Writing bugchasing ethnoperformance: Creative representations of online interactions

Bugchasing online: In need of exploration

Available research on bugchasing encompasses two fronts: first, exploration of bugchasers’ motivations and the meanings they ascribe to HIV and, second, quantitative approaches attempting to measure the phenomenon and describe its participants. This article will briefly review both. A wide variety of reasons have been given as motivating bugchasing behaviour: some have described it as a reaction to the historical ‘imposition’ of safe sex as the only viable practice which has led to a backlash or a ‘resistance habitus’ (Crimp, 1988; Crossley, 2004; Patton, 1990); others have argued that the establishment of HIV as a manageable chronic condition may have led to a degree of complacency (Cheuvront, 2007; Gauthier and Forsyth, 1999; Gonzalez, 2010; Power, 2011), while others still suggest that the juxtaposition of negative and affirmative discourses of HIV may have mutually undermined each other (Rofes, 1999). At the same time, several authors have suggested that bugchasing may be a way of foreclosing the anxiety around the risk of HIV infection (Dean, 2011; Hammond et al., 2016; Moskowitz and Roloff, 2007) or gaining a sense of agency over bodies and destinies (Grov and Parsons, 2006). Some researchers have concluded that HIV may be seen as a way of accessing a community, obtaining group solidarity, addressing survivors’ guilt and establishing transhistorical connections (Dean, 2009; Gauthier and Forsyth, 1999; Morris and Paasonen, 2014). HIV has also been discussed as a method of gaining subcultural capital (Dean, 2009; Gauthier and Forsyth, 1999; Thornton, 2005) and as an icon of risk taking (Dawson et al., 2005; Grov and Parsons, 2006). Yet other scholars suggest that bugchasing is a rebellious dislodging of sexuality from epidemiology or the product of barebacking pornography (Dean, 2009; Gauthier and Forsyth, 1999). At the same time, a large amount of work has focused on studying the new significations that the virus has for bugchasers, suggesting that it may be used as a way of genealogical connection, masculinity, and empowerment (Graydon, 2007; Reynolds, 2007). Other fields, such as media studies (Lee, 2014), gender studies (Robinson, 2013) and public health (Hammond et al., 2016; Holmes and Warner, 2004) have also contributed to these debates. Some ethnographic work is available, such as García-Iglesias (2019).

A significant proportion of research has taken a quantitative approach with the intention of measuring the prevalence of bugchasing and describing its participants, and has turned to online dating sites for evidence. Dawson et al. (2005) sampled 100 profiles from barebackcity.com (now defunct) and analysed users’ reported HIV status and the status they desired their partners to have. They established that bugchasers were present, even if their levels were ‘extremely low’ (2005: 81). Also on the same site, Tewksbury (2003), analysing over 800 profiles, also concluded that very few men were actively seeking partners with a different HIV status. Grov (2004) reached a similar conclusion when, out of over 50,000 online profiles in a dating site, he could only identify 55 clearly ‘displaying some form of intentional desire to either infect or be infected with HIV’ (2004: 337–338). With a similar methodology, Grov and Parsons (2006) sampled 1600 profiles of self-proclaimed bugchasers or gift-givers, ² finding that 70% of those using the labels ‘bugchaser’ or ‘giftgiver’ on their profiles actually expressed interest in partners with the same HIV status, concluding that bugchasing ‘identity did not consistently match behavioural intentions’ (2006: 500). Moskowitz and Roloff (2007: 353) followed a similar process and determined that ‘most [users] were not looking for seroconversion, but were looking for ambiguous situations or partners’ where HIV infection could occur but was not certain.

This corpus of research faces two major challenges: first, the available studies focus on only two websites (both of which are now defunct) without parallel explorations of more contemporary sites (e.g. Tumblr, Twitter and smartphone apps such as Grindr and Scruff). Second, there is little acknowledgement on the part of researchers of the fact that people’s desires as expressed online cannot be assumed to directly reflect their offline practices. In this way, Dawson et al. argue that ‘it may be a leap of faith to equate advertisers’ report of their HIV status [on a sex advertisement site] with their actual serostatus. ³ It is not uncommon to have misrepresentation in Internet profiles’ (Dawson et al., 2005: 80). Robinson calls for further ethnographic research to explore how bugchasers ‘are taking up these online discourses within their everyday (sexual) lives’ (2013: 108). These calls have been spearheaded by Grov (2006) who compares the tolerance for bugchasing discourse on two websites focused on barebacking. ⁴ He concludes not only that fantasy and non-fantasy discourses are juxtaposed in those sites, but that the design and moderation of the forums directly promotes and/or hinders explicit bugchasing narratives within the sites. Thus, he concludes, it is not only necessary to focus on the available profiles but also on the ways in which the sites create and police their own spaces.

