Talk:Bugchasing

Old graph of the Grov and Parsons typology for bugchasing and giftgiving
Retrieving this from article history. I don't think that it is particularly helpful but it is here for future reference as it may be relevant. Details giftgiving/bugchasing.

If it is placed in the article, my thought is that it should replace the Bobby Box quotebox. Or be placed in group dynamics. Urve (talk) 19:24, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

Feedback, in context of Good Article review
Thanks to for developing this article and nominating it for good article review, and thanks to  for conducting a review in the way that Wikipedia manages this. Although I think the review went correctly as Wikipedia has designed it, I have some critiques about the article which I would like to express outside the context of that review template.

Wikipedia respects and reviews sources, and no one should take credentials or experience as authority, but for context, I have been a member of a community-based HIV research group since the mid 2000s. In this group we talk about preventing HIV infection with drug-based public health intervention, and topics like the subject of this article arise.

We need to emphasize that this is a fringe and highly uncommon behavior, and not representative of gay men. I know the original sources are dodgy on numbers, but they say that bugchasing is an uncommon minority experience. When we bring this information to Wikipedia, there is a temptation to similarly not publish numbers because the original sources lack them. Currently the only numbers here are the 2003 claim from a non-medical pop culture magazine which says 25%. This is an extraordinary claim countered by other sources. It is inaccurate and confusing here in Wikipedia 20 years later. Either come up with more numbers and clarify some context, or remove the 25% number to avoid miscommunication that this applied then or applies now.
 * This is rare behavior; if we use numbers at all, then numbers should communicate the rarity

These practices are all conflated in this article:
 * Concepts confused here
 * Seeking HIV infection
 * Ignorantly or carelessly engaging in risky behavior, without seeking HIV
 * Criminal psychopathic behavior of seeking to spread HIV
 * Taboo sexual fantasies where people role play things they would not actually do

Bugchasing is supposed to be the first of these, but the article gives information about all these practices. Narrow the focus. Wikipedia would benefit from content development on the other concepts, because they pass WP:GNG. I know that some source materials also used confused definitions, but in this article's current framing, Wikipedia strongly defines the concept then cites sources which apply other definitions. Not all sources purporting to discuss the topic are actually about the same concept.

Much of the description of bugchasing was from the 2000s. Assuming that those descriptions were accurate, those sources applied to United States culture of that time. All media has a tendency to talk to its local audience, but when we bring those sources into Wikipedia, then Wikipedia editors need to do the WP:original research to add facts which the original sources do not contain. In the case of these sources, the content is about contemporary gay men in the United States. This does not apply to gay men 10 years before or after the publication or gay culture in other countries. Perhaps a good framing of this article would be as a historical fringe subculture from about 2000-2010. Currently this article is framed as persistent gay culture over generations and applying worldwide, because the original sources do not explicitly state that they are contemporary reports targeted to their local subscribers. When we take local sources into Wikipedia we have to create context because here we have global multi-generational long term readership.
 * Most of the cited sources in this article are time and culture specific

In about 2013 in the United States the drug Emtricitabine/tenofovir became available free of cost to gay guys in most large American cities, and nowadays it is available more widely. Gay guys take it to prevent HIV infection. In the old concept of bugchasing part of the idea was that HIV prevention was difficult and that fewer barriers to sex was desirable. Now with PreP there are fewer barriers to sex and also no one on PreP gets HIV. In the social concept of PreP either bugchasing cannot exist, or at least, the literature from before PreP is outdated. There was only about a 10 year window when bugchasing was a conceivable behavior, because there was no concept of this when HIV was a death sentence in the 1990s and probably no concept of this since PreP was available to prevent HIV in the 2010s. In examining sources in Wikipedia we do not get notices when publications are outdated or deprecated, but sometimes we have to make editorial judgements or give heavy weight to newer sources even when many more older sources exist saying other things. Many of the cited sources are written before PreP, and we have to recognize that spending US$1 trillion on a global health intervention like PreP can change things and make some sources outdated.
 * Besides being time and culture specific, the world is different since PreP

 Blue Rasberry  (talk)  17:05, 13 July 2021 (UTC)


 * I appreciate the feedback but much of what you are saying is not true. The 25% number is explained in prose as potentially fabricated and just wrong - it's included because it's important historically. I don't see the value of removing content that is under due weight simply because no others used a number when debunking it.


