risk it gave him. This attracted criticism both during his life, and following his death. He called his HIV infection, which he believed he contracted in 1981, "an undeniable blessing", and "admired..tremendously" two people who "consciously made the decision to seroconvert" (to contract HIV; see bugchasing). He had "HIV+" tattooed on his bicep in 1994, then tore the sleeves off many of his shirts so it would be visible. Once he had progressed to AIDS, he talked about it "at every available opportunity". He wrote in detail about his treatment for lymphoma and the pain he endured. O'Hara did not have, and did not want, a long-term relationship. He said that there were six times in his life when he was in love, deeply and thoroughly, for a period of a month or more. "The concept of 'Lover' (or 'Spouse', or 'Partner', or whatever) is basically, intrinsically antithetical to what my Philosophy of Life holds up as the ideal". O'Hara acted in multiple bisexual films throughout his life, but did not identify as bisexual. However, he listed Switch Hitters 2 as one of his favorite films, partly because he got to experience the novelty of sex with a woman, something he'd always wanted to do. He claimed to enjoy the scene and was proud of his butch appearance in the role, writing that "in all my years of ass-pounding, I'd never once gotten into a pussy, and I felt as if this were a serious gap in my sexual education, which needed filling." Although not a pedophile or pederast, O'Hara was a supporter of NAMBLA due to, as he wrote, feeling not only affinity for them as a stigmatised group, but because having fantasised about sex with men as an adolescent, he saw them as the only gay support group prepared to acknowledge the existence of such reciprocal desires. Death His trust fund exhausted, O'Hara spent his final years in a windowless San Francisco apartment he called "The Cave", surrounded by his record albums, CDs, books, and erotic art, and occupied his time gardening. He lived with HIV for more than 10 years and had developed non-Hodgkin lymphoma for almost five years. He dubbed his illness "The Death Spoor", and died of AIDS-related complications in San Francisco on February 18, 1998, at age 36. He donated his collection of over 500 works of erotic art to The Tom of Finland