These considerations have been at the forefront of internet ethnography and history, with Markham (2018) arguing that ‘the internet is so ubiquitous that we don’t think much about it at all; we just think through it’ (2018: 1129). Bugchasing research until now has been particularly prone to disregarding the uniqueness of online spaces and the ways in which they mediate users’ participation and dynamics. Race (2015), talking about the hook-up app Grindr, suggests that ‘it is difficult to understand the shape of this culture … without getting specific about the affordances, formats, design features and uses of online hook-up devices’ (2015: 254) in a way that does not consider them as simply facilitating but as mediating the sexual encounters they allow. In a similar tone, Crooks (2013) suggests that many of our online interactions do not occur through internet platforms but are created by the platform design. Thus, bugchasing as we think of it today (through the exchange of instant messages, emails, videos, photos and postings to forums, etc.) is indebted to the very online spaces through which it takes place.

The stigmatization and statistical rarity of bugchasing has made it particularly dependent on the internet, which allows bugchasers to meet likeminded partners in online venues where geographically distant participants engage in emotional, social and/or sexual encounters. While the purposeful seeking of HIV happened before the spread of the internet – and still happens offline – it would be wrong to assume that online bugchasing is simply a transposition of offline practices. Rather, returning to the point that Race (2015) has made, bugchasing is profoundly indebted to the design, functioning and affordances and limitations of the online spaces where it exists. Adopting this point would mean adopting Brügger’s idea of ‘born-digital’ materials as those which ‘never existed in any other form than digital’ and do not ‘have any non-digital original to go back to’ (2019: 17). That is, while bugchasing happens offline, it is not the direct equivalent of online bugchasing, with its unique dynamics and practices. Thus, the object of this article – bugchasing online – is the product of a transformation, a different avenue for research with its own considerations and problematics without a direct offline equivalent.

Methodological background: The impossibility of truth?

Inheriting from this research background, this section focuses on exploring how the unique characteristics of these online spaces mediate bugchasing encounters online and the processes of meaning-making happening therein. In order to illustrate this interplay between users and the online venues, this article draws from three methodological sources: Orbach’s (1999) Impossibility of Sex, Cooper’s (2005) The Sluts and the field of ethnodrama and ethnoperformance. In this section, I will explain the significance of each of these sources and how the current piece complicates and develops them.

Susie Orbach’s (1999) The Impossibility of Sex is an investigation into the role of sexuality in our lives through the stories of several of Orbach’s therapy clients. Orbach, who is a psychoanalyst herself, bases the stories on true cases but fictionalizes them so that each section presents composite characters and alters identifying information. This process generates what she calls ‘patients-on-the-page’, which are fictional composite characters that allow her to reflect on the patients’ and therapist’s emotional processes and on the interpersonal dynamics taking place within the counselling session and relationship. At the same time, their compositional nature preserves patient privacy. While Orbach chose a quite linear first-person narrative to present her experiences, I feel that a more disjointed technique would better reflect my data. It is also worth noting that, like the composite characters of Orbach, the composite users I create for this ethnodrama also prove useful in guaranteeing user anonymity.

Something like a ‘user-on-the-page’ is what Dennis Cooper (2005) creates in his novel The Sluts. The novel focuses on the story of an escort named Brad and is narrated through snapshots of a website where gay male escorts are reviewed, as well as emails and chat-room transcripts. Cooper introduces a multitude of narrators in the form of ‘users’ who post reviews. As the plot develops, the narrators become increasingly inconsistent, obscure and unreliable, to the extent that Brad’s own existence is questioned. This is best represented through formal techniques inherited from the website it tries to represent, such as inconsistent postings, dates, commentary from the moderator and so on. In this way, Cooper represents how people engage online behind veils of (perceived) anonymity and, by refusing to provide any other form of narration or any final explanation regarding the offline situation it narrates, Cooper also emphasizes the impossibility of accessing a definite truth beyond the web. The Sluts is a major formal influence on this work, as it evidences that a realistic portrayal of online venues requires a recognition of their unreliability. While this unreliability is perhaps common across research, this article showcases the process of accepting the unreliability inherent to online spaces, the impossibility of determining an offline truth. Yet this acceptance does not mean resignation: as I show, research can accept this uncertainty while still producing engaging analyses of online dynamics, discourse negotiation and so forth. even if these are limited to the online realm and take the form of fictionalized accounts.