 * Many of the sources are from the decade of the 2000s but it's not true that it's specifically in the US or only from then - García-Iglesias is a prolific writer, still writing on Bugchasing ethnography and digital representation (which gets into the point about it being the US - it's not, though almost all research is in the Anglo-sphere. Saying that the practice is confined only to the Anglo-sphere in a specific moment of time is original research). And he specifically writes about PrEP's influence among bugchasers - it may be true that bugchasing is rarer, but your personal conclusion that PrEP makes it not exist and that all research is outdated is purely an original conclusion not supported at all by the current research.


 * As for the scope, I will have to differentiate in the prose between bugchasing as an activity and bugchasers as a group. Bugchasing is seeking out infection, but bugchasers, in the literature, can be dedicated or not to it, and the overall community of Bugchasing includes both bugchasers and gift givers - which is why treatment of the idea as a fetish is still useful. And why people can be steeped in the culture, like the Canadian fellow charged for it, are still under scope. Urve (talk) 01:20, 14 July 2021 (UTC)
 * For clarity regarding PrEP, see this and this. The conclusions deal with biomedical information as a primary study, so the results are not fit for inclusion in the article under our medical sourcing requirements. But it goes to show that our intuition about how PrEP influences bugchasing is not right, and why following original research requirements is important. Urve (talk) 01:58, 14 July 2021 (UTC)

Outdated?
This article was largely written before the advent of effective PrEP and HAART HIV meds which reduce viral load to undetectable levels, which more or less completely eliminate the risk of transmitting HIV. (see here for a cite regarding this) Given this risk reduction, is "bugchasing" still actually a thing? If not, I suspect this article's content is now largely of historical interest, and most of the content should be moved to the past tense.-- The Anome (talk) 15:52, 17 August 2021 (UTC)
 * ... as can easily be seen above, yes, bugchasing is a thing. Urve (talk) 18:57, 17 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks for providing sources in the discussion above! If it's mentioned in the sources, I think we should at least have something in the article about bugchasing still being a thing in the era of PrEP and HAART. I've added a mention of this; it should be noted that as far as I can see, one researcher, Jaime Garcia-Iglesias, seems to be the only person actively studying this. -- The Anome (talk) 10:52, 18 August 2021 (UTC)


 * My hesitance to include the sources are that they veer into psychological research rather than ethnography (which García-Iglesias mainly researches) so I've avoided them under WP:MEDRS. I don't particularly care either way since it's an edge case but that's my initial reasoning. García-Iglesias is the only one doing usable research right now, but in a few years student theses will be usable once they begin to become established scholars in their fields. I recall some dealing specifically with PrEP usage in my searches -- pretty much everything in the current article is what exists in scholarly publications (except maybe books), so I'll have to make a list and track the authors' careers.


 * I probably came off as more curt than I should have, so I apologize. This is because I'm somewhat perplexed as to how PrEP (not ART) would change bugchasing anyway; it is simply a medicine people voluntarily take, akin to but not the same as condom usage, that bugchasers would probably not care for. It can alter giftgiving behavior but bugchasing, I doubt it. That's original research obviously but I think this is why only García-Iglesias studies this. FWIW, also OR, but bugchasing forums are still popular.


 * As a note for myself whenever I have the time, I'll make the citations consistent. Urve (talk) 12:15, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

Bias
The following passage:

"Owing to LGBT activism since the AIDS epidemic began—largely focusing on gay identity not as an innately sexual one, but "de-sexed" (removed from sexuality) for the purposes of a more mainstream political agenda—bugchasing remains controversial, with some gay academics and activists minimizing its prevalance or denying it exists altogether.[32] For example, in response to Freeman's 2003 Rolling Stone article which brought attention to bugchasing, the Human Rights Campaign (an LGBT advocacy group centered in liberal politics[33]) was described by sexuality studies scholar Adam J. Greteman as upset, arguably because the practice did not align with its homonormative political ambitions.[34]"

Is unacceptably biased, and reports academic opinion as fact, unattributed. You can't just claim that LGBT activism is focused on de-sexing gay people, and THAT is why bugchasing is controversial. That's not a fact. It is very much a statement of opinion. In fact, two statements of opinion. I don't think it should be in this article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Isthistwisted (talk • contribs) 17:48, March 10, 2022 (UTC)


 * This is what reliable sources report in connection to bugchasing. Urve (talk) 23:07, 10 March 2022 (UTC)


