Critical chemsex studies: Interrogating cultures of sexualized drug use beyond the risk paradigm (original) (raw)
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A community-led, harm-reduction approach to chemsex: case study from Australia's largest gay city
Sexual health, 2018
Rates of drug use remain substantially higher among gay and bisexual men (GBM) and people living with HIV (PLHIV) in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. The use of drugs to enhance sexual pleasure within cultures of Party and Play creates opportunities to discuss sexual health, mental health, consent and wellbeing. Community organisations with a history of HIV prevention, care, treatment are well-placed to respond. ACON's (formerly the AIDS Council of New South Wales) multi-dimensional response to 'chemsex' includes: direct client services support for individuals seeking to manage or reduce their use; health promotion activities that support peer education; partnerships with research institutions to better understand cultures of chemsex; and policy submissions that call for drug use to be approached as a health, rather than a criminal, issue. The approach speaks the language of Party and Play subcultures; employs culturally relevant terminology and imagery; uses content ...
Conference paper, 2017
This presentation deals with the emerging phenomenon of 'chemsex', a group sex practice within gay male communities that is facilitated by the use of new and old drugs as well as hook-up apps. While some scholars aim to understand how the practice is meaningful to those who adopt it, most research is anchored in the medical tradition, aiming to understand the media "connection" only as far as to explain its impact on sexual health. The presentation explores how assemblage theory might help us understand these material and intimate relationships, while maintaining the shaping framing power of public discourse. With assemblage theory then, what chemsex phenomenon are we able to construct? What analytical strategies and critical perspectives become available? Concretely I outline three assemblages that from different levels of analysis examine the interaction between a number of material and discursive elements coming together in the chemsex phenomenon.
International Journal of Drug Policy
Background: Sexualised substance use, or 'chemsex' has been shown to be a major factor driving the syndemic of HIV/AIDS in communities of gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men (GBMSM) around the world. However, there is a paucity of research on chemsex among GBMSM in Singapore due to punitive drug laws and the criminalisation of sexual behaviour between men. This qualitative descriptive study is the first to explore perceptions towards, motivators to engaging in, and the barriers to addressing the harms associated with chemsex among GBMSM in Singapore. Methods: We conducted 30 semi-structured in-depth interviews with self-identifying GBMSM between the ages of 18 to 39 in Singapore following a purposive sampling strategy. Interview topics included participants' perceptions of drug use among GBMSM in Singapore, perceptions towards chemsex, reasons for drug use and chemsex, and recommendations to address the harms associated with chemsex in Singapore. Interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed, coded, and analysed using thematic analysis. Results: Participants reported that it was common to encounter chemsex among GBMSM in Singapore as it could be easily accessed or initiated using social networking phone apps. Enhancement and prolongation of sexual experiences, fear of rejection from sexual partners and peers, and its use as a means of coping with societal rejection were three main reasons cited for engaging in chemsex. The impact of punitive drug laws on disclosure and stigmatisation of GBMSM who use drugs were reported to be key barriers towards addressing chemsex. Participants suggested using gay-specific commercial venues as avenues for awareness and educational campaigns, and social media to reach out to younger GBMSM. Conclusions: This study highlights the complexities behind chemsex use among GBMSM in Singapore, and the range of individual to institutional factors to be addressed. We recommend that community-based organisations and policy-makers find ways to destigmatise discussion of chemsex and provide safe spaces to seek help for drug use.
