Inexorable

A few guys I've spoken to have said that the thought of infection turns them on. Specifically not just the thought of flesh-to-flesh contact without the barrier of a condom, but the prospect of contracting HIV. While I think there's a bit of urban mythology about bugchasing, I think there's some slight truth in it for some people I've spoken to. What they talk about is an end to the fear and uncertainty of being "negative at my last test" and the ongoing dread that accompanies each of those tests. There's also the way that HIV positive people have had to go through a challenging period of self-evaluation and some of us come out of that chewing our own faces off in clubs, getting fucked by strangers, while others have used that crisis as a springboard into a position where we value our health and our lives a lot more than we used to.

Neither's any more appropriate a response than the other to the acquisition of a potentially life-threatening disease, but to willingly choose a slow, inexorable suicide seems like an interesting choice. Personally, I've not attempted suicide or been anywhere near it since my diagnosis, but had been previously. On one level or another I think I acknowledged that the matter taken out of my hands now so there was no merit in trying to hurry it along. Far from being nihilistic, knowing that death swam with me gave me a lot more to find good about life.

I wonder if that low-level creeping nihilism that underpins the ennui that many people feel these days drives some of us to situations where the matter could be taken out of our hands and we'd seek out, consciously or otherwise, an end to the fear and uncertainty that comes with being negative to replace it with the inexorable certainty of being HIV positive.

I don't for a moment think that the majority of people feel this way, but I have had conversations with more than a few guys who have said that they fantasise about it and secretly wish for situations where it could happen.

I don't plan on granting anyone's wish this Christmas.