just when you think you've heard everything - oh no.

[thoreau]

So - this morning I receive this email response to an online profile I have on Poz.com:

I am visiting San Francisco in two weeks and hoping to find someone to cum inside of me and make me HIV+. Are you willing to be my Lestat and turn me into a vampire? I also like your Buddhist outlook and would love to talk about art and music. I'll be in for a conference at (insert hotel here). Hope to hear from you. Namaste.

OMG^bazillion

This is the most shocking online response I have ever received.

any suggestions as to how I should respond?

Comments

[geometrician.livejournal.com]

Just... wow. SHIT!

How about saying "call me" and giving the local mental crisis hotline number?

Damn. Every time I hear something like this I think what the hell kind of fk'ed up life does a person have that they would do that?

[bootedintexas.livejournal.com]

that is one of those

"dont respond" ignore delete block spam leave alone walk away omg leave it alone

things.

[low-fat-muffin.livejournal.com]

I reported his email to poz.com with his username (as poz.com is pretty explicit about bugchasers being forbidden) - and deleted it.

[bukephalus.livejournal.com]

Wow. I can't help wondering if it's for real. You could always respond in the affirmative. Then get him all chained to your bed. Then bring some really sick AIDS patients to tell them how much fun they are having.

While he's chained up, you could also get a blood sample and see if he's really lying.

You can say:

[bearringsd.livejournal.com]

"Dear Sir,

Yes, I am Lestat. I shall use my AIDS vampiric powers to banish you to the farthest reaches of freakdom. Oh wait, you live there already."

Srsly. Don't even bother.

Re: You can say:

[low-fat-muffin.livejournal.com]

"be my Lestat"?

the internet has struck a new low for me.

[brunorepublic.livejournal.com]

Wow.

Part of me thinks this just can't be legit: it's someone doing a prank, or a so-called "sociology experiment" to see how you'll react.

Part of me is reminded of the fact that I've known people who, although they never advertised it as such, behaved in such a way that made it clear they wanted to become poz.

[low-fat-muffin.livejournal.com]

I reported his email to poz.com with his username (as poz.com is pretty explicit about bugchasers being forbidden) - and deleted it.

[d2leddy.livejournal.com]

I've heard of this before. I don't know what to make of it. Also heard about people who want to infect HIV- people.

And into a vampire? What?

[bibliocub.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. Bugchaser after a HIV+ Buddhist. I wonder what part of "cause no harm" is he not getting? But that is probably only one of many problems this guy has. Guys like him are one reason I don't have many online profiles. (Having a loving hubby is another.)

[holy13nation.livejournal.com]

It is not as unusual as people think. I know someone made sure he became positive so that he could be guaranteed a council flat. I also know the bloke who obliged him. But then he thinks it amusing that someone he knows who is a paedophile likes to grope young boys arses (5 years and up) when they are in the street with their mothers (obviously when the mother or anyone else isn't looking).
They are all part of the alternative set that surrounded a radical, together no longer industrial band.
How far out...

It insults positive people and also the memory of those no longer with us.

[bruinwi.livejournal.com]

This is either a sick joke, or the requestor is.

If he has vampire fantasies, it may pay to drive a stake through his heart.

I'm shocked.

[whiskerfish.livejournal.com]

That is the most shocking online response you've ever received?

Tell him yes then blow him off.

Or not.

Re: I'm shocked.

[low-fat-muffin.livejournal.com]

i've received perverted nasty responses - but those don't shock me the way this one did.

[sierrabiker.livejournal.com]

Sounds like ya did the right thing. I remember seeing that stuff once in a while when I used to surf irc years ago.

[drewan.livejournal.com]

Yes... but did he ask to feel your boobs? (Ugh... it is so hard to let go of that subject!)

I'm sorry that this sick fuck (excuse the pun) contacted you for his warped fantasy. You did the right thing by reporting then deleting.

I might have added a response to him that HIV is not the Anne Rice inspired fantasy that he appears to have. Where her demon spawned vampire virus gives nearly eternal life at the cost of sunlight and fine cooking, the real HIV virus takes away so much more with out even the promise of one natural life.

He obviously has problems with his reality, and it's good that you or anyone else doesn't become a part of it.

(What the hell am I feeling so verbose today? Someone take my keyboard away before I kill again!)

[drevilmoo.livejournal.com]

Truth remains stranger than fiction.

[c73m.livejournal.com]

id prolly say something like 'im more of a Van helsing than a lestat, but if you want to hang out and eat cheese toast i'm cool with that'..

like, word.

[low-fat-muffin.livejournal.com]

(giggle) cheese toast. (giggle) awesome.

