Gosh there’s so many things to write about I just almost can’t decide where to start. I suppose chronologically would be good, and the first thing I thought about tackling was the recent Rolling Stone Magazine feature story entitled Bug Chasers a glimpse into the life and philosophy of basically one gay guy who is on some erotically charged romanticized quest to become infected with HIV. According to the article, this person is part of an intricate underground world that has sprouted, driven almost completely by the Internet, in which men who want to be infected with HIV get together with those who are willing to infect them. With cute names like “bug-chasers” and “gift-givers” the article describes an entire subculture of gay men who celebrate and eroticize the virus, with unforgivably sensationalist lines like, “HIV-infected semen is treated like liquid gold,” or “Like a lot of sexual fetishes or extreme behaviors, bug-chasing could not exist without the internet, or at least it couldn’t thrive.” Come on, that’s like saying that the resurgence of syphilis cases in the gay population was largely due to the AOL chat room M4M San Francisco. But wait, the media did say that. Then it must be true, right? Come on. Why was this bug-chaser story featured in Rolling Stone Magazine? Didn’t they have any of their usual knee-jerk reactionary psuedo-liberal dreck from some front line location in the Middle East where they assassinate journalists regularly or an expose on the inner-workings of a drug cartel in South America or better yet which new drug culture you haven’t even heard of has the entire Midwest in the throes of addiction and brain damage.
I guess not, so they decided to run this story, one that would almost certainly get the gay political groups angry and questioning the sources and facts, one that would possibly knock back the perception of gays by the hetero majority to the fun levels of the past, depraved compulsive predatory sexual deviants, and finally, a story that Louis P.Sheldon and the True Values Coalition would place on the front page of their website, hoping to spread more fear, intolerance and the impetus for eventually stripping away our civil rights. Thanks Rolling Stone, you shouldn’t have.
The principle character of the story, reluctant bug-chaser poster boy “Carlos” was exactly the kind of ignorant faggot that makes me cringe to hear expound on anything they feel passionate about, because one day it might be the “bug-chaser community” and the next it might be the leather community or competition aerobics. He struck me as completely shallow, vain and perversely exhibitionist, inviting the writer to watch him have unprotected sex with a date. Someone was enjoying his15 minutes of fame by indicating that this whole questionable subculture existed around gay men trying to get HIV like queens trying to begat an heir to the throne. If I were to encounter a person like this, on a hunt for a “hot poz load” I’d suggest that they go bang dope with dirty needles. The odd simile these “bug-chasers” create regarding taking an infected load to being “bred” or impregnated is enough to turn my stomach. And you thought drag was a sexual buzz-kill! Imagine getting real hot and heavy with some guy and he starts in with, “Oh yeah, breed me, seed me. Yeah baby, knock me up!” Shut the fuck up.
Now I know that plenty of gay men who are positive choose to have unprotected sex with other positive individuals, there’s no denying that men make this choice, but I can’t really buy that a significant portion of gay males who are HIV negative actively eroticize and seek out infection, especially the figures this article puts forth, some of them direct quotes from experts who have claimed they were flagrantly misquoted upon the articles publication. It’s just more absurd bullshit carefully designed to put gays in a negative light, a warm up for round two of lets make gays out to be unpatriotic terrorist-loving security risks and non-redeemable wastes of humanity. Lets march them off to the ovens. Does it sound paranoid and drastic? Look around.
The more I pondered the thriving underground subculture of the “bug-chaser” the more I started to think maybe it was a typo. Maybe it was supposed to be “bag-chaser” instead. I’d say there’s a hell of a lot more gays having sex to get at their partners bag of dope than to get at their HIV infected spunk. Now there’s a thriving underground subculture, and it even pre-dates the Internet.