At the same time, the practice of ethnodrama proves a useful way of presenting data. Saldaña (2005) defines ethnodrama as ‘a written script [which] consist[s] of dramatized, significant selections of narrative collected through interviews, participant observation, fieldnotes’ (2005: 2). The script may be performed for a live audience (in which case we use the term ‘ethnotheatre’ to refer to the particular use of theatrical production techniques) or can solely be meant to be read, as ‘closet theatre’. This approach performs a delicate balance between ‘allegiance to the lived experiences of real people’ (Saldaña, 2005: 3) and the requirements of the theatrical medium: that is, ethnodrama ought to function both as ethnography and drama. A further term, more open in its possibilities, is ‘ethnoperformance’, which stands for ‘interpretative event[s]’ (Denzin, 1997: 97) – which include ethnodramas and ethnotheatre but also other forms such as performance events or public readings. In his book, Denzin (1997) provides a genealogy of the practice, which includes antecedents in Bakhtin and Turner, the narrative turn in humanities, for example in the work of Bochner and Ellis, and the principles laid out by Goffman who ‘sees culture as performance’ (Denzin, 1997: 91). Denzin argues that performance is the ‘most powerful way for ethnography to recover yet interrogate the meanings of lived experience’ (1997: 94–95) particularly in the ‘taboo spaces in which the unrepresentable in the culture is felt and made visible’ (1997: 93). In this way, ethnoperformance – the use of performance art techniques to represent data – poses interesting potential for the current work.

There is a long history of ethnodramas and ethnoperformances, many of which blur the boundary between academic and non-academic texts. Within the field of academia, I am particularly indebted to the work of Ellis (2004) who narrates her own experiences of abortion and the death of her parent, as well as that by Tillmann (2001, 2015), which focuses on the author’s experiences with bulimia, divorce and gay–straight friendships. In her book, Tillmann (2015) constructs one of the chapters as an ethnodrama based on interview material, fieldwork and autoethnographic data. In this case, the script is not a finalized product, but rather, its writing is conceptualized as a process through which researcher and participants reflect on their own experiences and negotiate lasting representations. In these works, the dramatic form serves to introduce the non-verbal and emotional aspects of the research process in a visual and creative way that renders them accessible for a multitude of audiences.

Even though works such as Eve Ensler’s The Vagina Monologues and Moises Kaufman’s The Laramie Project (in collaboration with members of the Tectonic Theatre Project) would not fit within the scope of academic work, these plays are nonetheless based upon extensive interview and ethnographic work, using verbatim or edited quotations as key aspects of the final product. A common aspect among many of the ethnoperformative authors is a commitment to social justice and change. For example, Mienczakowski (2003) and Hamera (2018) both actively engage the audiences in the creative process and develop open forums to discuss after the shows. This is also a main aspect of Nathaniel J Hall’s 2018 First Time, which discusses HIV infection and combines materials from group discussions and the author’s own experiences.

While none of these practices have been strictly adopted for the current work, they all pose interesting antecedents and influences: the creation of fictionalized accounts, the importance of accepting unreliability and the use of dramatic formal conventions to introduce further information and present the material in a more accessible way. Overall, I employ the current text to render accessible to the reader the experience of doing fieldwork within these online spaces, and to highlight how some of the site’s affordances and limitations influence the processes occurring there. In the absence of a truth about what goes on beyond the screen – offline – this text presents a different truth, an embodied experience of accessing and (perhaps unsuccessfully) trying to make sense of the multitude of voices in this online space. In so doing, not only is the reader invited to experience the researcher’s challenges, but also encouraged to be more attentive to the ways in which users interact with each other and with the website to construct bugchasing discourses.

