Ex-Homosexuals Say ‘Bug Chasers’ Story Reflects 'Gay' Recklessness     1/29/2003
By Peter LaBarbera

GLAAD Goes into Spin Mode against Rolling Stone Article on Men who Pursue HIV

Three former homosexual men say a story in the liberal magazine Rolling Stone about “bug chasers” — homosexual men who yearn to get infected with the HIV virus — does a public service by highlighting a disturbing aspect of “gay” male behavior.

Homosexual activists led by the media pressure group GLAAD (Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) are lambasting Rolling Stone author Gregory Freeman for defaming “gay” men through his article, "In Search of Death," appearing in the February 6 issue. Freeman's Rolling Stone article examines an “intricate underground world” that “celebrates the [HIV] virus and eroticizes it.”

“HIV-infected semen is treaded like liquid gold,” writes Freeman. “The men who want the virus are called ‘bug chasers,’ and the men who freely give the virus to them are called ‘gift givers.’”

GLAAD News Media Director Cathy Renna says Freeman’s Rolling Stone article, in which she is quoted, is “irresponsible.” But one ex-"gay" man contacted by C&F Report says that GLAAD’s response shows that “their primary concern is over the image this portrays about gays and lesbians — not concern over the health issue. To Renna, image is everything...AIDS must be secondary.”

Moreover, he says, regardless of how popular “bug chasing” is in homosexual circles, the Rolling Stone expose points to the sexual recklessness and obsessiveness among “gay” men that is manifested in other dangerous practices such as “barebacking” — a slang term for condomless anal sodomy.

GLAAD Takes On 25% Figure

GLAAD and other homosexual activists say that Freeman misquoted a San Francisco official who, he writes, “estimates that at least twenty-five percent of all newly infected gay men fall into” the “bug-chasing” category.

The official, Dr. Bob Cabaj, director of behavioral-health services for San Francisco County and a homosexual activist himself, now says Freeman misquoted him and that the 25 percent figure is way too high. Newsweek.com reports:

Cabaj says that attribution is made-up. “That’s totally false. I never said that. And when the fact checker called me and asked me if I said that, I said no. I said no. This is unbelievable.” Cabaj said there’s no way of knowing what percentage of gay men are looking to get infected but that it’s likely very small.

Sensing a PR disaster of massive proportions for the “gay” movement — and following its policy of downplaying homosexual health risks — GLAAD sent out an alert that includes the above quotation from Cabaj. GLAAD also quotes Andrew Sullivan, who takes Freeman’s work to task in the liberal online magazine Salon. Sullivan writes:

I'm not saying we should be unconcerned about this phenomenon. It's not made up. It's been out there for years now. It is a problem, as many actual HIV counselors and officials cited in the piece clearly acknowledge. But the first thing a journalist has to do is find out if the phenomenon exists to any real extent, how significant it is, and how widespread it is — especially when it deploys the most sensational language to describe an already beleaguered and feared subculture. That's why this piece isn't journalism. It's hysteria, wrapped in a homophobic and HIV-phobic wrapper. [FOX talk show host] Sean Hannity and other gay-haters are pleased as punch. [Openly homosexual Rolling Stone editor and publisher] Jann Wenner should be ashamed.

Andrew knows barebacking

The Rolling Stone piece also discusses the related “gay” phenomenon of “barebacking,” which has drawn much attention in recent years from homosexual- and AIDS activists. Sullivan himself has AIDS and in 2001 was exposed by homosexuals who discovered that he had posted a sex solicitation on a “gay” “barebacking” Web site.

The homosexual journalist Rex Wockner reported the following in an opinion piece titled “Sullivangate” appearing in the Web publication PlanetOut on June 8, 2001 (note Sullivan's admission):

Andrew, who is HIV-positive and an acquaintance of mine, reportedly posted explicit written profiles and headless nude photos of himself on America Online and on a barebacking Web site. The profiles were designed to facilitate random — and some would say tawdry — sexual encounters.

Many observers believe these pseudonymous Web postings conflict with Andrew's public writings in which he has promoted gay marriage/monogamy and taken pot-shots at the gay sexual fast lane — the same fast lane that the author of these Web profiles seems to participate in with gusto.

"It is true that I had an AOL screenname/profile for meeting other gay men," Sullivan admitted in an essay posted at [his vanity Web site] www.andrewsullivan.com. "It is true that I posted an ad some time ago on a site for other gay men devoted to unprotected sex."

