Gay pozzing stories

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I want to get HIV, especially from you.”

He couldn’t see the horror across my face. “This way I get to at least know who, how and when I get HIV. And you are a really nice guy.

THE GIFT

Twenty years after the initial panic, there is a dangerous new complacency fueled by the mistaken belief that AIDS is now a manageable disease.

As many men in the community become condom weary, and some even consciously desire HIV infection, disturbing new trends of risky behavior have pushed the rate of new infections back into a rapid rise, all to the mantra of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.

Using Internet sites for promotion and connection, a community of barebackers (those who have sex without a condom) is flourishing.

Eventually I struck up a conversation with a twenty-something year old guy who had excellent tattoos. I didn’t understand what he was saying.

I researched more online to make sense of it. It is also called ‘pozzing’, ‘stealthing’, ‘breeding’ and ‘gift giving’.

As I asked him to clarify, he kept verifying that he indeed wasn’t looking for love, but the bug. He didn’t apologize, and reignited the pressure to have sex. I loved making conversations in cyberspace, a guilt-free place where my emotions wouldn’t win a game of tug-a-war with my arousal. He has also been asked in person but this is rare.

But for me and most with HIV, being infected was devastating mistake.

Now with no sex drive, I wondered if I could at least turn this into a valuable lesson for the young man. The term seems to have first appeared in a 2003 Rolling Stone magazine article: “Bug Chasers: The Men Who Long to be HIV+”, but it would be naive to think bug chasing wasn’t happening before this time.

Motivations behind bug chasing can be complicated, but reasons and thinking include

an ultimate taboo (one of the most extreme sex acts left)
the excitement in pursuing a dangerous activity
intimacy and eroticism (sexually stimulating)
a fetish
a sexual fantasy
validation and acceptance
a shared identity (sense of belonging) within the HIV-positive community
to rebel or transgress against accepted social norms/ behaviours
HIV fatigue (easier to have HIV than prevent getting it)
low self-esteem or worthlessness
trauma

There is likely a tension between the fantasy and actual behaviour and, for many, bug chasing is just a sexual fantasy not acted upon.

He confirmed. He became a bug chaser and actively sought the gift of HIV infection. In our little private chat window he began describing all of the dirty things he wanted to do with me – he loved to bottom and even bareback. “Well, then you just contracted HIV,” I climbed on my high horse.

“When can we meet to actually do this?” he asked.

One should be mindful that those engaging in bug chasing may be struggling with mental health issues, problematic drug use, and/ or addiction.

Given the widespread success of HIV treatment and PrEP and greater awareness of U=U (Undetectable = Untransmittable) bug chasers have fewer opportunities to contract HIV. In porn, it’s also worth mentioning that when a guy asks another to give him his ‘poz load’, you don’t know if they are both HIV positive or if one is HIV positive on meds but the other is on PrEP.

Updating this November 2023, one of our volunteers (who states his HIV-positive status on his app profile) says he’s asked every few months if he’ll poz someone including coming off his meds to do so.