Methodology: Using ethnodrama to explore online interactions

The current text is the product of fieldwork conducted on the main bugchasing section of an online forum. The 800 threads with most replies were sampled. Of these, 77 were considered relevant and analysed, featuring a total of 3065 individual posts (an average of 40 posts per thread). The threads had been published between September 2010 and March 2018. Three criteria were used to select threads. First, threads were included that were ‘unique’, meaning that they addressed little-discussed topics within the bugchasing groups (such as the negative aspects of HIV infection). Second, there were threads that complemented material obtained from both the interviews I had previously conducted as part of a larger research or material considered by previous researchers. These threads were also included. And third, threads were also included which featured active user participation, meaning that users engaged in significant discussions or debates and not only posted URLs to pornographic material. ⁵ The selected threads can be loosely classified in three main areas: personal narratives (where users, either the original poster opening the thread or other users share anecdotes or experiences), debates, and those where the user opening the thread seeks advice. Obviously, there is significant overlap. For example, a user’s post seeking advice may create grounds for debate or compel other users to share their own stories.

A further criterion for thread selection was the dynamics the users posting on the thread evidenced: particular attention was paid to those threads where users engaged over long periods, replying to each other’s posts, breaks of communication occurred (such as users deleting previous messages), or moderators/administrators acted to remove, ban, or edit users’ posts. I believe the inclusion of these threads best exemplifies the digital character at play and how the affordances and design of the site produces certain dynamics in the forum. Particularly relevant posts were then selected from each thread. Emergent themes were identified across the sample of posts: discussions of PrEP, the role of pornography, views of HIV medication, negatives of HIV infection and of bugchasing, views of online dating sites, fantastical imagery and relationship advice. Other themes, such as personal anecdotes regarding bugchasers’ first-time experiences or relationships with health institutions, were considered but have not been included in this piece. All these themes were manually coded.

Two overarching criteria guided the selection of excerpts from the forum to be included in the final text. The first was a search for the equilibrium that underlies any ethnodramatic text. Saldaña argues that ‘an ethnodrama is a data corpus – with all the boring parts taken out’ (2005: 16), but also acknowledges that the researcher-writer ought to find a difficult balance between being representative of the research material and entertaining. In this way, I felt that simply selecting those quotations or posts that were more illuminating or enlightening would defeat the realism of a forum where the majority of posts are, indeed, repetitive and poorly articulated. Without introducing, at least, a symbolic amount of these posts, there would be no representation of how the forum actually works. Secondly, I was interested in showcasing the ‘fantasy’ discourse, which a significant proportion of my interviewees had talked about. This kind of message is very enthusiastic about bugchasing, contains a large number of ‘mythical’ ideas about the fetish (such as HIV as pregnancy), is extreme in its content (such as claiming that dying of AIDS is the hottest possible outcome of infection) and is lengthily verbose. Typically, users posting these messages are perceived by others as ‘meth-heads’, users whose posting comes under the effects of methamphetamines or other drugs (commonly referred to as chemsex ⁶ ). A main interest of this text is to showcase the tension existing between the ‘fantasy’ discourse and the discourse that other users promote. The latter, while still favouring bugchasing, does so from a more realistic and complex perspective.

The posts selected were then paraphrased, with the identifiable information – in the few cases where this was present – changed, and arranged in a fictional set of conversations which, in a similar tone to Orbach’s character-on-the-page, combined features of several threads and users. Rigour was ensured by comparing the produced text to interview material and actual threads on the forum. It was also at this point that the decision was taken to abandon more orthodox theatrical format and move towards a form influenced by performance art. Saldaña argues that ‘the key [to writing ethnodrama] is to consider the appropriateness of the story’s medium’ (2005: 2). Thus, I felt that imposing live actors and plot upon these conversations was inadequate. First, my interview participants had highlighted that these online spaces were important for them, but very few rendered them as significant social spheres, they rather appeared as instrumental objects within their masturbatory or sexual routines. In this way, generating a sustained dramatic plot would impose a continuity and consistency foreign to the intermittent use of this venue by many participants. Returning to my previous point about the impossibility of accessing a truth beyond the screen, I felt that introducing traditional characters would humanize the users beyond what is experienced when reading the posts. While it is true that a significant amount of non-verbal clues are given (by style of writing, uses of language, usernames, etc.) users remain, for the most part, anonymous on the website. Finally, it is worth noting that while this text is not directly intended to be performed on stage, it uses stage directions to help highlight some of the dynamics that take place in the online space it represents: these stage directions highlight the sometimes choral voices of the forum, the ‘pings’ emphasize the permanent updating of the forum, and some of the notes on how sections are read are representative of how the writing and editing of those entries provides connotations to the text itself.