Rolling Stone: ‘anti-gay’?

Rolling Stone has historically been highly supportive of the “gay rights” movement and disparaging of pro-family and religious groups opposed to homosexuality. This led Web writer Clayton Cramer to make the following observation:

Which of the following is more likely?

1. That people who make their living in the AIDS treatment industry, whose careers might well be impaired if not ended if enough pressure were applied, and are in daily contact with people with AIDS, have been pressured into claiming that they were misquoted? [or]

2. That a reporter who works for Rolling Stone, a magazine published by an openly gay man, decided to make up quotes for an article that would be profoundly useful for those who are hostile to homosexuality? Perhaps the reporter wanted to get himself fired?

You tell me which you think is the more likely possibility.[Posted January 24]

Noting Sullivan’s own “barebacking” scandal, which was fueled by homosexuals who regard Sullivan as a hypocritical moralizer, Cramer writes:

Search [on the Web] for “Andrew Sullivan” and “barebacking” and you will have more sites to visit than you can shake a stick at. Can anyone imagine a reason why Sullivan might have an interest in distracting attention away from a very, very dangerous activity: unsafe sex by HIV+ [men]?

A Google [Internet] search for “barebacking” returned … about 23,600 sites … Hey, maybe it is all or mostly fantasy. Right now, I see no reason to disbelieve the Rolling Stone article. It's not like the magazine is exactly pandering to Focus on the Family members.

Cramer has posted large portions of the Rolling Stone article on his “blogger” site.

Rolling Stone writer Freeman had this to say about attempts to discredit his “bug chasing” article: “This is shocking. I vividly remember these conversations [e.g., his interview with Cabaj]. From the very start, the article has been a touchy issue for everyone involved. I can only guess that now that it’s getting a lot of attention, people are getting worried. It’s an unpleasant topic.”

Ex-homosexuals weigh in

I asked three former homosexuals for their take on the “bug-chasing” story. Two spoke anonymously. All found the 25 percent figure excessive, but said that does not diminish the importance of the story.

Former homosexual and ex-drug addict Stephen Bennett, who now heads up Stephen Bennett Ministries and is married with two children, notes via e-mail:

As a former homosexual, I can testify to the depravity of the “gay” lifestyle. For most homosexual men and women, they are “lost” in a world which they seem not to fit — a world they are demanding to conform to their ideology.

Homosexuality has become a “cancer” in their lives — a lifestyle based upon an obsessive preoccupation with “gay” sex that envelops every aspect of their being — physical, emotional and even spiritual. Many eat, sleep and breathe homosexuality. Unfortunately, their unnatural distortion of sexuality has taken on many perversions. Such is “bug chasing.”

This twisted perversion recently reported by Rolling Stone is shockingly very real. While I question and doubt the “high” percentage of “bug chasers” given by Rolling Stone, it just reinforces the depravity and self-hatred found among many homosexuals. Many play a daily Russian Roulette with their lives, knowing it's just a matter of time before they get infected. I know first hand — many of my past lovers are dead today from AIDS. “Gay” sex was all they cared about and knew someday they would end up paying the price for their risky, promiscuous behavior. It is truly a miracle I never got infected myself. Knowing my past behavior, I should be dead today from AIDS.

To go chasing after getting infected with the AIDS virus as the “ultimate ecstatic experience” — is just plain sick. I'm sure many homosexuals would agree.

While the “gay” activists demand more federal money for research, with AIDS already receiving the most funding in history by the U.S. government compared to any other disease, it greatly disturbs me that there are homosexuals knowingly spreading the virus and not caring about anything else but their own wants and sexual pleasure.

‘Gay’ recklessness

Another ex-homosexual living in the Washington, D.C. area — who spent over 20 years living as a “gay” man — told Culture & Family Report, “There is a recklessness that is endemic to the gay male population. … There is a portion of the community that likes to flirt with death. They get off on taking chances. It’s an erotic high for them.”

He pointed to other dangerous “subcultures” within the homosexual male world, such as the self-styled “leather community” (sadomasochists) and public sex-seekers, and the many homosexual men who “cruise” for casual, even anonymous, sexual encounters.

Asked about the 25 percent figure, he said that if you count homosexual men who “are HIV-positive and are going out and having sex with other men who don’t really care [whether their sex partner has the virus], then it’s probably accurate.”

