Is it a myth or is it a trend? Whichever it is, bug chasing is sure making headlines. Bug chasing, the idea that there is a subculture of people who want to be deliberately infected with HIV and actively seek it out, is the talk of the mainstream press this weekend.

The Sydney Morning Herald has today claimed that ‘HIV chasing [is] a trend in gay community’ while The Age in Melbourne looks in more detail at ‘the bug chasing subculture’ while also reporting on men who ‘dance with death’

The “phenomenon” of bug chasing is being reported due to a HIV-positive man at the committal hearing for Melbourne’s Michael Neal who said that bug chasing was “a big thing out there”.

Based on this statement, Fairfax newspapers have turned the man’s off-hand comment into a new trend in the gay community. This is despite most HIV groups talking down the issue. Mike Kennedy, the executive director of the Victorian AIDS Council told Fairfax that it is, essentially, an urban myth. “You will find one of everything you look for,” he said. “But the notion that this is a big scene, absolutely not. The language of ‘gift givers’, ‘bug chasers’ and ‘conversion parties’ — it’s something that’s come off the internet.”

Indeed he is correct. The idea of bug chasing was brought to mainstream attention in a Rolling Stone article a few years back (and you thought they just wrote about music), however the original article has since been largely discredited.

But that hasn’t stopped the media from jumping onto the idea.It’s a convenient hook for the mainstream media, combining fear and freakish gay behaviour that is, sadly, used to tarnish the whole gay community with the same brush.

Just wait until it turns up in one of Fred Nile’s next speeches.

Do you think it’s a myth or a trend? Head to the forums here to talk about it.