The adoption of creative methods should not mean overlooking ethical principles. Two major issues arose during the creation of this text. The first is an matter of representation: while this forum is representative of the bugchasing group (as the majority of interviewees mentioned it), the process of selecting statements and arranging them performs a difficult balance between being creative and faithful. As mentioned earlier, the temptation to only represent the most shocking of posts had to be balanced by an interest in representing – if in a much smaller scale – the existence of large swaths of the forum characterized by more realistic or repetitive comments. The second issue has to do with a risk of intromission: after all these are sexual spaces where users talk about their intimate sexual fantasies and experiences, and where they expect a degree of privacy and collegiality. Extracting posts from this context may not only denaturalize them, but also betray users’ motivations for sharing them in the first place. The available ethnographies on bathhouses and other sex venues (such as Bérubé, 2003; Dean, 2015b; Delany, 1999) provided valuable examples of the use of contextualization to frame any troubling passage within its particular setting – in this case, this critical discussion preceding the text frames it.

Conquergood’s (2003) exploration of the ethics of ethnodrama was also enlightening. His ethics are articulated in four quadrants alongside two axes (identity-difference and detachment-commitment). Good ethnodrama should balance the four quadrants to attain a ‘dialogical’ stage at the centre. Deviating and favouring one of the four quadrants creates ‘ethical pitfalls’. The first pitfall is the ‘curator’s rip-off’ which exploits a group’s culture for the researcher’s benefit. In this case, I feel the larger exploration of bugchasing practices, its contextualization within the online space, and the comparison of the source materials to material obtained from interviews and that collected by other researchers provides a more comprehensive and round view of the fetish which prevents a degree of rip-off.

Conquergood also argues that ‘a facile identification’ with the group represented can render ‘performances marked by superficiality’ that are articulated around the simplistic notion of ‘we’re all the same’. This pitfall, which he terms ‘enthusiast’s infatuation,’ is also prevented to an extent by the profound and reflexive consideration of the fieldwork and by seeking supportive and contradictory instances in my work. The third pitfall, the ‘curator’s exhibitionism’, is characterized by a ‘fascination with the exotic’ where the ‘performer wants to astonish rather than understand’. In this case, shock is valued over genuine contact. As explained earlier, the selection of posts has been carefully done so that all elements that could prove shocking are framed within a context and where non-shocking elements are also present. Finally, the ‘sceptic’s cop-out’, which simply refuses engagement with the topic in any depth, is challenged by the very process of accessing the site, performing fieldwork and generating a play which does not aim to foreclose the debate with facile answers but rather produce a visceral response that generates further questions and reflections on the audience.

* * *

These discussions frame the accompanying text by providing a review of its methodology and a summary of the bugchasing research it complicates. Doing so not only places the text within a larger scientific and historical context, but also highlights the ways in which this text departs from previous research. This departure is double: first, I have chosen to focus on the ways in which bugchasers interact with their online spaces and how the characteristics of these spaces influence the development of bugchasing discourse. Second, I have also chosen the form of a ‘closet ethnoperformance’ – an ethnoperformantive script intended to be read – to allow the readers to gain insight into the workings of online spaces, but also to experience the process of research. The overall goal is to complicate the research available to date, which already has considered the content of bugchasing discourses, but has failed to explain their production, and which also has used online sites as material but has failed to explore their uniqueness. The ethnodramatic text is organized in four ‘threads’ created by fictional users and addressing different themes. These sections are composites of those found in the forum under analysis. After the text, a final section will provide an analysis and conclusion to this work.

Poz Ping

Cast:

59,857 users (as of 10 February 2019)

TopXLToxic – administrator

Staging:

Within a darkened room, three black male mannequins stand in the centre. As voices read the posts below, different faces are projected over the mannequins. In the background, a soft mechanical hum is present throughout the performance.