Another former homosexual man, who is now married with a child and living in Maryland, made the following observations about the Rolling Stone article via e-mail:

We had several guys at [a D.C.-area-based “ex-gay” Christian ministry] who were definitely "bug chasers." They had two primary reasons for it:

1. They believed that getting the virus would free them up to practice uninhibited sex (barebacking). It would also release them from the constraints that some of gay society placed on them by forcing "safe sex" as a way of life. These were guys who got tired of condoms (or who believed that a condom didn't feel as good during sex), and were sick of the whole emphasis put on safe sex. They wanted life to be like it was in the San Francisco bathhouse scene of the late 70's/early 80's. There was also this idea floating around (it would have been in the late 90's) that HIV wasn't as big of a deal as originally thought. [In his article, Freeman describes a man, Carlos, who, "like most bug chasers, ... has the impression that the [HIV] virus just isn't such a big deal anymore: 'It's like living with diabetes. You take a few pills and get on with your life.'"] The thinking was that if they just went ahead and got the virus, they could have sex with whoever, whenever and wherever they wanted. It would cut through the red tape (you know, finding out your sex partners name and so forth).

2. The fear of HIV was so intense for some guys (normally the closeted ones) that just getting it would make their lives easier. I talked to some guys who were consumed with the thought of getting HIV. The fear dominated their life and even though the easiest solution was to give up homosexuality, they took the other option...just getting it over with. There was this mystery about HIV and it scared them, once the AIDS groups started those HIV campaigns — focusing on how being [HIV] "positive" was a good thing, and living "with" [rather than “dying from”] AIDS — it started making the guys who were so fearful a little more comfortable with the idea of having HIV. So they just figured, "Hey, if I get HIV, I can relax and go on with my life and stop being so scared about it."

Of course, none of these reasons probably [make any sense to most people], but for the guys I talked to they were valid reasons. I've got to tell you, that in the lowest point of my own life, when I was having anonymous sex and so forth, … I even had some thoughts that life with HIV would make things better. You have to understand, I was meeting people online and sometimes wouldn't even know their name when I had sex with them — much less if they were HIV or not. The desire to have that kind of sex drove everything and if I took time to find out their HIV status, well ... I might lose out and not hook-up that night. So, I just went and took my chances; I would be nervous and then sweating [about taking] an HIV test, but I would still do it [the sex]. For that brief period of time, I actually thought HIV would be the way to go — to free up my life a little more. It’s sick, I know. But this is a very dark sin and like a cancer, it spreads to your entire being and takes over.

He recalled how in June 1997, he and a friend “who also enjoyed anonymous public sex” were planning to go to the "Crew Club" [a homosexual sex club in Washington, D.C.] on 14th Street one Friday night: “We were looking forward to taking part in an orgy — most likely a barebacking orgy. But a funny thing happened on the Tuesday night before we were to go: I gave my life to the Lord and never went back [to homosexuality]. My friend did go that Friday, and I've never heard from him again.”

The man requested anonymity because, like many former homosexuals, he prefers to leave his sinful "gay" past behind him.

Percentage is not main issue

One close observer of the AIDS scene who monitors federally-funded AIDS groups told C&F Report that “bug chasing” and “barebacking” sites are easy to find on the Web. He made the following observations about the Rolling Stone article and the “25 percent” figure that has been attacked by GLAAD:

I think [the 25 percent figure] is way too high. My guess is that these guys exist only in big cities like New York or San Francisco. But even if it’s only one percent, that has a significant impact. If someone intentionally get infected at 21 so they can have as much sex with no concern for infecting themselves or others, they could potentially infect hundreds of others during there life time who in return may unintentionally infect hundreds of others. The impact could be thousands and thousands of cases all linked to a single index case, much like the original Patient Zero who is thought to have been an original vector for spreading HIV throughout North America in the 70s and early 80s.

I have heard for years about some young gay men in places like San Francisco who assume they will eventually become infected so they chose to get infected intentionally so they can receive AIDS housing and other services. I cannot verify this but it is all similar to the phenomenon of young girls intentionally getting pregnant. … I am concerned that CDC and AIDS groups have chosen to dismiss rather than confront the problem, no matter how few people it actually involves. After all, one person has the potential to infect hundreds or thousands.

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