The interconnectedness of chemsex, drugs, sexual promiscuity and sexual violence
In this paper, the author attempts to build a critical analysis of the interconnections between chemsex, drugs, sexual promiscuity and male sexual violence. The notion of power is understood within the context of chemsex, along with issues of drug taking and sexual promiscuity since these activities often manifest in chemsex settings. By formulating a theoretical and conceptual analysis, drawing on hegemonic masculinity and normative heterosexuality as theoretical and conceptual frameworks to elucidate some links between chemsex, drug taking, sexual promiscuity and male sexual violence, it is argued that the contexts in which chemsex occurs also give rise to male sexual assault and male rape in that the likelihood of these crimes occurring increases. This work is not (nor could it) generalize to a population. The slow upsurge of writing around male sexual victimisation has overlooked important and salient links between chemsex and male sexual violence. This paper offers a dialogue in which to speak about these links, encouraging future research on these important subject matters to contribute to knowledge in order to fully understand male rape. Making sense of these important links can provide some understanding of the personal, social and cultural implications associated with chemsex and male sexual violence. The current paper contributes to current debates in gender and sexuality studies, adding to current under-standings of social and cultural constructions of masculinities and sexualities. Identifying the links between gender, sexualities, chemsex and male rape has largely been absent in gender and sexuality studies. The current paper makes these links to recognise and understand the different ways in which men navigate through different masculinities and sexualities, how they perpetuate or dispel hegemonic masculinity, and how men
The Rise of Chemsex: queering collective intimacy in neoliberal London
Since 2011, various public health organisations have observed the growth of the sexual practice ‘chemsex’ in the UK, primarily in London. The term chemsex refers to group sexual encounters between gay and bisexual men in which the recreational drugs GHB/GBL, mephedrone and crystallised methamphetamine are consumed. This article uses a conjunctural perspective to make sense of the rise of chemsex within the historical conditions in which it has emerged. Drawing on a document analysis as well as interviews with 15 gay and bisexual men, this article argues that the rise of chemsex can be interpreted as an embodied response to material conditions shaped by neoliberalism: specifically as a desire for an intimate mode of collectivity during an historical moment when collectivity itself is being superseded by competitive individualism as the privileged mode of being in the world (Gilbert 2013). In doing so, this article provides a different account to pathologising media and medical representations of chemsex that appeared in 2015, whilst also contributing to a growing literature that attempts to map the balance of forces of the present conjuncture.
Drugs as technologies of the self: Enhancement and transformation in LGBTQ cultures
International Journal of Drug Policy, 2020
The consumption of drugs has long been a mainstay of urban queer cultures and it is wellrecognised that complex connections exist between sexual minoritisation and desires to chemically alter bodily experience. Yet despite evidence that rates of consumption are higher among LGBTQ populations, research exploring the gendered and sexual dynamics of
''Getting high to get laid.'' Drugs and gay sex under influence
Sexologies, 2019
The major studies on men who have sex with men (MSM) in France (which began with Michael Pollak and Marie-Ange Schiltz forty years ago in Gay Press) introduced the idea of drug use in 1997, just after highly effective antiretroviral treatment (HAART) combinations were made available for HIV, making AIDS a manageable chronic condition. Australian researcher Kane Race identifies this time as the beginning of a “lifetime of drugs”, but the utility of surveys into the use of psychoactive substances among gay people was to emerge in the following decades, after it was discovered that ARV treatments could keep viral load at undetectable levels in HIV-positive people, who could therefore no longer infect others. In the early 2010s, the use of drugs became a major theme in surveys of gay sexuality, and in particular the use of drugs in a sexual setting, which was named “chemsex”. Men who adopt this practice tend to have intense sex lives, with a very large number of sexual partners over the past 12 months, regular attendance at sexual meeting places, specific sexual practices and do not use condoms for anal penetration. The majority who are involved are HIV-positive MSM or HIV-negative MSM on PrEP. To date, the research and publications looking at chemsex have only investigated it through the prism of the associated risks linked to addiction and compulsive behaviour. In this article we intend to show how the emergence of a scientific literature of chemsex has contributed to a masking of the strictly sexual behaviours associated with it. We will draw upon two complementary types of material: several quantitative surveys of sexual and HIV prevention behaviours among gay men and other MSM (Prevagay 2015, the 2017 “Rapport au Sexe” survey, known as ERAS). and the initial results of the Attentes et PArcours liés au CHEmSex/Expectations and Experiences of Chemsex survey (APACHES), which used biographical interviews carried out on behalf of OFDT in 2018, focusing on sexual scripts as well as the role of pleasure and contemporary ways of socialising in this subculture.
'Uninhibited Play': the political and pragmatic dimensions of intoxication within queer cultures
Routledge Handbook of Intoxicants and Intoxication, 2021
This chapter argues that disinhibition provides a better frame than competing concepts such as 'minority stress' for grasping the significance of the chemical practices of sex and gender minorities. Disinhibition draws attention to the pragmatic, performative dimensions of intoxicant consumption while keeping the material constraints enacted by the stigmatisation of non-normative sexual and gender expression in view. A genealogy of dis/inhibition reveals its affinities with the pathologisation of sexual and gender minorities from the 19th century, enabling us to see how the consumption of intoxicating substances might emerge as part of processes of counter-corporealisation over the ensuing century. Drawing on qualitative research with LGBTQ+ drug and alcohol consumers in Australia, we explore how queer and trans cultures of sex and drug experimentation activate the mode of play and playfulness to engage in practices of queer world-making that counter the material pressures of 'inhibition'.