One step forward, a few hundred steps back.
There are days when I find trawling through the news to be wholly depressing. Despite reading the heartening news that New Hampshire’s governor has officially signed into effect legislation establishing same-sex unions, I couldn’t help but be horrified at what I stumbled upon after that:
Four Held In Bizarre HIV Injection Case - 365Gay.com
(Amsterdam, The Netherlands) Four men are accused of drugging, raping and then injecting their male victims with their own HIV-infected blood Dutch police have announced.
Remember the other day, when I said that I couldn’t really see gays forming roving gangs to assault people? Okay, I’m eating my words right now. And they taste damned bitter. Granted, the situation isn’t the same as the hypothetical proposed in Monday’s article.
It’s much, much worse.
It’s worse than the stories of needles dipped in HIV-infected blood left in movie theatre seats. It’s even worse than the careless negligence of those who are HIV+ and choose to have unprotected sex with willing partners without informing them (although that ranges pretty closely). It’s a disgusting and immoral violation of another human being, through rape in order to spread a terminal illness.
I thought we, as human beings, were better than that. I thought that we had evolved as a species beyond such behavior save for in isolated individuals. I am aware that many groups (known as “bug chasers“) exist consisting of people who want to infect others and who want to be infected, as an underground sexual + acceptance subculture that borders on fetishism. I can’t say I approve of their choices or their desires, but where there’s consent involved I can’t do more than shake my head and recommend a psychiatric evaluation. Every once in a while they cross the line into malicious misinformation and nonconsent, but I’ve never seen it happen as an organized group committing multiple acts of assault and rape with effects more permanent and deadly than the physical and psychological trauma resulting from rape.
“The motive to do this was the ‘kick,’ and the feeling that unsafe sex is ‘pure.’”
I think I’m going to be sick.
What thrill is worth this?
Not only the sacrifice of your life, but the lives of others - and of your own basic human decency?
I weep for the men whose lives have been forever altered by these acts.
And I weep for the knowledge that we, as human beings, could behave so atrociously towards one another.
Update, 9:37 a.m. CST: Samantha has provided several links containing more information on the issue (see comments), but most notable is the story of the investigation into a subsection of the Netherlands HIV Foundation and whether or not they’ve been encouraging unsafe sex by organizing Poz & Proud sex parties.
This just gets worse with each new possibility.
hiv, aids, bug chasers, infection, human immunodeficiency virus, acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, new hampshire, civil unions, same-sex unions, netherlands hiv foundation, hvn
June 1st, 2007 at 5:02 am
Oh holy mother…I have no words.
June 1st, 2007 at 7:11 am
its actually all over the news here (I live in Holland) They have a few suspects, a few people in custody and they are working on finding every person who has been infected. It is outragous and really, no words can describe what has happened. They have mentioned it every night on the news since they found word of it. It scares me and saddens me. They have roughly 12 men who have been attacked and there are more coming forth. No one knows how big the list actually is because more men are coming and being tested…. If I hear anything else I will be sure to let you know…
June 1st, 2007 at 9:01 am
Here is some info for you on the story. (its in English) Its starts from oldest to newest article.
http://www.expatica.com/actual/article.asp?subchannel_id=19&story_id=40326
http://www.expatica.com/actual/article.asp?subchannel_id=19&story_id=40359
This one is a side note to the story but might be of interest to you.
http://www.expatica.com/actual/article.asp?subchannel_id=1&story_id=40411
I hope this helps you out some..
June 1st, 2007 at 9:36 am
Samantha, thanks so much for the updates. Even as horrifying as the information is, it’s still good to be informed.
I’m still just…in shock that people could do this to each other.
June 1st, 2007 at 9:42 am
Because, unfortunately, gays are still people; while we have the same ability to be just as good as the best of the straight people, we also have the potential to be just as bad as the worst.
My biggest fears from this are the copycats, and the ubercons trotting this out as ‘proof’ that we’re all bad.
Let’s hope they catch them, and throw the book at them all.
June 1st, 2007 at 9:46 am
The whole “gays should be above this” angle never really occurred to me. I’m more appalled at this on the human level than anything else. I don’t think my cynicism extended to believe that any human being, regardless of orientation, was capable of this in this day and age. It does now.
I’ve been wondering about the copycats and if this will lead to similar behavior in groups of “bug chasers” worldwide. It’s certainly a bad precedent.
And as far as the ubercons…I’ve been trying not to think of that. Trying really, really hard not to think of that. I’m just going to try to place a little faith in humanity (ha, I know, that’s a laugh) and hope they know that the minority does not represent the whole.
June 1st, 2007 at 11:33 am
Unfortunately, I’m… not actually surprised. People can be basically good, or people can be terrible, and it’s often the terrible people and the terrible acts that we hear about. I feel sorry for the victims, of course, but it’s a sad fact that people can and do act like this, all the time, across the world.
June 1st, 2007 at 3:33 pm
I agree with you that you have to place a little faith in humanity–that’s all we have really, in the screwed up world we live in.
And if any political group forms an opinion about sexual preferences based on something like this, that says more about the stupidity of the group than anything.
There’s good and bad in all of us.
best, Kay