DaddyBear App Hooks Up Gay Men 'Not Living With HIV'

A new app is causing heads to turn with its offer to hook up lonely rich sugar daddies with younger bears -- but only if they are HIV-negative.

An article by Mark S. King looks at the gay dating app DaddyBear, which connects older gay men with burly queer men, aka bears.

But according to the app's About page, many of the app's mature clientele "grew up under the macro environment of AIDS epidemic and scare, so they know how to protect themselves and you, and enjoy safe sex with you."

In a comment in a different article written by Matthew Rodriguez for INTO, a representative from the company wrote:

"If you are worried about meeting gay men who are living with HIV, then you can feel relieved with our App because we are trying our best to make sure that all users you meet will be healthy and without HIV."

In an email interview with INTO, the CEO of DaddyBear, who went only by Justin, doubled down on this stance.

"No one would like to date people living with HIV unless he is living with it," the CEO said in an email. "Most gay sugar daddies are not living with HIV, so they don't want to bring home any unwanted souvenirs. However, we support that gay men living with HIV have the right to date with other gays with HIV. But many rich and successful gay sugar daddies do not want to date with gay men living with HIV, which is the reason why we launched this app to meet their needs."

Readers like King are calling for some education on HIV, including, "an explanation about how undetectable people with HIV cannot transmit the virus to their partners." They encourage like-minded folks to share their comments with DaddyBear here.