What a great post! I have wondered this for a long time and it would be great to get some insightful information regarding this phenomenon. Hopefully we might get a bug chaser commenting on it so we can learn the mind set involved. (Let's not judge them if they do!).
Now, in the U.K, HIV is really not as bad as it was once thought to be. Some people, including friends of mine who work in the field, say "It could be worse, you could have Diabetes!" (I have heard them say this first hand). Now-a-days, all that is needed to keep HIV at bay is a pill a day. These pills are so effective, that they are used in PEP treatments and can be taken up to 72 hours after exposure, killing every single HIV cell in the body before it gets a chance to replicate and alter the body's DNA, essentially curing the individual, completely, of the virus! With advances like this, similar to what CUTEFLYBOI said, a newly infected person will now die from natural causes, rather than HIV related illness. Therefore, HIV+ people can use Anti-retroviral treatment until a full cure is available, and let's face it, it really is just around the corner! But with all of these fantastic scientific breakthroughs, living with HIV and committing to Anti-Retroviral treatment is still a very hard task to do.
With this in mind, I can only deduce that these bug chasers are using HIV infection as a tool to satisfy their "dirty" and "sleazy" sex needs. What can be more dangerous, and in some other parallel universe, exciting, than dodging the HIV bullet?
I suppose the big question is, are these people living their "exciting" lives based on mis-information about how "easy" life with HIV is, now? Or do they just not care, or in some way, self destructive? Or are they simply not aware of the dangers that it still brings?
More importantly, are WE the ones who are mis-informed? Still carrying the crippling stigma of HIV around with us from Thatcherite 1980's and the "Tombstone" TV commercial?
Personally, any way I look at it, bringing harm upon one's body cannot be a good thing, and to actually WANT something that, in the past, has killed so many of us, is a very hard thing to understand.
Wow, man, what a ramble!!!!! lol sorry.