What’s Up, Doc?

If there’s something up, then it isn’t simply sex and its relation to drugs. Sex is generally enjoyable. Drugs can be enjoyable, too. A lot of people enjoy both of them and often at the same time.

The great hand of moralising Puritanism isn’t going to stretch down from the heavens and smite you for admitting to enjoying these pleasures. We’re only human, after all. ¶What’s up is problematic drug use linked to unsafe sex, STIs being transmitted rampantly because of this and rising HIV rates across the capital. The spread of disease, without a thought to its perfectly possible prevention (the condom), shows a real lack of concern and self-esteem amongst gay men, which possibly spurs on their drug use..

It’s a kind of crazy Catch-22, serpent eating itself, where men who have sex with men are taking drugs to free up their inhibitions and smother their difficulties, which makes them take sexual risks that could potentially send them into a greater tangle of social difficulties and, consequently, heavier drug use. ‘People take drugs for the problems they’ve got,’ says David Stuart of club-drugs clinic Antidote.

“Why is HIV more common among gay men? Why is drug and alcohol use higher and why are mental health problems more common?”

This is speaking of specifically problematic drug use; we’re not aiming to demonise drug users or imply that because someone takes a bump or two at the weekend in a club they have a drugs problem. But the gay community does have a disproportionately large number of drug users compared to wider society in general, and people are wondering if there are more ingrained reasons behind this: psychologically, emotionally and where the gay man stands in his relation to his wider culture.

A gay doctor named Adam Bourne is currently trying to work out more specifically what these reasons might be, by talking one-on-one to interviewees in confidential settings about their drug use and sex lives. We spoke to him to find out more about this study, how the research will be used, and to other figures on the gay scene about how they perceive ‘chemsex’, from sexual health experts to personal testimonials from guys on the scene.

 

ABOUT THE STUDY

 

Dr Adam Bourne, Sigma Research

How did this particular study come about? 

If we’re to try and reduce the harms that some guys are experiencing when having chemsex (such as HIV or other STI transmission) then we need to understand exactly how and why they use them, what they feel the costs and benefits are of using drugs, and what (if any) problems they have experienced. Since April of this year local councils have been in charge of public health, and Lambeth, Southwark and Lewisham councils kindly funded this work so they can better understand the needs of their residents.

What kind of participants are you looking for? 

We’re looking for guys who are into chemsex, or ‘party n’ play’ – essentially guys who use drugs like GHB/GBL, crystal meth, or mephedrone when having sex. Often this might be at sex parties or sex orgies or could be at saunas as well. Because of how the work is funded, the men we interview need to live in either Lambeth, Southwark or Lewisham and they need to be over 18 years of age.

What is its purpose? 

The research will directly inform the development of new campaigns or services to help gay men with their drug use. In order for campaigns to work properly they need to take account of what people value – what is important in their everyday lives and what motivates them to behave in certain ways.

How did you get involved with the study?

As a gay man myself, I’ve always been interested in why it is that gay men share a disproportionate burden of ill-health: why is HIV more common among gay men? Why is drug and alcohol use higher, and why are mental health problems more common?

 

 

Paul Steinberg, HIV Prevention & Sexual Health Commissioning Manager 

Why is this study specifically centred on Lambeth, Southwark and Lewisham (LSL)?

LSL have the estimated largest population of gay and bisexual men per borough in the country, with a large number of venues located there.

We made a commitment to focus on HIV prevention and related issues. This study is just one example of that commitment. The research will inform how we improve the sexual health of gay men in the future.

Do you think this is a positive sign that more London councils might follow? 

Directors of Public Health, in conjunction with London Councils, the body which represents all local authorities in the capital, are currently conducting a needs assessment into HIV prevention, including factors which lead to risk-taking such as substance use. Men who have sex with men are a key group within this needs assessment, and all boroughs have recognised the importance of these issues.

 

SEXUAL HEALTH EXPERTS ON CHEMSEX 

 

David Stuart, Antidote 

We live these “respectable” gay lives for our parents, for our straight friends and family; that same act we learned at school when we were trying to avoid being bullied. Even though we’re “out” to our friends, family and work colleagues we give them the clean, respectable version of our gay life; acting “straight”, not at all promiscuous, and waiting for that one special person. In this world, within this performance, there are responsibilities we honour and consequences we negotiate.

So, where is the space for us to explore our (different) sexuality; to be affirmed as sexual beings, despite the clean cut version we’re always portraying? What if, we have these darker sexual urges to explore; what if we like to get pig-fucked while wearing a leather harness on the weekend?

After a lifetime of denying these desires, of performing the polar opposite to a hetero-normalised world, they are bound to scream for satisfaction at some point. Feeling horny and having fantasies is a right, an entitlement, and not something we need to be ashamed of.

Not that we need to show our Mum the video, but certainly not something doused in shame.

This is called “splitting”. Disappearing into a fantasy “bubble”, where we can explore these things with abandon, often facilitated by drugs, where the consequences and responsibilities seem far, far away. Almost like it’s not the “real” me.

