May 25, 2006

• Self-loathing can be an implacably powerful force.
• My opinion on their outlook "get it, then I don't have to worry about it." Kind of like Howard Stern saying his penis is small. Alleviate the the threat by embracing it.
• Dan Savage has talked about this in the past. Seems to be a product of two factors: first, that some men view having HIV as 'legitimizing' their gay identity, that you're not really gay until you've caught the bug. The second factor has to do with HIV-service providers, for taking a non-judgemental approach to those whom are still contracting the virus, as, in Dan's view, you would have to be incredibly stupid or incredibly unlucky to do it, as education about the virus has reached its saturation point. Those service providers are refusing to chastize bugchasers, and so the phenomenon continues. As is my recollection of the situation at least. I welcome any needed corrections.
• More info here and here. "gift giver" *shudder*
• *head explodes*
• "I have sex with consenting adults. I expect them to manage their lives. I am not responsible for how they choose to live their life, because if it's not going to be me, it'll be somebody else. I guarantee it. Because there's people out there that's willing to gift," That's a great principle to live by: it's okay to do anything, as long as you're not the ONLY person in the world who would do that. If there's ANYBODY ELSE ON EARTH who would do it too, you can just say, "Hey, if it wasn't me, it'd be that guy," and you're absolved of responsibility.
• (But what does collingwood think about it? That's what I really want to know. I know he's only recently joined us, but I've come to look forward to- nay, to RELY ON- his thoughtful contributions to our community. For fuck's sake.)
• *memo to self: contact Cafepress re: "WWCT?" merch opportunity*
• I'll buy one
• Can I get that on a unitard?
• Insanity. "I want my body to be infected with a disease that currently has no cure. I hope to die from it someday." Yes, I made that up. I just wonder why the medical community doesn't hear this and get their asses back to cancer research. At least cancer patients want to be cured. aaugh. I want to beat them senseless.
• "I have sex with consenting adults. I expect them to manage their lives. I am not responsible for how they choose to live their life, because if it's not going to be me, it'll be somebody else. I guarantee it. Because there's people out there that's willing to gift," ...so I might as well get laid out of it.
• the concept that a terminal disease is a "gift" is mind-boggling to me. as if the crystal meth epidemic of the past 10 years wasn't bad enough on the Gay community, now there are idiots like these who have found a way to fuck themselves up further. it really makes me wish there were two kinds of gay, so that I wouldn't have to be associated with these total fucktards. *sigh*
• Monkeyfilter: two kinds of gay.
• there are: gay people and twisted fags - before you get all bent out of shape let me tell you alot of twisted fags are proud of being twisted fags, take my friend Pat a fascist-bear-leather-boy, with an appetite for fisting, he has no problem with twisted fag.
• How beautifully blue the sky, The glass is rising very high, Continue fine I hope it may, And yet it rained but yesterday.
• Yet people say, I know not why, That they would like some H-I-Vye...
• Their insurance should drop them cold, and they should be refused access to any publically funded clinic. There are more socially acceptable ways of committing suicide that don't involve increasing the pool of carriers for a deadly disease. Screw your identity and statement. Way to spit in the faces of all the people who fought to lower access barriers to treatment for the HIV positive.
• He is a carrier, and committed to that role. Ooh.. that's nice then.
• We shouldn't insure or publicly cover the health costs of smokers. People who use tan booths. People who walk less then 30 minutes a day, or fail to manage a healthy diet, drive fast in the rain or take unprescribed scheduled drugs. Or at the very least not cover the results of risky in/action. Abortions should be paid for privately, unless of course your pregnancy was not the result of risky in/action. I like being an adult, it means taking some personal responsibility 'n' stuff but man it rocks.
• Their insurance should drop them cold Yes, morally if they are going to infect themselves they should pay for their own treatment - but how is the insurance company going to drop them without barring gay people altogether or attempting some absurd check on how safe-sex they are? I think I do sort of understand the appeal of this - it's a bit like being a vampire (anyone who has never found any twinge of erotic interest in vampirism will just have to bear with me). You have to ask yourself: if your toleration of gay behaviour extends only to gays who behave like suburban couples from an old-fashioned sitcom, does it really extend very far? Maybe that's why middle-class liberal opinion was so keen on gay marriage - it looks progressive, but is actually a way of removing the subversive sting, of co-opting 'reasonable' gays into traditional straight society?
• hell, Plegmund, i not only tolerate gay behavior, i engage in it. but this has less to do with gay behavior than with mental health. i am perfectly happy not being a part of the dominant hetero paradigm, and i do have non-tradtional relationships and interactions of a gay sort... but asking this to be "tolerated" as part of gay behavior is like asking that same-sex child molestation be "tolerated" as part of gay behavior- it's deviant to the extreme, and harmful for at least 50% of the participants. i think the fact that it involves gay men is kind of a red herring to a limited extent--- it's still people engaging in a behavior that is likely to be fatal that happens to take place during homosexual intercourse. i wonder when the hetero bug-chasers will show up to the "party?"
• What es el Queso said. This isn't a gayness issue. It's a perverse form of suicide involving a disease that happens to be prevalent among gays. It wouldn't surprise me if there are hetero equivalents.