On the lighter side of the news, which story disappointed you more, The Oakland Raider’s loss at the Superbowl or the loss of another batch of astronauts with the explosion of the space shuttle as it re-entered the earth’s atmosphere? It’s a toss up for me really. I worked the Eagle’s beer bust on Superbowl Sunday and I guess I’m the only one who finds it strange to see large groups of gay males assembling to watch a fucking national sports event. I don’t know how many rabid gay sports fans asked me if I was going to put the game on instead of the carefully selected and meaningful rock music selections I was playing! I gave them the finger. Was it not enough that all the tv monitors in the place were tuned in to the game? They wanted the audio too? For god’s sake, we are male homosexuals here. Was I the only semi-fragile klutzy last-to-be-chosen- for-any-team in Physical Education type guy present there? Sports were just synonymous with trauma and fear and anxiety enough to send me running in the other direction forever, except for a brief period of time when I had a crush on Jose Canseco, but that was a long time ago.
By the point when the horrifying half-time extravaganza was rolling out in all of it’s over-the-top splendor, it was pretty clear that Oakland was losing so I can’t say I was disappointed at all, in fact I was glad. Now we could rest assured that cars wouldn’t be overturned and lit on fire and riots and looting and drunken sports-fan lawlessness wouldn’t ensue throughout the greater bay area. I was even less disappointed on the following weekend when news of the space shuttle’s disintegration hit or came down, so to speak. I very vividly recall the first time this happened, the teacher in space episode of Nasa’s best bloopers series. I couldn’t believe the nation was so wrapped up in this routine space expedition gone awry, mostly because the mission included a schoolteacher and ultimately the most famous female aviator this side of Amelia Earhart, Christine McCullough. Oh the sad sad tragedy that was. I couldn’t believe how the nation mourned, how children cried, how the media deified the civilian passenger and educator. I was all caught up in the simple fact that the first wave of death from AIDS was starting to touch my life personally and space exploration was a folly that sucked up a huge amount of government resources while AIDS research got nothing, like the government wasn’t sure if it was necessarily a bad thing yet. So if anything, I was glad about the big horrifying blunder, the omnipotent NASA had egg on it’s face and billions of dollars went down the tube, and all we got was some great filmed fireball footage and pieces of space junk falling from the sky.
With the current space shuttle blunder, the first thought that occurred to me was how unaware I was that any such mission was currently going on. I mean with the current climate of impending war and the many aspects of our lives that are changed because of this (have you read the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001 lately?), you’d think perhaps space exploration projects might be called off. But the space program has always been a major macho national dick size contest for America (why does a rocket look like a cock? Hmmmm.) so I can understand projects continuing even during these trying times. I recall a time when space programs were very much about these particular trying times and they probably still are. But back to the tragedy at hand, America’s great loss of 7 heroic astronauts returning from a routine research expedition. The nation mourns. Boo Fucking Hoo. I’ve sort of been of the idea that every few years there should be a tragic space exploration accident that takes the lives of a NASA crew. Apparently NASA seems to feel the same way. I wonder. America thrives on televised tragedy or coverage of emergency situations and rescue attempts, and it’s been awhile since the WTC attack and the saga of the trapped miners played out to a glorious heroic “I Love America” conclusion. Maybe we needed this. So far there have been no signs of an outside force being the cause of the shuttles explosion, but I’m sure most of America was hoping that. The masses are as hungry for war as our leader seems to be. He’s whet their appetite for it and drawn them to the idea like a schoolyard bully to an after school fight. I was especially shocked to note that our president took the opportunity to publicly shed a few tears over this nations terrible tragic loss of the Shuttle and Crew. Was this in line with his unprecedented coverage of AIDS in his recent state of the union address? Was he showing his more sensitive compassionate side? I believe he was speaking of AIDS in Africa mainly, and I’d cry every time I looked in the mirror if I were him. It’s tough when your main supporters are stodgy old feeble-minded fundamentalists on the edge of normal life-expectancy who crave Armageddon and think you are just the guy who can take us there and fulfill their prophesies.