[loud ping]

Conclusion

This ethnodrama is a challenging text that may well provoke a visceral response in the reader. In a way, I hope this embodied viscerality triggers spaces of reflection from which to challenge both the reification of the bugchasing community as a radically queer group and the facile othering and condemnation of bugchasers and their discourse. This ethnodrama is less about providing definite answers about why bugchasers fetishize HIV and more about exploring how they fetishize it, particularly in the online sphere.

Within the ethnodrama, a multitude of possible loci of criticism exist. First, several users explain their bugchasing desires as a form of erotic self-harm and, even suicide. This has already been theorized by Cheuvront (2002, 2007) and continues a long-standing relationship between sexuality – particularly queer sexuality – and death (e.g. Aydemir, 2007; Edelman, 2004), which is frequently mobilized when discussing HIV/AIDS (e.g. Bersani, 1988). There is, within the comments in the play, a distinct sense of nostalgia for the AIDS crisis, which, while shockingly phrased here, is not unique to bugchasing discourses (see Dean, 2011 for an academic example; and Murphy, 2016 for a fictional one). These comments also evidence the appropriation of heterosexual reproduction to frame HIV infection as a form of kinship and genealogy (Dean, 2009). In this same way, bugchasers on this forum also appropriate health discourses: far from ignorant about the effects of HIV infection and its treatment, some users exhibit great awareness of these narratives and they include them in their erotic repertoire.

Previous reviewers of this text were particularly shocked by the last message, focused on developing drug resistance and the equation of AIDS and death. There are two reasons for the inclusion of that passage. First, while most of the script intends to highlight a dialogue between ‘fantasy’ posts (more extreme and verbose) and ‘rational’ ones (still favourable to bugchasing but more realistic in its potential), the final post seems to bridge both: it is clearly written, knowledgeable in its instructions and concise in its meaning and yet its content is extreme, beyond what most other posters would dare to say. It is this combination of characteristics that makes me, and previous readers, feel particularly strong about it. The strength of my feelings is the second reason for its inclusion: out of the thousands of posts I read for this research, this made me feel the most uneasy and thus, I felt it must be included. In his poem ‘Ground Swell,’ Mark Jarman argues that ‘you write about the life that’s vividest’. I feel this post is perhaps the one that most vividly represents the emotional and intellectual complexities of this research.

This is also the reflexive element of this text. While the researcher does not feature as a character in the text – this would have been too unrealistic, as I did not participate in the forum during the fieldwork – the text remains reflexive in the way in which I have composed a final script that is emotionally significant for me and for the readers. I have chosen excerpts based on their relevance but I have also inevitably been guided, in part, by my own emotional reactions to certain posts or phrasings. It is this process of composing and reading that makes this piece reflexive.

Overall, this text has two objectives. First, it seeks to explore the ways in which bugchasers negotiate bugchasing discourse online and how the unique characteristics of the sites influence said negotiations. Second, it hopes to create in the reader the embodied feeling of accessing this site as a non-participant, of reading these texts and appreciating its dynamics and uniqueness, and grappling with the impossibility of finding a ‘truth’ beyond the screen. While a few ‘users’ appear several times throughout the script, only an attentive reader would be able to pick these and establish some form of character. At the same time, the lack of any significant plot and the constant breakdown of communication through the intromission within conversations of other characters render it particularly unsettling and make it difficult to reach any final conclusion. These objectives have guided the stylistic choices of the ethnodrama and the selection of information to be included. No piece could represent the entirety of the dynamics through which the internet mediates our interactions. Rather, I have selected the aspects of the online space that I feel best help to achieve these stated goals. However, I recognize that other pieces – with other goals – may well select other alternative approaches and designs.

This performance text is not intended to be performed for a live audience, Saldaña (2005) rightly argues that for ethnotheatrical pieces the collaboration between researchers and practitioners of theatre is necessary, a collaboration that has not happened in this case. Rather, it is intended to show the potential of ethnoperformance as a way of illustrating the ways in which online spaces mediate the activities they allow in an accessible and experiential way. It draws from previous work both on autoethnography, literature and ethnodrama to explore the potential of these techniques within the field of internet studies, something which has not been previously considered. The script is not real, but neither is it entirely fiction. It does not correspond to any one conversation, or any one day of fieldwork, but it summarizes and condenses both the interactions available online and the experience of conducting fieldwork as a non-participant. This is an experiment, itself an exploration, a continuation and a breaking away.