AIDS: Chasing the Bug

Most anyone who has seen Gia, with Angelina Jolie, can’t help but remember the grisly scene at the end of the film. Destroyed by AIDS, the former supermodel’s body literally falls apart when it is lifted off the hospital bed.

Mainstream films like Gia and Philadelphia showed, in heartbreaking scene after scene, the plight of AIDS sufferers through the 1980s and ‘90s. The generation of (mainly) gay men and women who came of age in the 1970s and ‘80s witnessed the full force of the disease’s birth, and many of them are not around today to tell of it.

“There aren’t many of us left,” said Tim DeLoach, an openly gay man in his forties, and former outreach coordinator and director of information technology for the now-defunct San Diego AIDS Foundation. He’s seen many gay men of his generation fall victim to AIDS because of the lack of information about its transmission and treatment available 10 and 20 years ago. When AIDS was first discovered in the early 1980s, he said, it was an almost absolute death sentence.

Since then, the medical field has come a long way. New drug cocktails allow those with HIV and AIDS to live almost normal lives for many years longer than they would otherwise. The problem with these developments, said DeLoach, is that the younger generation doesn’t have to see the consequences of AIDS anymore – and they aren’t being as careful as they should.

“The most disturbing thing about HIV today is that the fastest growing population is 25 [years old] and under,” said DeLoach.

Part of the reason, he said, is the public service billboards and such don’t illustrate how devastating the disease can be; instead they advertise the antiviral drug cocktails.

“We’ve made AIDS too comfortable,” said DeLoach.

One example is the growing trend of “bug chasers.” According to about.com’s online glossary, a “bug chaser” is allegedly “a gay man who deliberately attempts to contract HIV by having unprotected sex with a man or group of men known to have the virus.” The term was coined in the 1990s, but the group of men it applies to has grown.

According to wikipedia.org, “it is thought that some men wish to become infected with HIV because they feel guilty (or even left out) because many of their friends are HIV-positive or because they feel fatalistic about becoming HIV-positive and want to stop worrying about when they might become infected.”

“AIDS is a sword of Damocles hanging over every person,” said DeLoach. Like the mythical sword suspended over Damocles’ head by only one hair, everyone is faced with the risk of AIDS and HIV. People, especially young gay men, said DeLoach, may have gotten tired of waiting for the seemingly inevitable and have taken matters into their own hands. Several successful “bug chasers,” though, according to DeLoach, now regret becoming infected.

The anonymity of the internet helped this phenomenon to grow. Numerous forums and chat rooms, such as bareback.com, have sprung up across the web, with most of the sites having formed since 2000, according to the Center for Disease Control in a report published in September. On the surface these sites appear to be merely places for gay men to network and meet others with similar sexual tendencies, such as “barebacking” (engaging in unprotected homosexual sex). In the profile section of these sites, however, there’s a blank for whether one is a “bug giver” or “bug chaser.”

A search of profiles active in the last 60 days on ultimatebareback.com, using just these criteria generated an intriguing number of hits. Of 6,200-odd active profiles, nearly 400 were listed as “chasers,” and 250 as “givers.” Of the entire database, 1,900 “chasers” and 1,450 “givers” are registered.

It is not a trend embraced by the entire community, however. “Many gay men,” according to wikipedia.org, “particularly [HIV positive] gay men, look down on bug chasers with disdain, as being delusional or not understanding that antiviral therapy is extremely expensive, can have painful and unpleasant side-effects, and does not cure or ultimately stop the disease. Some gay men are also concerned that bug chasers might ‘give the gay community a bad name.’”

Still, some questioned whether the trend even exists.

“Doubts have been raised about the existence of the phenomenon,” according to wikipedia.org, “[but] various gay websites have chat rooms devoted to bug chasers, who are looking specifically to have unprotected sex with HIV-positive men. There have even been ‘conversion parties’ where people have gathered together to pursue their goal.”

To be fair, many of these sites also posted numerous advice columns, letters-from-the-moderator, and other writings on practicing semi-safe sex. One site recommended a practice called “serosorting,” in which those who are HIV positive only partner with other positives and negatives only with negatives. The site’s creator, who referred to himself only as “Bareback Michael,” theorized that if gay men continue to “serosort” they could eventually eradicate AIDS from the community because the disease would not infect new people. The validity of this theory has yet to be explored by the medical community.

In the meantime, DeLoach said his primary concern is for his younger friends, whom he sees acting increasingly casual about practicing safe sex. Though most of them aren’t into the riskier practices like “barebacking,” he said, they’re still at risk because of their casual attitudes toward AIDS and HIV.

“They were giving me a hard time because I smoke,” said DeLoach. “But when I asked them how many of them had had unprotected sex in the last month, they all got quiet.”