 * This is an OPINION, not a report. The clause "Owing to LGBT activism since the AIDS epidemic began—largely focusing on gay identity not as an innately sexual one, but "de-sexed" (removed from sexuality) for the purposes of a more mainstream political agenda—bugchasing remains controversial" is a statement of opinion, not a report of fact. It cannot be regurgitated as objective fact, when it is in fact a subjective claim by one academic, Chris Ashford. Isthistwisted (talk) 03:03, 12 March 2022 (UTC)


 * I disagree. But you're free to make an edit that doesn't unduly remove information about bugchasing. First you say the entire paragraph is bad, now it's that source. So if it's that source, you can do something about it. Urve (talk) 03:21, 12 March 2022 (UTC)


 * It's not the source that's bad. It's that an opinion from that source is stated as a fact. It is not a fact that mainstream gay activism is de-sexed or homonormative, and it's not a fact that that is why bugchasing is controversial. Those are just opinions. The ACLU/Greteman claim is at least framed as the presentation of the opinion of one academic, but the same can't be said for the Ashford opinion. Isthistwisted (talk) 04:00, 12 March 2022 (UTC)


 * I still disagree. I think the premise (that gay activism has historically diminished in its anti-liberalism) and reasoning are well-accepted in sexuality studies. Like I said, you're free to start attributing the claim to the author; I don't care (though I think it's incorrect and a false sense of protecting wikivoice) as long as a meaningful part of bugchasing literature isn't erased. Urve (talk) 04:46, 12 March 2022 (UTC)


 * "gay activism has historically diminished in its anti-liberalism" is not the premise. The premises are 1) that LGBT activism de-sexes homosexuals, and 2) that controversy among gay activists about bugchasing is due to said de-sexed ambitions. These are opinions, and controversial ones at that, which cannot be reported responsibly without being framed as singular viewpoints. I fixed it. Isthistwisted (talk) 06:36, 12 March 2022 (UTC)


 * I think the issues are the same, and are both mainstream thought in sexuality studies. The edit isn't inaccurate (I was worried that the word "claimed" would be brought in here, which is a poor way to attribute, but that didn't happen!), so I won't object. Thanks for editing and your thoughts. I appreciate them. Urve (talk) 06:39, 12 March 2022 (UTC)


 * They’re not the same issue. I believe that mainstream gay activism has been de-sexed for a long time, but I don’t believe that that’s the root of the controversy about bugchasing. Bugchasing is controversial because it’s a very dangerous paraphilia that is disturbing in its eroticization of death and disease. Not because it’s a sexual phenomenon. The view that the ACLU is homonormative does not naturally precipitate the view that controversy around bugchasing is about de-sexing homosexuals. Isthistwisted (talk) 17:12, 12 March 2022 (UTC)


 * You can believe or not believe whatever you want. But Wikipedia is guided by reliable sources, not editorial judgments. This is the same issue above as people saying the idea of bugchasing is outdated because they personally think PrEP would have eliminated it. There's nothing wrong with what personal belief (I disagree but that's immaterial) - it's just that this website isn't a blog to make your case on why a certain thing is true or untrue, but instead about recording what others have already said of it. Urve (talk) 06:25, 13 March 2022 (UTC)


 * Do you feel like my edits are me using Wikipedia as a “blog to make [my] case”? Isthistwisted (talk) 08:30, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

This is an old comment now, however was correct here. you should not use wikivoice, stating opinions as fact, in Wikipedia. You argued "But Wikipedia is guided by reliable sources, not editorial judgments". Somewhat. You are welcome to cite opinions, but you must clarify who stated them: e.g. "X argues Y". The relative prominence of the opinion is also important in deciding whether or not a source or claim is being given undue weight. Simply putting in the claim as fact was improper. Please see WP:WIKIVOICE for an understanding on the point isthistwisted was making. Zenomonoz (talk)
 * No, they were not correct in their wholesale removal of the paragraph. You know, the edit that led to this discussion. But thanks for the lecture. Four tildes to sign your comments. Urve (talk) 06:16, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Removal was justified. It more or less claimed that the Human Rights Campaign was hiding the truth due to their quote "liberal politics". They were justified in criticising an article which attributed 25% of HIV infections to bugchasing without any evidence, a claim which subsequent scholars have refuted. It isn't a lecture, only trying to be helpful. Highlighting the guidelines for interested editors is useful. Zenomonoz (talk) 07:35, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
 * No, the removal of a prominent viewpoint in reliable sources is not "justified" just because you disagree with their criticism of the HRC. I'm not really interested in rehashing year-old edits with you. Urve (talk) 08:11, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Lolllllllllllll Isthistwisted (talk) 17:06, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

