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Uh, I'd caveat that the summary has 20% of HIV-negative men in the sample not caring about the HIV status of their partners, and the full document has 7.5% as HIV-negative seeking HIV-positive specifically. That's not the strict definition of bugchasing -- they could theoretically just practice very safe sex -- but it's closer than the HIV-positive-seeking-HIV-negative 1% number (actually 0.4% in the full paper).
On the other hand, I'll also point out that the sample was selected from a 2003/2004-era bugchasing-specific website, and that the total N=1228. That's... not representative, and while it's probably not the strict maximum (ie, I think there were probably more than a hundred bugchasers in the United States in 2003), it's closer to that than a good population-level estimate. I'm... not sure there even is a modern equivalent -- in addition to the survival pressures, a lot of the reasons behind bugchasing-as-a-kink just collapsed as it became understood HIV could be avoided or managed.
I'm aware of one bug-chasing-adjacent incident (technically, just an HIV-positive guy being incredibly careless, but close enough for government work) in the furry fandom, and the convention circuit treated the guy more seriously than they did a fellow who brought a loaded gun. Even as a fantasy, there's only two-digits worth of bugchasing images on e621; that doesn't just get dwarfed by (other) snuff or gore as a category, it gets dwarfed by extremely specific forms of gore. A quick google search pointed to a modern descendant of the website Grov-Parsons monitored... with <500 members. I couldn't find many others, and none of them were bigger.
The end result of the mix points heavily to "if you want to stop X from happening, stop X from happening", not fucking around three or five levels distant.
((Conversely, there are serious financial and resource allocation arguments. PReP spending is a nonzero line item, and while the actual breakdown by orientation and location gets complicated because it's nonlinear, but the Ryan White CARE Act started in the hundred-million range and got to the billion range. Not the worst payoff compared to some other public health spending, at least if you buy the metrics at face value, but neither would they be topping the chart at effective altruism metrics, nor do them seem immediately better turn than 'dudes, just go with frottage'.))
Separate from the bugchasing thing, I'd also point out that many of the people who seem extremely transgressive in summary aren't necessarily so in actual sexual practice. There's a thirst trap fursuiter on youtube with a recent output titled things like "How to FLUSTER your BOYFRIEND", "GOOD BOYS sit on your LAP", "I got EXPOSED for this..." and has a body count of six, total. I'm not going to say that all of the extreme and transgressive people aren't, in reality, but a lot of people who seem like a lot are much more boring than it looks.
This really is a "More than I ever wanted to know" post, but thank you, sincerely. I did look at the Ryan White figures at about the same time, and I knew that someone would show up to nitpick the bugchaser stats. Didn't think that someone would be you, but I'm not really complaining.
Because it's hard to fuck in a fursuit without getting heatstroke? Should I even ask? Do I really want to know? Tell me anyway.
Sorry about the nitpick.
Just picky about his hookups (cw: nsfw audio). Dude's pretty built, so I guess he can afford to be, but pretty far from what the stereotype would say.
There's a social conservative complaint that 'demisexual' just describes normal sexual functioning, and from a social conservative perspective that's probably not wrong so much as overloading the definition of 'normal'. But when the uwu maid outfit gay guy is less comfortable with a one-night stand than urquan, it points to something that exists as a meaningful distinguishing marker.
I'm not opening that video, unfortunately. Instagram seems to think I'm a gay Chinese woman, and YouTube shouldn't get any ideas.
I shall not intervene in a lovers tiff. Unless you pay for couples counseling.
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So that's why it seems so much more common in Nordic countries!
Indian furries either never existed, or like the Asiatic cheetah, have gone extinct. They won't even survive the journey to the air-conditioned convention center.
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