Women and Vintage Autos

The guys call it “The Purple Twinkie.”

RyAnn Leep, 29, calls her lavender and pearl 1953 Chevy Bel Air “Violette.”

“[That car] is my passion and my hobby so it doesn’t matter what [people] think,” she said.

Leep, part of the “Rockabilly” scene, got into vintage culture through her grandmother.

“When I was 16, I started dressing like she did in the ‘40s,” Leep said. “I looked at pictures and [did] my hair like her. I put on red lipstick and it was all over!”

The cars followed naturally. A lot of women, according to Leep, get into hot rods because they love the old music or the clothes and get turned on to the cars. For Leep, it happened while she lived behind an auto shop where friend Dallas Patterson worked. Leep woke up to the sound of air compressors.

“It was all location and timing,” said Leep, who would wander in to watch Patterson work. “I thought, ‘If I have access to this knowledge, I might as well learn something.’

“I worked on my own car but I had to use a book [at first],” Leep said. “It’s confusing as hell if you don’t have a car background.”

Little by little Leep got into car maintenance, modification, and culture.

“[The scene] is addicting,” she said. “You want to go to every function.”

One such function is the Classic Cruise Parade of Lights, Wednesday, December 7^th in El Cajon’s Historic District. Hot rod owners park amidst vendors of vintage paraphernalia, rockabilly musicians, and fellow devotees – and most of these car owners are men.

Leep wants to change that. She and friend Tracy Caccavelli started brainstorming a car club for women in 2000 when Leep bought “Violette.”

“We want to park our cars together, not next to the boys,” said Leep. “[We want to] say, ‘yes, I can rebuild a carburetor and I [can] sand down a car. I don’t just ride with my boyfriend.’”

Leep also learned the hard way that men don’t necessarily know about cars themselves – another reason for women to have their own scene.

“I made the mistake of asking an ex[boyfriend] to lower my car” said Leep. “He did it incorrectly and it [was] dangerous for me to [ride] like that.”

It’s not easy to go your own way as a woman in the hot rod world, though, said Leep.

“It’s intimidating to be a girl and to take your car to some mechanic,” said Leep. “They look at you and say, ‘There’s a girl; we can take advantage of her.’”

Mustang owner Hillarie Goetz noticed the same thing.

“When I get parts for my [1965 Mustang], I always get looks,” said Goetz, 22. “People don’t understand a female working on classic cars and understanding what she’s doing.”

The Mustang was Goetz’s first vehicle, and the reason she started working on cars.

“I learned how to replace pumps, hoses, radiators, and other things,” said Goetz. “But it never fails when I take her[sic] out I get some comment. It’s usually, ‘Nice car. Is it your husband/boyfriend/father’s?”

Goetz stopped driving the Mustang because of rising gas prices, but, she said, there’s a sense of pride in knowing she can fix anything on it, no matter what others say.

Not all women who work on cars find the same attitudes Leep and Goetz have. Some, like Marlee Goodman, 37, get involved in classic cars and find respect – and an income.

Goodman and her grandfather started working on a 1962 Jeep CJ7 when she was 12. She started working a series of odd jobs and eventually stumbled into her current one: installing screens and rebuilding classic cars.

Goodman’s boss is a wiry man in his 60s, with chaotic grey hair and two days’ stubble. He chain-smokes, stepping over a cat, while approaching one of his 11 vehicles. They occupy every square foot of yard. Some are covered, lined up on the lawn; some have their guts in boxes, waiting to be reassembled once the body work is done.

Russ Brunstch’s screen business pays the bills; he and Goodman rebuild cars out of his Clairemont Mesa home for fun. Goodman has been his assistant since 2000. Nine [classic] cars, a house, a man, and three cats keep her plenty busy, she said.

“It’s a two-man operation,” she said. “I do the grunt work and he makes [the cars] pretty; I’m better at welding but he’s better at painting.”

Brunstch’s house sits just blocks from Clairemont Town Square, where car enthusiasts meet every fourth Saturday to show off, but even Brunstch’s prize-winning ’76 Corvette hasn’t made it there yet.

“I’ve never done shows [with his cars],” Goodman said, “but [we should] finish the [1932] Chrysler. It’s a definite classic.”

It took Goodman two weeks to scrub the rust off that Chrysler when they started on it. That, she said, was how Brunstch saw she wasn’t afraid of getting dirty.

Brunstch doesn’t need an employee year-round, but out of respect he keeps her employed. Although she’s gotten plenty of cat-calls driving Brunstch’s cars, Goodman said she’s also gotten more respect than Leep or Goetz have.

“If a woman walks in[to a parts store] with a head gasket,” said Goodman, “they don’t have a problem handing [her the parts].”