Neutrality
I have a lot of problems with this article's neutrality. Specifically, it is unduly dismissive of gay activism that questions the reality of whether bugchasing really happens. The only reference to this mainstream position is a presentation of criticism of it, from C. Ashford and A. Greteman, at the end of the 'Group Dynamics' section. Also underplays criticism of the '03 Rolling Stone piece.

Statements like "bugchasing spaces reinforce certain notions of masculinity" and "the physical characteristics of HIV infection are similar to pregnancy" from the 'Group Dynamics' section are simply not objective, and should not simply be stated as fact. They should be presented as particular academic views, and considered alongside alternate views, if they are to be included at all (which... I'm not convinced).

This article needs help, so I marked it in hopes that editors will contribute to fix it. Isthistwisted (talk) 08:33, 16 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Your complaint is based on what, exactly? Bugchasing does happen, and it's rare; Ashford and Greteman are not the only reliable sources that say this in the article. What do you want done about the "criticism of the '03 Rolling Stone piece"? If you want us to debunk their fabricated numbers, that's done in the article immediately after we explain what the piece said. Freeman's analysis, however, did not only count bugchasers: it included all men who engaged in barebacking, regardless of motivation or attempts to seek out HIV infection, reporting them all together as bugchasers. Authorities that Freeman cited have since claimed he fabricated their statements, and his data have been widely criticized How is the physical characteristics of HIV infection are similar to pregnancy a "neutrality" issue, if it's not even a particularly contentious claim and it's what reliable sources say ... the source is just saying it can take a few months for HIV infection to become noticeable, like it can take a few months for pregnancy to be noticeable. (Garcia-Iglesias cites people like Dean here.) I hedged and attributed some things here, but these complaints are bordering on promoting a false balance that does not reflect what reliable sources say about the prevalence, existence, and characteristics of bugchasing. Urve (talk) 12:44, 16 April 2022 (UTC)
 * "the physical characteristics of HIV infection are similar to pregnancy" is a very contentious claim, one made by a singular source. I don't have the energy to repeat myself here. Everything I said stands. I'm not going to edit war with you; keep the NPOV tag off your precious propaganda if you so insist. Isthistwisted (talk) 01:16, 17 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Two aspects of this article on this (rather unsettling) subject seem 'off' to me. Not sure if it's about neutrality but instead of starting a new topic I felt it best to add it to the existing discussion here.
 * First of all I'm wondering if there is any data in the sources cited, about straight men and/or women who practice bugchasing or have this fetisj/share this sexual taboo? I have no acces to the source material myself. To me it seems that starting the 'Motivation and activity' paragraph stating that all bugchasers are MsM seems to validate HIV and Aids as a 'gay' disease which of course it isn't.
 * The last line of the same paragraph seems to be a paradox. It states: "Some men incorporate taking PrEP alongside bugchasing behavior, others experiment with bugchasing while on PrEP, and others view it as emasculating and refuse to use it". As PrEP protects against contracting Hiv (or at least much more so than (only) using condoms logically one can't at the same time use this method of safer sex / protection AND at the same time 'bugchase'.
 * Jaap-073 (talk) 08:00, 5 June 2024 (UTC)
 * 1. I'll look at the source tomorrow, but I doubt it. Bugchasing, per the literature, really is an MSM phenomenon. 2. A lot of bugchasing is gestural and fantastical, not literal or earnest pursuit of the disease. The article discusses this and how a fetishist's behavior may not match his stated desire. Zanahary (talk) 08:38, 5 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Thank you. Jaap-073 (talk) 10:14, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

Wiki article on Rolling Stone article

 * Bug Chasers: The men who long to be HIV+

Where the Rolling Stone article is mentioned I put a link to a wiki article about it. Thoughts in general?  Bluerasberry  (talk)  04:07, 27 June 2022 (UTC)


 * If you mean thoughts on inclusion, then good. If you mean thoughts on the article itself, it's total bunk. Urve (talk) 04:46, 27 June 2022 (UTC)

Request for incidence
What is the incidence of bugchasing? What is the best source?

