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.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
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A fairly long time ago...I started to take risks with my health through sporadic unsafe sex. Sooner or later, I said to myself subconsciously, I will be diagnosed as hiv positive, and then I can make up my mind whether I want to live or die. I don't know if that puts me somewhere close to these people you talk to/about...those who almost want to "get it out of the way". Of course when the inevitable happened, after the initial horror of achieving what I'd set out to do I decided that I wanted to live. These men who are tired of the pressure of staying negative are fooling themselves. I am 5 years positive and still not on medication. But I've swapped, as possibly they will, the pressure of staying negative, for the pressure of staying well. The stress of going through the hiv test may for them simply be replaced by the stress of each viral load and cd4 count test. What do you think?
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