to fall around things that in normal society are taboo or secreted away: piss, poop, asses, butts, smells, spit. Some MSM have fetishes for wearing panties and feminine clothes because most of us grew up taught to fear (and shame) femininity in ourselves. It would not be hard to argue, as some experts have, that a fetish is little more than a coping mechanism—a way for the brain to bear something it would otherwise find frightening or revolting. It turns it into something erotic. Fetishes likely stem from fear and shame.
At least three generations of gay men have grown up in the shadow of AIDS. Most of us have been taught to fear it almost from the moment we heard the word “gay.” For many of us, we heard “AIDS” before we even gave ourselves a label, and that label was feared because of its link to the disease. HIV and AIDS have been depicted as the inevitable consequence of gay promiscuity, as god’s judgment, as our “lot in life.” AIDS, then, becomes something mythic: the ultimate bogeyman, the ultimate branding, the ultimate punishment. Of course some would come to eroticise it.
And many have. Since fetishes are things that emerge naturally, like sexuality, and we have little control over them, I wonder why so many kinky people with wild fetishes, like fisting and inflicting pain, shame bug-chasers as somehow being the only ones with a fetish they chose. We don’t decide what turns us on.
No one asks to be turned on by bug-chasing. But like any other fetish, you have to live with it and make choices with it. I have many fetishes—some I act on, some I don’t. Fisting is one I act on all the time, but because of its real risks, it requires careful consideration and thoughtful deliberation. Bug-chasing does too. And let’s speak plain: the risks and dangers in bug-chasing are far greater than those in fisting.
Quite recently, my gay family in Atlanta mourned the loss of someone we all knew and loved—a gay man who was known in the community, a friend to all, who was found dead in his bed, having died of pneumonia, asphyxiated in his sleep. A coroner’s report proved he had seroconverted (caught HIV) a long time ago and never went to a clinic to get tested or start treatment: he died a preventable, horrible death.
Because he was an active bug-chaser—an HIV fetishist.
It’s unclear if he knew he was getting sick and wilfully committed a kind of long suicide for erotic purposes, or if he genuinely had no idea and just thought he had a bad cold. Who knows? But his death hurt and angered everyone. Every HIV-positive man who loved him, including me, broke down at the news and wished they could have been there to talk to him, take him to a clinic, and save him.
But you can’t save someone who doesn’t want to be saved. And that is why bug-chasing hurts so much: We battled this together and lost so many in the fight. The victory of medications and competent care that we have now came at a terrible, terrible cost. We lost our fathers, brothers, and partners.
And yet, it’s a real fetish. It kills, but it’s real. We must acknowledge two realities: bug-chasing is deeply offensive, and yet many among us have a desire to engage in it. Both are true. So, what choices must you make? How must you proceed?
You must decide if this is something you really want to do, or if you would be satisfied with role-playing, pretending. If the latter, you can role-play a bug-chaser and gifter scenario with any willing sex partner without actually needing to find an HIV-positive, unmedicated person to willingly infect you.
If the former, you need to decide on an action plan for when you get HIV. Will you be like my friend in Atlanta and someday be found dead in your bed? Or will you be like me: a happy, healthy, HIV-positive man who can’t infect anyone because I’m on meds?
These are the risks you must weigh. Death or life. You choose.
Love, Beastly