I see that the 2003 claim from Bug Chasers: The men who long to be HIV+ is repeated here, which puts the number at 25% of all HIV infections. Is there a later estimate?  Bluerasberry  (talk)  04:13, 27 June 2022 (UTC)


 * None that I'm aware of. Garcia Iglesias is publishing a book this year about bugchasing, though, which might have that information. He's not really a social scientist though, so it may not be included. Urve (talk) 04:43, 27 June 2022 (UTC)
 * , following up on this. Have you found anything? I looked again briefly:
 * A recent article touches on the quantitative research on bugchasing, and it only cites authorities up to 2007.
 * There is a 2014 study that looks at gift giving prevalence and gives a wide range. It is primary, and may run afoul of WP:MEDRS, though I am still undecided on that part.
 * Obviously, I am not too enthused about using either of these. FWIW, the presentation of the 25% figure is supposed to be with great skepticism; if it doesn't read as skeptical to you, feel free to edit. García-Iglesias's book comes out in October, but I don't know if it answers this. Urve (talk) 23:39, 7 July 2022 (UTC)
 * That 2014 study is not a bad paper but those numbers are meant for research development, not public health communication. I do not see those numbers applying to this wiki article.
 * I suppose the paper I would like is a broad survey of fetishes. Instead of applying an incidence to bugchasing, a survey could list a lot of fetish behavior and put bugchasing in a comparative range as more common or less common than other behaviors including those ones I listed in the section "Concepts confused here". That would be a way to communicate incidence without having a number. I looked for papers like that because such papers would not have bugchasing in the title, but I still found nothing. My expectation is that if this were comparative, then there would be some rate for really outlandish fetishes that readers understand are uncommon, and bugchasing would be less common. I feel like the authors of these papers are in error because communicating an incidence is required, they know they are not doing this, and these papers go out communicating the idea that this is a common thing.
 * The fallacy here is false balance - the incidence of this is approximately 0, but since there are no measurements, these papers are treating this as if the number were much higher.
 * I am still looking and thinking. I am not sure what I want.  Bluerasberry   (talk)  11:09, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

New book on Bugchasing

 * announcement - https://twitter.com/JGarciaIglesias/status/1569590807891525634
 * announcement - https://twitter.com/JGarciaIglesias/status/1569590807891525634

 Bluerasberry  (talk)  13:36, 14 September 2022 (UTC)


 * I skimmed and cited it. Nothing seems particularly new. Urve (talk) 14:02, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

Feedback
The first sentence states Bugchasing (alternatively bug chasing) is the practice of intentionally seeking human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection through sexual activity.

Having a glance at the cited literature, many people described as 'bugchasers' have a sexual interest in the thought of acquiring HIV, but are not putting themselves in scenarios where they could feasibly acquire HIV. A "practice" describes the behavior/act, whereas "sexual interest" is more clear about the interest/paraphilia/fetish... the Jaime García-Iglesias book seems to support this distinction.

Any thoughts on how we could rephrase this? Perhaps something like "bugchasing is the practice of, or sexual interest in, acquiring HIV"... but I think it could be clearer still.

It also seems it's not all about 'acquiring HIV', but actually being HIV+.

Zenomonoz (talk) 09:24, 5 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I would talk it through with you.
 * You have been around long enough to know how this goes - we start with a source. That 2022 book EROTICIZING OF HIV viral fantasies is as close to authoritative as I think we would find, but what would you suggest?  Bluerasberry   (talk)  14:17, 5 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Makes sense. Could we call it a paraphilia relating to the transmission of HIV? Spitballing without looking at sources here. Zanahary (talk) 21:22, 5 June 2024 (UTC)
 * We are unlikely to get much progress without sources to cite, but sure, some sources frame this as paraphilia - which is medical - although I think more frame it as a kink (sexuality), which includes some non-medical reasons. Note that this sentence already cites several definitions. We could check them, but I think the wiki statement is correct in that sense that the term refers to the intentional behavior, and that a particular cause is not part of the definition.
 * Tell me more about what you want to communicate and how.  Bluerasberry   (talk)  15:00, 6 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Upon rereading, I think you’re right. "Bugchasing" refers to the pursuit, while "bugchasers" may include those who simply eroticize the transmission of HIV and don't act to acquire it. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 04:45, 13 June 2024 (UTC)