Welcome to Spring of 2024 (or for my southern hemisphere brother’s entry to Winter) and the revamped Curious Chaser. Some long-standing Curious Chaser members will likely read this, but by and large this article is directed more at people signing onto the site during or after April 2024. It is also directed towards long standing site members who have yet to post anything in the forums.
If you are morally opposed to even thinking about chasing, this isn’t a place for you. Good on you for having clarity of what is right for yourself. But what’s right for you isn’t necessarily right for others
From our start, our efforts on Curious Chaser have been to inform and hopefully engage with our members. But in truth; dozens have signed up to become members and don’t post anywhere. One can reply to articles, and many times there develops a bit of a conversation there. On their own those are quite nice.
Our focus is about reading and interacting. We’re developing a pretty good reputation in our chaser community. And we hope to be the primary place we participate in our cyber life – and ideally in person with each other. Where else are we going to meet like minded people?
In our new format; newbies are stuck in the Curious Vestibule. I am not in a rush to move anyone out of there. I would like to get a sense that they’ve read some of the articles; maybe even commented there. In fact, this article will be a sticky at the top of the Welcome Forum; the place new comers go to introduce themselves.
Disturbing to me in our past are the number who are signed up and go quiet. Each of those to me is like having an open window for our neighbors to view and make their own judgement about us; without involving us in that conversation. We are happy to talk about chasing (and the obvious other half, gifting). But if one just wants to read what we write to each other and then film a documentary about us without our voice’s integral to it; we’re not interested in letting you read our intimate conversations. If you’ve already decided we’re a sick bunch and just want some juicy words to toss about absent context, really, keep it to yourselves. For this site though; you’re stuck here for a few weeks and then all access disappears.
Newbies are expected to post their own comments. Minimally introduce themselves to the moderators. We’ve eliminated the need to approve new messages as we’ve restricted newbie access to the site to just that one forum. Those who don’t participate go no further. We’ve added moderators here who are broadly representative of our community. We’ve asked them to interact with newcomers just as CuriousOne and I do.
We have a few hundred approved members who suddenly got put in the entry portal back when we transitioned earlier this month. So far, no evidence that they’ve logged in since. We’ll be trimming that herd; but have little urgency as they have limited view of the site. But over the next few weeks; all who were just watching and not commenting will have their access to the site removed altogether.
One of my new forum posts visible only to newbies speaks to those who observe their view has dropped dramatically. Now is the time for them to participate, or depart. Once we’ve deleted those accounts; I’ll remove that particular forum post as it won’t apply any longer. Some in the group have come forth and we’ve changed membership as a result.
The only ones who now have backroom access have already participated in discussions; even if they’ve been away for a while. As a result, we’ve achieved that safer space where the rest of us here can speak more openly knowing some TV station somewhere isn’t building a story about us.
OUR COMMUNITY
Our community is comprised of both poz and neg guys; and some medicated and some not. We are not intending to be overtly exclusive of Women. Those who choose to participate are welcome. One doesn’t have to be “seeking the bug today”. In fact, we hope to gain members who are just acknowledging their interest in the topic of bug chasing. I believe for most of us; initially as we began to acknowledge that the idea boned the fuck out of us; cognitive dissonance set in with a simultaneous WTF mental response.
As site owner and poz myself, I am not recommending one get infected. Truly, it isn’t for everyone; some will assert it isn’t for anyone. Many of us though find bug chasing a draw that continuously pulls us in. Some of us are going to seroconvert and become HIV Poz. When that happens, and/or if you’re living with HIV and having any sort of difficulty, please email me at pozbearwi@curiouschaser.com. I will connect you to other online resources. The poz community which is diverse is a mutually supportive one. We have to be as there are few advocates for research, testing and treatment, or navigating life when the side effects of HIV occur.
I believe each person should have full domain over their own person. What some perceive to be self-harm others perceive to be self-love and acceptance. And honestly, we will all be better off if we stick our nose in our own business where it should be invited, and not in the decisions others make for themselves, where it isn’t invited. An analogy, it isn’t up to me to love a guys tat; more important to me is that he loves his own tattoos. It is a pleasure to hear how each is significant to him.
Some here have chosen no meds. It doesn’t matter whether they’re neg or poz; they’ve chosen to experience life with whatever bug and virus they have and time will tell who wins. I am hoping that part of our community will contribute how they are experiencing it. AIDS isn’t a pleasant ending. Still, I love my brothers who choose that and definitely want to interact and enjoy our time together. Late life, however it happens is significant and hopefully isn’t experienced alone. Know that you’re going to meet a few chasing brothers who have chosen to let HIV and/or other infections run their course.
