Sex roulette. The Fuck of Death. Bug chasing.

For over a decade now the mainstream media has chewed and regurgitated the same fear-mongering story; creating ugly buzz-words to describe the supposedly fetishised act of gay men deliberately pursuing HIV infection. The act of “bug chasing” has been described by medical professionals and psychologists as everything from a method of self-harm, sexual pursuit, form of suicide, and rebellion against heterosexual norms and the stigmatisation of HIV.

More than that, it makes for a pretty great headline. Just take a look at this enthralling and movie-esque opening paragraph from News Ltd yesterday:

Picture this scenario: you walk into a room filled with a bunch of naked people. You’re all about to voluntarily have sex. But one of them has an incurable sexually-transmitted infection. You don’t know who that person is. And you’re strictly not allowed to use a condom.

I mean, sure. It would be enthralling. If it weren’t such a bullshit media beat-up designed to further perpetuate the already ample misinformation circulating on HIV. Even the above News Ltd article ends with, “Safe to say it’s all a hoax”.

But if it’s a hoax… why the fuck are people still writing about it?

Despite being explored in the 1980’s by Richard J. Fracis in The American Journal of Psychiatry, the concept of bugchasing rose to mainstream attention when Rolling Stone magazine published a story in 2003 by freelance lad-mag journalist Gregory Freeman titled “Bug Chasing: The men who long to be HIV+”. The article, in which Freeman describes bugchasing as “ultimate taboo, the most extreme sex act left,” quoted San Francisco health services director Dr. Bob Cabaj as saying that close to 25 percent of new HIV infections each year (around 10,000 people) were from men who had contracted it on purpose.

The article was rightly met with strong backlash from the HIV community, being used as easy ammunition by conservative organisations who cited Freeman’s figures when urging the Centers for Disease Control to cut down on its AIDS funding.

All this despite the fact that every source quoted in the Rolling Stones article, including Dr. Bob Cabaj and Dr. Marshall Forstein, disputed their apparent contributions and the entire piece of writing as sensationalist and “a fabrication”. Rolling Stone stood by the article.

A subsequent program by the BBC in 2006 (“I Love Being HIV+”) described bugchasing as a predominantly online fetish, saying that an “overwhelming majority of the talk is pure fantasy.” The program quotes Will Nutland, head of health promotion at Terrence Higgins Trust, as saying, “The concepts of ‘gift giving’ and ‘bug chasers’ are definitely based more in fantasy than reality” as well as Deborah Jack, chief executive of the National AIDS Trust, who said, “There is very little evidence of people trying to get infected with HIV.”

However, despite the overwhelming lack of supporting evidence, over a decade later and the same fear-inciting stories fabrications are still resurfacing in the mainstream and LGBTQI+ media – with renewed “warnings” published in Australia and New Zealand yesterday over a “growing trend of sex-roulette parties”.

“The enduring myth of sex-roulette parties and demonising of the (largely fantasy-based) bug chasers will only end when HIV ends.” Writer and HIV activist Nic Holas tells Heaps Gay.

“In the meantime, LGBT media that continue to fuel these myths with sensationalist and pearl-clutching stories are the real menace to our community. HIV-positive people are being criminalised. Our portrayal in the media isn’t a fucking joke. We’re being sent to prison, precisely because of the fear and ignorance that stories like this encourage.”

“When News Ltd publishes a more balanced story than some gay news sites, you have to wonder who the real enemies of HIV+ people are.”