Radio Netherlands Worldwide - Unprotected sex at any price?

Three seropositive gay men suspected of intentionally infecting people with HIV at sex parties in the Dutch town of Groningen will face charges of rape and grievous bodily harm with intent. They drugged at least five guests and injected them with their HIV-infected blood.

The men reportedly told police that it turned them on, and that the more HIV-infected people there were, the better their chances of unprotected sex. According to the Groningen Chief of Police they considered unprotected relations to be 'pure'. Two of those arrested, a couple aged 48 and 33 have confessed. A fourth man who allegedly supplied the three suspects with several litres of the date-rape drug GHB and Ecstasy tablets was also arrested.

Conditional Intent
Even though infection with HIV can be fatal if it develops into AIDS, the Public Prosecutors' Office will not be able to charge the suspects with attempted murder, or even manslaughter. In the past few years, the authorities have made several attempts to win convictions on these charges, for instance in the case of an HIV-positive man who failed to warn his sex partners about his condition. However, the Dutch Supreme Court has consistently ruled that there was insufficient evidence of either murder or manslaughter in these cases.[...]

[T]he Dutch HIV Association, a government sponsored and subsided volunteer organisation created to promote safe sex, is in crisis because an internal working group is claiming the right to unsafe sex for HIV-infected people. The group, which calls itself Poz' and Proud, reportedly also wants to organise unsafe sex parties.

Poz' and Proud says those who do not wish to become infected should take responsibility for their own actions. The group argues that the Dutch HIV Association has no right to pronounce moral judgment on those who transmit the HIV virus through unsafe sex.