• A bug-chasing fashion statement I can get behind.
• Considering that many bug chasers self-identify, get tattoos to advertise their status, or are otherwise not too circumspect about their behavior, I don't think it would be that hard to make life very difficult on someone who intentionally engaged in behavior to contract the disease. Yes, people could run under the radar, hide the fact that they were trying to catch the disease as some sort of status symbol or group identity, but some attempt should be made to see to it that the limited resources are better spent on people that didn't go out and intentionally create a social problem. The precedent is that auto insurance, homeowners won't pay if you intentionally wreck your car, commit arson etc.. Its only in the case of health care where we forgive people their most egregious vices and pay to keep them alive in spite of them. What of individual responsibility there? And oh the outrage when an employer asks his employees to lose weight, or stop smoking, to not be dropped from the company health plan. And I doubt that they were TRYING to get hooked. Very few people actively TRY to obese in order to die of a heart attack, or take up smoking in an attempt to get cancer, or say, hey, I think I'll tan until I get skin cancer.
• As a practical matter, I don't know how to do it. But this isn't anti-gay sentiment I'm expressing, its anti-misanthropic.
• Yes very few smokers are trying to get cancer. Possibly some. Very few people engaging in sexual behaviour, are by necessity, thinking about the outcome. Difficult problem telling them apart though. Certain behaviours lead to significant increases in particular negative, as we view them, outcomes. Everyone taking part in those behaviours knows that, or so we assume for our simple paradigm to work. How to differentiate between those simply ignoring the risks; the I'll probably get away with it crowd, and those who desire that very outcome? Difficult to judge by behaviour alone.
• es el Queso, Plegmund asked the most interesting, stop and think question I've seen on monkeyfilter, post-elevenses since lunch. I'm not convinced he was talking in personal terms of his own tolerance of 'gay behaviour'. Simply asking a question about middle class liberal opinion.
• I logged in just to say "What the bloody FUCK??" ok, I'm done.
• So how do the insurance companies tell if you intentionally burned down your house? Apparently for a $200,000 payout, they'll investigate. I suspect that a lifetime of anti-retrovirals costs more. Interview past sexual partners (already done anyway), coworkers, etc. Sure, you'll never catch everybody, but I think there should be a very healthy fear that society may disown you if you show a callous disregard for your life or others.
• The good news is, I doubt anybody who goes and intentionally infects themselves with HIV is then going to follow up with anti-retroviral treatment. At least until their first bout with pneumonia. I wonder how many get cold feet when that happens.
• ?wtf?
• I tried to catch the flu once.
• Oh goody, I hope they go on arv therapy and continue to transmit/receive the virus so that we can really get those drug resistances going strong! It's a personal choice, yo.
• “You see the emergence of magazines like 'POZ' for example, which basically try to redeem that identity, of one of being slated for death, to one of really representing a remarkably enriching life, despite having HIV," Kellar says. Let me know if my logic is faulty on this one, but I've seen the tampon commercials on that there picture-box, and in those commercials women are playing tennis, riding horses, and having a great time. But that doesn't make me want my period.
• I wonder if it's some bizarre form of Munchausen's Syndrome.
• Does anyone here have an opinion on self inflicted violence of other kinds? Or even another kind of opinion? Any other? No? Just let the anorexics starve. Is that what you beg for? Abortions are brought on by choice? Makes you feel safe that your insurance bucks aren't spent inappropriatly. What of the equalities you could grant. The equalities you have a little power over, choices you make day to day in every tiny matter. This one, the one you have so proudly and loudly proclaimed, your proudest loudest moment ever? Well you chose it, you keep it. Don't be sick. Have faith. If you had the simple honest straightforward strength to lift the scantiomony from your airways you could breathe more easily and would need less paroxitne, subutomal or methylphenidte. Your un-diluted ignorent hate would do the LGF crowd ordinary. Hey.. not that I care or anything, I like zombies as much as anyone. Oh any gifters in the house?
• Puts a whole new spin on the white elephant. "Are you re-gifting the AIDS?"
• >>Does anyone here have an opinion on self inflicted violence of other kinds? Yeah, my opinion is that this isn't self-inflicted.