But it is you. And the consequences do follow you back to the real world. Consequences like HIV, Hepatitis C and PEP; like feeling shitty, missing work, and losing sight of the value of sober sex, and relationships.

The job for a support worker, would be to help someone to integrate these “two selves”; to give them “permission” to feel horny. It is ok to be that responsible, respectable gay son, and it is ok for that same person to have full blown sexual desires. They needn’t be irreconcilable polar opposites. And we oughtn’t need drugs to go exploring it.”

 

Dr Alan McOwan, CODE Clinic 

‘Feeling sexually aroused is a very pleasurable feeling, so it’s no great surprise to me that a drug like crystal meth that removes your inhibitions and makes people feel incredibly horny for prolonged periods of time is going to be attractive to many gay men.

However, what I find so insidious is the way that crystal meth seems to blind people when there are obvious warning signs that their drug use is getting out of control.

It’s shocking to watch how quickly rational intelligent successful people can sleep walk into losing their health, friends, partner, job or home.’

 

CHEMSEX AND I: PERSONAL TESTIMONIALS

 

Peter Wilson, DJ

‘I feel genuinely sad about the lack of compassion people had for each other whilst taking drugs as people are often at their most vulnerable whilst they are high. Seeing men on the verge of losing consciousness on G was unsettling in itself but what was more disturbing was seeing countless men trying to fuck them; scrambling around naked and knocking into one and other like wolves fighting over a carcass.

It’s all or nothing at these parties – you can’t pick and choose who you want to sleep with, which I think puts pressure on gay men to take drugs to excess as a way of being intimate with those they most likely wouldn’t sleep with sober.

It gets them to the stage where they no longer have to worry about being safe – most likely because their eyes are rolling to the back of their head.

If this wasn’t the case, and drugs weren’t needed as a medium to enable intimacy, then why is it that so many men rarely meet up sober after having sex on drugs and often don’t talk to each other again unless they are repeating the same behaviour?’

 

Alex Palumbo, Student

‘I’ve done it quite a few times. I find that in comparison to sober sex, it’s obviously a lot easier to have chemsex because your sense of judgement is completely impaired, people who are less attractive look more attractive, there’s less need for conversation because the drugs totally get you into a head space.

It gets to the stage where you can either have moderate chemsex, where you don’t take too much, but there’s also the darker side of it where both of you are so fucked, there’s no real sex going on, it’s just a lot of drug taking, a lot of failed attempts to have sex. People go under.

It just becomes a bit scary and a bit gross – I mean at the time it’s fine, looking back on it is scary.

At the moment I’m in treatment and recovery, but in hindsight my stomach drops when I think of what I’ve done, my stomach drops when I think of the quantity of drugs I’ve taken. There’s something about gay society that makes me think it’s okay to take that quantity of drugs.

Crystal meth is one of the most physically and mentally damaging drugs on the scene, but everyone’s taking it so lightly, giving it a really feminine name like ‘oh Tina’, just to make it this friendly drug, when it’s not, it’s dangerous.

With my own experience, I just felt a bit lost. I came out to my school friends at the age of thirteen which was fine, the girls were fine and the boys were scared of me, and when I started engaging in inner city life you don’t really know who to talk to.

So you create a Manhunt account at the age of sixteen; someone picks you up, you go to a nightclub and it’s the most incredible thing in the world: you’re suddenly in a world where everyone is exactly like you and the only way to really belong is to do what everyone else is doing which is to get buff, take your top off, start dancing and do drugs.

You make friendships that are sort of superficial and chemical-based and then I think it just escalates from there. I think it’s a lack of belonging, and a sense that in order to belong you need to partake in activities such as barebacking and drug-taking. In modern society I think there’s still a real sense that homosexuality is taboo, it’s a bit dirty.

And because you grow up with it, knowing intrinsically that there’s something not quite mainstream about me, something a bit taboo, then obviously I’m going to gravitate towards the darkness, because that’s something that I associate with myself.’

 

Tom R, Journalist  

‘For me it all started as part of the need to join the big gay party where it seemed to go hand-in-hand; part of the hedonistic, Bacchanalian live fast, die young image.’

 

Pedro Sousa Louro, Artist

‘I wasn’t successful in anyway. Didn’t find my love, only lost souls with shadows of emptiness. This experience is not nice or beautiful or anything else, like the way it is advertised in the gay chems sex scene.’

 

• David Stuart, Peter Wilson, Alex Palumbo will all feature on a panel for the ‘Chem Sex: Danger in our Bedrooms, Lives, Communities’ forum at the RVT, (372 Kennington Lane, Vauxhall, SE11 5HY) on Thursday 21st November at 7pm, £5 (£3 NUS).

• At the time of going to press, London Councils have just announced the plan for a pan-London HIV prevention programme across all thirty-three boroughs, with services aimed at gay men including condom distribution and some outreach work. The move has been welcomed by charities like THT.

 

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