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  • There is this urban myth, or perhaps urban truth, about bug chasing where someone who

  • is HIV negative goes out to deliberately infect themselves with HIV. And when I first came

  • across this many years ago I thought, "Can't be, this can't be right." But then I went

  • online and there were several websites where people who claim to be HIV negative wanted

  • sexual partners, but only sexual partners who were HIV positive. And so this wasn't

  • a myth it was the truth. A film was made about it that was called "The Gift" about bug chasing.

  • And the man who made the film was premiered at the London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival

  • quite a few years ago was subject to opprobrium, ridicule, and abuse for having even raised,

  • dared to raise, this question in public. But he said it's legitimate because it's already

  • online, people with a few clicks can find out it's going on. Bug chasing is a very real

  • phenomenon. There are people out there who want to let the other shoe drop, who don't

  • want to wait to become infected, which want to end the wait now. And the way you end the

  • wait is go out and get infected then the other shoe has dropped you can relax. So bug chasing

  • is real. It's happening in your neighborhood, it's happening to someone you know. They are

  • going to become HIV infected. It's happened to, well I can't say hundreds, but it's happened

  • to at least 30 people I know who have become infected that way. Who have joined, who have

  • come to my workshop who say this is the way they got infected and in almost every single

  • case they wish they hadn't. That if they could go back and rewrite that moment they would

  • not do it. Although the other shoe dropped they didn't know the consequences that would

  • follow, they thought everything would be easy. And it's not. Everything changes, nothing

  • is the same. Once you're HIV positive you can't go back. They can't take it away. Every

  • single one of those boys and men says, "I wish I hadn't!" But they can't undo it. So

  • Bug Chasing is real. It's still going on today. Anyone going into a backroom or a dark room

  • who is HIV negative is a bug chaser whether they call themselves that or not because that's

  • what they are going to get. It's suicide!

There is this urban myth, or perhaps urban truth, about bug chasing where someone who

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