• (1) The article is shit. Gary is a sociopath. Is anyone surprised that sociopaths exist? What a bunch of sensationalist bullshit. Is it sweeps week? Because it involves such a small group of people, and is a relatively new phenomenon there are few studies and no legislation against bugchasing. I'd trace barebacking to at least 1995. That's the first time I remember running into it. Bob Power, quoted in the article, seems to agree. If you suppose that the AIDS epidemic is 25 years old, the barebacking phenomenon has been around nearly half that long. It's not "relatively new". Besides, even in the late 80s and early 90s, when safe sex was at its peak, there was nowhere near 100% compliance. (Also, anyone who trusts this regime to regulate gay sexuality, raise your hand. Yeah, thought so.) (2) People, not just gay men, make incredibly stupid decisions when it comes to sex. I am absolutely astonished by the frequency with which the straight people I know forget to take their birth control and/or have sex without condoms. Sure, an unwanted pregnancy isn't going to kill you, but it is going alter your life tremendously: an abortion, an adoption, raising the child alone, a shotgun wedding, or 18 years of paying child support are all huge costs to incur just to get laid. And yet some young, fertile straight people continue to have unprotected sex. Where is WKOW when you need them? (3) To what extent is barebacking caused by the futility of the situation? A thought experiment: Merck discovers a vaccine against HIV. It'll be available in six months. It's not a cure and it won't help you if you are already infected. Does _anyone_ bareback during that six months? Do some people refuse the vaccine once it becomes available and still try to seroconvert? Another thought experiment. Do you suppose that if Ebola were an STD, that barebacking would be less frequent? Does the fact that HIV kills you slowly and rather quietly factor into this? If you began bleeding out of your orifices 24 hours after getting laid (well, I suppose sometimes you do!), would people be more wary? (4) I think it just comes down to some people are sociopaths, most people are stupid, and hopelessness exacerbates both of those conditions. You don't need that tool Dan Savage yammering on about gay identity or political correctness. Even Fes's "self-loathing" comment seems to miss the mark. People are cruel and dumb. We infect each other with fatal viruses, fly airplanes into buildings, destroy the ozone layer, and shit on the Constitution. Explaining barebacking as if it were uniquely gay is to focus on the surface, contingent aspects while ignoring the fact that it is a very _human_ thing to do.
• Stan the Bat. It really never is.
• barebacking ... is a very _human_ thing to do Oh come now, have you ever seen a dolphin use a condom? Your anthropocentric viewpoint SUCKS. Think mammalian, LOSER.
• I am absolutely astonished by the frequency with which the straight people I know forget to take their birth control and/or have sex without condoms. But this isn't a matter of forgetting, or not weighing the risk of infection against the pleasure of unsafe sex.
• this voluntary infection strikes me as something that happens very very very very very rarely but it's useful to blow out of proportion because the media loves a good fear-inducing story about hiv and homosexuality. the wikipedia entry on bugchaser has a number of interesting links. these suggest that panic has yet to take hold as the story has been around for at least five years. we need to watch out for over-reaction. i'd rather that insurance companies do not start investigating in-depth the sexual history of someone who has contracted a life-threatening std. why is this different to arson and car insurance? well, it's the person's life, not their house or their car.
• I'd say that barebacking and bugchasing are not synonymous. Barebacking is reckless, self-destructive behavior, but the participants aren't seeking to get HIV; they just want the freedom of unprotected sex and don't care about the consequences. Bugchasers seem to have it in their heads that having HIV is fashionable; I'd bet you dollars to doughnuts that 100% of bugchasers are narcissistic martyr types, besides being complete morons. "Gifters" are sociopaths, as Mackerel said.
• "Darling I just got syphilis! It's all the rage this spring!" "Oh darling you must be joking! Everyone's getting AIDS now - Larry, Jude, everyone." "Oh darling I feel so stupid - I got Herpes as well!" "Darling sit down, darling. Have you seen Brigit? She only went and got herself gonorrhea, the stupid little bitch." "Darling with her figure? Dear God darling there's nothing that fat cow wouldn't do for attention" "Darling let me show you something I picked up in Paris". "Oh darling is it bubonic plague?" "Leprosy, darling. Isn't it exquisite?" "Darling your arm is barely hanging on by a thread". "Thank you darling - I knew I could count on you. Boris said it looked cheap." "Oh, the beastly little shit, darling."
• I think the reason it's getting attention isn't so much that people think it's widespread, or a huge social problem - it's that it's just so incomprehensible to most of us.
• Well played, quid darling.
• My opinion is that anorexics aren't trying to kill themselves, and they aren't taking other people with them. This is more akin to people who refuse to stop driving drunk, because they want to belong to the class of people who wind up in traction.
• And before anybody says this activity is purely self-destructive, these guys don't know when they've been infective, and are acting to mobilize viral strains through a population. As was said before, this is a good way to create multi-drug resistant, more infectious strains of HIV. Sure, insurance companies doing detailed follow-ups is a bad idea, because it mostly affects people who haven't done anything beyond the pale and already have enough problems. But this activity should be made illegal if it isn't already. If it is, the laws should be enforced. Gary should be in jail for manslaughter, if not attempted murder. Kevorkian even did time, so why does he get a pass just because its consentual.
• Normally, I feel that everyone should be able to kill themselves however they see fit. However...what Mord said. Bug chasers don't only hurt themselves. Unlike the Gary in this article, many HIV+ gay men will not have unprotected (or any) sex with a bug chaser. They're not always being altruistic. They don't want to catch anything the bug chaser has.
• I say who gives a shit. Let them do it. They deserve every ounce of pain they have coming to them. Who am I to try to stop them? In this case, I'd have to say the more the merrier.
• US 'sees rise in unsafe gay sex' The UN report can be found here.
• i give a shit, debaser... these assholes are potentially in my dating pool, and i would prefer not to have to consider worrying about them.
• these assholes are potentially in my dating pool, and i would prefer not to have to consider worrying about them. I am SO not going to tagline that.