Others love a life on PrEP. They can play to their hearts content and almost always will not get infected with HIV. I do note a lot of PrEP guys online appear to not test for other STIs. And yet it is those other STIs which can reduce the effectiveness of PrEP. If you’re on it, I encourage you to test proportionally to your amount of play to maintain its effectiveness.
Still, others love the feeling of risk. Whether it’s sky diving or bug chasing the risk turns them on. They accept the consequences and in general put in whatever controls appeal to them to accomplish this.
And still others truly don’t want to chase at all, but reading stories and enjoying self love whilst doing that is a huge turn on.
Being a candid host, I have not yet been on ARVs. I have them. If one is going to start them, and unless CD4 has not tanked, it is better to build in an inventory before you start them as prescription shortages are occurring more frequently. Starting/stopping/starting casually is a sure way to develop med resistance in oneself. We’re already experiencing both weather and geological events giving us more frequent occurrences disrupting supply chains. I am fortunate to have genetics making me a slow progressor. I have time before HIV starts to impact my immune system significantly. And indeed, it has started. I have started laying in my inventory; and may start on them after my Summer plans are done. Assuming I do start them; I am already planning periodic med holidays where I can share HIV with fellow chasers.
WHERE ARE WE GOING WITH THIS SITE
Regarding the future of Curious Chaser… It would be lovely if we could create an easy-to-use connections site. But those connections carry risks. And open chasing/gifting posting on Grindr is apt to get blocked. On a site whose purpose is chasing and gifting; do we really want a call me at 999-555-1234 and I’ll infect you with HIV? I sure as heck don’t want to see that appear in my local paper or talk of the town site. I have asked the moderator group to give that topic some thought and help develop some ideas on how to make such a concept work in our global community.
Absent such a site, we can nonetheless connect with each other with the messaging feature; and make direct arrangement with each other if we wish to. I’ve done that some; and encourage our members who are actually chasing/gifting to consider doing that with members who might be nearby.
Now that doesn’t imply that everyone here has to be an active gifter or chaser. Interest in it, wanting to know more, curiosity without action is fine. All by itself, absent any risk whatsoever, one can engage in “poz talk” sex; have a great time and no one gets infected with anything. There is absolutely no expectation that everyone active on the Curious Chaser backroom is, for themselves, chasing. Many will still be discovering for themselves. This is in fact the primary intention of Curious Chaser; to help each other work through our thoughts and challenge regarding this. But also, I would like to be helpful to my brothers in every stage; from first curiosity, to host poz stories and great bate sessions, to sharing our bugs with each other, to letting nature take its course to our end. All of this encompasses our community. Quoting Dr Cutie on the TV show New Amsterdam; “how can I help?”
If those discussions devolve into name calling or shaming us for thinking about where our curious minds take us, threats to each other; we will shut that down cold. We have a couple ways to do that. We can edit the post to remove the shaming parts if one can do that and still have a cogent message left. Or we can just delete it altogether. It is our site; not the public library. We are under no obligation to tolerate attacks. If we observe such activity, you can be sure CuriousOne or PozBear will be DMing you to “have a conversation”. FWIW one such conversation has already occurred and that member continued his rude behavior and is no longer here.
I have yet to meet a fellow chaser; one who isn’t just exploring the idea; but actually, enjoying free and open raw sex understanding that from time-to-time bugs show up; who is bugged by bugs. That isn’t to imply we set a goal to get Chlamydia by Christmas. Just that raw play is our preferred sex, and experience taught us bugs were going to happen from time to time. Our STD Clinic gave us “the talk”, and we nodded, said thank you; then went to the bathhouse and played awhile
WRAPPING THIS UP…
All this is my backdrop. I for one, and I believe we all want a space free of spectators but with plenty of participants. We don’t want to go to an empty bathhouse, cuz what fun is that? But we also don’t want to be enjoying ourselves at a bathhouse and be raided. When we’re there, we want to enjoy ourselves with like minded fellows.
If you were around going to gay bars in the 1970’s they had just started to reach an accord in their municipalities where the cops left patrons alone and the patrons pretty much stayed there with each other. Around Chicago we referred to is as boys town; and within there we were largely left alone.
Now we’re at a new time and place and most of those gay bars and bath houses are long gone. We’re left with an internet presence. It is up to us to figure out how to make this work for us collectively and for us, individually.
Featured Photo: Image by Tim Marshall via Unsplash.
Article ID: CC078
Version Control: 1.0 – April 15, 2024: Original article published.
