"The Gift" (A documentary I watched)

[JakeBequette]

Ok, so last night, when I should have been sleeping for school, I was up watching tv, and I watched this documentary on the sundance channel called "The Gift". Here is a snippit about the movie:​

An eye-opening documentary about Bug Chasers (HIV-free guys trying to catch it) and Gift Givers (men with HIV trying to infect those who don't have it) with an interesting theory about the recent increase in AIDS cases. Turns out the non-stop support and coddling of HIV-positive men make HIV-negative men jealous. Packed full of interesting and candid interviews with gay men from every demographic who are either appalled at what's happening or are too busy answering anonymous online sex ads for "don't ask/don't tell" parties.

Definitions: "Bug Chaser": One who seeks to become infected with HIV
"Gift Giver": One who seeks HIV negative people to infect.

I couldn't believe there were people like that. "Bug Chasers" whose goal was to find an HIV positive man and have unprotected sex with him. There was this guy, Ronboy, who has all these sex parties in his house and he was upset because he was having trouble becoming HIV positive. I thinik his mentallity was that no matter what he did or how safe he was he was going to get HIV and because he thought that, he believed it was better to intentionally get kit and know then have to keep wondering. Isnt that INSANE? I can't imagine that. It's like he and people like him are commiting slow suicide.

The movie had a LOT of interviews in it with lots of gay guys who were giving their input on HIV and "Bug Chasers" and "Gift Givers". There was one boy who was 19 (my age) who wanted to have gay sex, so he went online to all kinds of websites trying to find a guy who was HIV negative to have sex with, but had a lot of trouble finding one. So what he did was look into the HIV positive guys, and he knowingly had unprotected sex with an HIV positive guy. He said in one of his interviews that becoming HIV positive didn't seem like a big deal at the time. I felt so bad for the kid. He was SO STUPID and made such a stupid mistake and has come to realize what he's done and what it means for him and his future and his family. He had a really sad story.

The people who call themselves "gift givers" bothered me a lot. Do they like get off on infecting other people with HIV? I don't know what the official call on that is, but isn't almost murder? I mean, if you know you have an incurable disease that you can infect others with, and you knowingly infect other people with it, isn't it like murder? A person is basically signing anothers death certificate when they infect them. I don't understand it at all.

Also in the movie they shared information about tatoos people get to show their HIV status for the sex parties (which im not sure if I mentioned, but condoms were said to be looked down upon at a sex party). Like you get a biohazard symbol tatood on yourself so that "bug chasers" can find you and become infected. It's insanity.

When "ronboy" finally became positive it was after a huge sex party, and he had sex with around 50 guys in one night, who were all positive to become infected, he said that when he found out he was so relieved that he cried.

They interviewed another guy, he was older, like 45 I guess, who had lost his lover to AIDS about 12 years before the movie was made, and he said that when he got tested he was sad that he was HIV negative and that his lover wasn't. That because his lover was HIB positive he felt that he had to be also. I understand that completly, I think it's really sweet to feel that way about it, but I know that I wouldn't want anyone to kill themself because of me. I wouldn't want to be responsible for another persons death (like "gift givers" are).

There were these 4 middle aged gay men who kind kof had like a discussion forum going on between them, and one of the guys speculated that in the future, peoples death certificates won't say they died due to AIDS anymore, it will say they died of heart failure or whatever else, to cover it up that they had AIDS and make AIDS seems like a less serious thing. He also put out the theory that because being HIV positive has become so accepted that people in the gay community no longer view it as a bad thing or as something to be worried about, and that being HIV negative was now rare and that HIV negative people feel scared to talk about HIV or AIDS because they don't have it.

It was a really great documentary - I highly reccomend it to everyone. Maybe if they would show movies like this in health class in school young people wouldn't make such horrible mistakes...

I guess I should add this - I don't mean to offend anyone with this post. If you feel offended please come at me in a PM so this thread can remain about the movie and things involved in it.​

 

[looseliam]

That film filled me with a barage of emitions. None good.

It sickened me to the core. I still can not believe there are those who choose to get HIV. And with everything that's being done today to try and stop the progression of the pandemic, these fucks are undermining it. Albeit, on a small scale.

Isn't the world AIDS conference today in Toronto?

 

[JakeBequette]

Isn't the world AIDS conference today in Toronto?

I don't know.

The movie made me feel sick also. I really hope everyone sees that movie. It seriously needs to be shown in schools to get young people to open their eyes a little bit to HIV and AIDS anot make the mistake.​

 

[justsimon]

I've read about bug chasers and gift givers. It's disturbing to say the least. I really want to see that movie, though.

For anyone who doesn't have Sundance (like myself), you can get the movie here.

 

[JakeBequette]

I was really hoping for this thread to do better. I only started the one about slushy girl to prove that a shorter pointless thread would get more hits than a long one that has a point... I guess it was true​

 

[looseliam]

One really needs to see the film. One can talk about the bug catchers all he wants. But when it comes to it, people tend to avoid uncomfortable situations and topics.

I find bug catchers to be an uncomfortable topic.

*sigh* Oh well...

 

[Centexfarmer]

I was really hoping for this thread to do better. I only started the one about slushy girl to prove that a shorter pointless thread would get more hits than a long one that has a point... I guess it was true​

Jake don't be to dissappointed, because of a lack of response here in Hot Topics to this thread.