[dendren.livejournal.com]

tell him to come over, give him a bunch of AZT to take and let him enjoy the barfy shits without that annoying HIV stuff.

what a moron

I do love (in a perverse way) that he wants to be a HIV poz buddhist vampire... that is so wacky!

[whatuttercrap.livejournal.com]

Drew's right; just ignore the message and mark it as junk mail or spam. However, the opportunity to write back and say that you employ Orkin and have enough bug chasers is rather compelling.

[labeartorycub.livejournal.com]

You did the right thing. Sadly, there are people out there who really do want to be HIV+ for whatever reason and never a good one.

[cuyahogarvr.livejournal.com]

I agree - you did the right thing!
Sadly, this is probably a real search as I know of several people who felt if it was there "destiny" anyway, then why not seek it out the infection and control it. Very sad, as it was too late when they realized how difficult it was for them to control it.

[eireangus.livejournal.com]

Pray for him, he obviously needs it.

[musicbearmn.livejournal.com]

Once I picked my jaw off the floor....

Sadly, I've been hearing more of this happening. You did the right thing, although I did think you needed to bitch-slap him, do what a lot of people have suggested, bitch-slap again, etc.

Lordy...what is this world coming to?

[use2bshy.livejournal.com]

I have heard of such things figured it was just rumor. WTF

Death Wish

[walterwz.livejournal.com]

The first example of this I read about was among a group or Cuban Teens who thought that life in the Sanatorium was preferable. That in a twisted way made some sense.

I have had most of my friends die. There have been no new ones to take their place.

Individuals and sentiments like this definitely alienate further.

[urbear]

Bugchasers... eeeww.

At least he didn't refer to it as "The Gift", as some of them do.

[audrabaudra.livejournal.com]

Graydon, Michael. "Don't bother to wrap it: Online Giftgiver and Bugchaser newsgroups, the social impact of gift exchanges and the 'carnivalesque.'" *Culture, Health and Sexuality* 9.3 (2007): 277-292.

Abstract:

At online internet newsgroups, members who self-identify as Giftgivers and Bugchasers post messages describing exchanging HIV as a gift, as the Gift. Using the literature on the social function of gift exchanges, this paper considers how Giftgiver and Bugchaser messages mobilize the language of gifts. In doing so, newsgroup members generate an ontological narrative wherein HIV, as the Gift, promotes social bonds, the creation and maintenance of self identity and social roles, and the meeting of particular goals. Thus the Gift appears to fulfill (at least discursively) many of the social functions of gift exchanges as described in the literature. Online newsgroups function as fora for the expression of a contrarian, transgressive HIV/AIDS narrative and act as 'carnivalesque' spaces in which normative social roles and meaning are inverted in the establishment of a realm whereby HIV becomes a gift.

--Found that when I was taking a quick look at the literature to help me articulate what I thought when reading Robert's Lestat msg.

[audrabaudra.livejournal.com]

Robert, can I pipe up out of genuine concern? That msg set off my "danger, bad danger" alarms. I know, I'm panicky and dramatic and easily frightened, but bear with, please... I'm only writing because that msg sounds like a veiled attack from someone who went to some lengths to do it.

The reason for my alarm is the language. Note how he turns the terminology away from any language that would be spoken in the poz or gay communities and inserts vampire imagery. I would say he did that because he's outside any context where he would learn the correct words, the correct "approach" and how to employ it. He's using vampirism as a pop culture referent and metaphor, when from what all you guys have said, that is NOT a metaphor or image that men in the gay or HIV+ communities use. In other words, he has nothing in common with you except the shared pop culture around all of us.

Also, informed sorts (like we are, of course :::smile:::) know that it's not just the cum that's needed to pass infection. Nevertheless, having someone cum inside him is his focus and starting point: fixation of a homophobic male mind, which never experiences being a bottom in terms of ejaculate during his hetero sex life.

You all are going to laugh at me, but although my bff is a gay man (and intro'd me to LJ: glarehead) and one of my several brothers is a gay man, I never heard the term "bugchaser" until it was on an episode of ER. It's not a word that's in the popular, everyday lexicon, which would explain why your correspondent has to change vocabulary and go with the Goth/vampire thing to find the words.

Mind how you go, love, that's all.

[audrabaudra.livejournal.com]

Oh gosh, yeah, in answer to your question -- my brother is also a board-certified psychologist/counselor/etc., and in cases like this one, he has only one approach:

"The best response is no response."

You did the right thing by calling in the Poz.com authorities. But the bastard gets not a word from you personally.

[grizzlyzone.livejournal.com]

Nice analysis. Thanks!