Signalling in post-AIDS

J and I were talking about signalling theory over the weekend in regards to microfinance, and so I think it was fresh on my mind when I read this in the Prospect article he posted:

You hear stories about "bug chasers"; men who deliberately seek out HIV-infected partners for unprotected sex because they want to "poz up," or get infected, so that they can stop feeling guilty about not using condoms. It makes for a good story, but these are the exceptions. Most of the new infections among the "survivor" generation are just a slipping of the guard. One friend told me that his own infection came in sex with an escort who wanted unprotected sex as a mark of intimacy. The very next day, another friend, a journalist, told me a similar tale. "Of course you use condoms, mostly. But if you're fucking four guys in an afternoon, there's usually one you want to mark out as special, and not using condoms is a way of telling someone they are special." Who qualifies as special? "Oh, usually the guy who's name you can remember."

I wonder how prevalent this practice really is? But, it's interesting - if it's not a fact, it's a truth that should be a fact, because if a person really is having many, many sexual partners, despite his promiscuity, insofar as its innate to want to communicate one's committment to another person, there's an incentive to signal one's "type" to the sexual partner. Signalling necessarily involves making costly sacrifices which enable the receiver of the signal to decipher what type of person the sender is. Here, Pisani suggests gay men in post-AIDS will engage in unprotected sex with people they care about in order to signal their genuine interest. The "signal" is basically bought at some expected value price, which is a function of the per-act probability of transmission inherent in the sexual practice about to be engaged in (ie, anal receptive intercourse), the prevalence rate of HIV in the homosexual network, and the value placed on being HIV-positive status. While we say the price is falling due to HAART's success, at the same time, it's not zero, and thus is not a small gesture to be made.