Most people come to this particuliar forum to have fun, and not be weighed down my disturbing issues such as this.

Perhaps you could ask a moderator to move this topic to Current Events and Politics, or Health & Wellbeing.

To the topic of your thread, I was in total disbelief when I first read about this a couple of years ago.

www.rollingstone.com
Carlos nonchalantly asks whether his drink was made with whole or skim milk. He takes a moment to slurp on his grande Caffe Mocha in a crowded Starbucks, and then he gets back to explaining how much he wants HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. His eyes light up as he says that the actual moment of transmission, the instant he gets HIV, will be "the most erotic thing I can imagine." He seems like a typical thirty-two-year-old man, but, in fact, he has a secret life. Carlos is chasing the bug.

Carlos 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. The men who want the virus are called "bug chasers," and the men who freely give the virus to them are called "gift givers." While the rest of the world fights the AIDS epidemic and most people fear HIV infection, this subculture celebrates the virus and eroticizes it. HIV-infected semen is treated like liquid gold. Carlos has been chasing the bug for more than a year in a topsy-turvy world in which every convention about HIV is turned upside down. The virus isn't horrible and fearsome, it's beautiful and sexy -- and delivered in the way that is most likely to result in infection. In this world, the men with HIV are the most desired, and the bug chasers will do anything to get the virus -- to "get knocked up," to be "bred" or "initiated into the brotherhood."

It's completely insane!

Why don't they go ahead an start smoking crystal meth while they're at it?

 

[Lube]

Wow, that is really disturbing. "The brotherhood"??!

I guess it's like technology: Put something out there and surely somebody will find a way to screw it up.

If only their insurance rates matched the risk they're taking.

 

[slobone]

Well, there are all kinds of sick people in the world, who cut themselves with sharp objects, or beat their had against a wall, or deliberately lose dangerous amount of weight, so I guess this shouldn't be too surprising. What's more shocking to me is that they actually seem proud of what they're doing. (Not having seen the film.)

Just goes to show -- always practice safe sex unless you know your partner really, really well.

 

[justsimon]

b-bump....

 

[Croynan]

This is one of the most brilliant documentaries ever made.

It needs to be show in every high school classroom in America.

It needs to be show in every college classroom in Americana.

And anyone who goes to the clubs, the bath houses, the homosexual bars and any and all ot the homosexual villages should be required to see this film.

It should be shown at least one a year on all three major networds in prime time, ABC, NBC, And CBS. In additions it should be shown on Public Broadcasting.

 

[hella]

I remember an episode of "Queer as Folk" in which Ben had a student become infatuated with him. It turned out that the student just wanted Ben to infect him so he could stop waiting and get it over with.

I wonder if this is available on Netflix...
oh. Netlix is down. Someone else check later and post.

 

[justsimon]

It is on Netflix.

 

[Soilwork]

I do know a few guys who intentionally let their boyfriends infect them.

their reasoning was "If he's got it, I want it too", but I think what it was was that they didn't want every sexual encounter with their partners to be scary or so safe that it wasn't fun.

Stupid for sure.

Sad, too.

young guys do stupid things all the time, and it makes me angry that high school students have the right information kept from them.

 

[kank84]

That is indeed quite strange, especially given that most of us go to lengths to minimise the risk as much as possible. I don't understand the mentatlity involved there, what do they think happens when they do get the disease? I very much doubt that they will be anymore satisfied then, just stuck with hiv+ status.

The people who call themselves "gift givers" bothered me a lot. Do they like get off on infecting other people with HIV? I don't know what the official call on that is, but isn't almost murder? I mean, if you know you have an incurable disease that you can infect others with, and you knowingly infect other people with it, isn't it like murder? ​

I don't know about the US but in the UK there have been a number of cases that addressed this issue. The first case was a couple of years ago (R v Dika for those interested in reading British legal cases) where a man had unprotected sex with a woman knowing that he was hiv+. He was found guilty of manslaughter, and i believe he was sentenced to 12 years. There has been another case this year involving a woman who intentionally infected as many men as she could with hiv to exact some sort of revenge against the gender that infected her. She was convicted on multiple accounts of manslaughter. I couldn't tell you if the situation is the same in the US, but i can't imagine it's vastly different. I can't imagine any western society allowing someone to intentionally give someone else a fatal disease.

 

[Rali_hates_Mondays]

That is just horrible and it makes a complete mockery against the good work of AIDs charities, which have fought so hard to prevent it and raise its awareness.

A big problem is the fact that in reality the drugs used for HIV+ people do actually allow them to live longer lives than they used to. There was a vicious campaign back in the 80s and 90s, which proved successful in Britain but I dunno about America. However without this now this has allowed HIV+ to be portrayed as not something fatal but it's been glamourised as something erotic and forbidden in a sense, for which the internet could be blamed for. I also sense that these young people seem to have little sense of future other than having as much sex as possible. It's no wonder why they see that getting HIV+ is "inevitable."

 

[Croynan]

error/already posted/eM

 

[xyzguy]

*nevermind*

 

[justsimon]

I still haven't seen this. It's a bit expensive for me and it seems like an inappropriate Christmas request.