We’re ending the first series of The Real Sex Education podcast by talking to chemsex expert David Stuart, a support worker, activist and drug use counsellor. This is such a powerful interview, as David very honestly and clearly sets out the challenges faced by gay men in managing their relationships, and how use of ‘chems’ can be a way of coping.
The chems in question are the drugs crystal methamphetamine, mephedrone and GHB/GBL. Though they’re often used in combination with other drugs, such as alcohol, ketamine, cocaine and Viagra, it’s the main three’s use in conjunction with gay sex which defines the chemsex phenomenon. David, who was once himself a chemsex user, contends that the growth of hook-up culture, and the availability of apps like Grindr, has accelerated the appeal of chemsex to gay men who feel insecure, anxious and marginalised. The attraction of chemsex is that the drugs enhance sex, relieve stress and shame and allow some sense of connection and belonging.
Though gay communication is popularly presented as better than among straight couples, and some research supports this, the reality is that much sexual negotiation is awkward and actually quite poor. Reliance on abbreviations and emojis to signal sexual interest can easily lead to confusion, misunderstandings and damaged self-esteem, making consent more nebulous. Though by no means all gay men have such difficulties, David maintains that a significant number do and that, since the 1980s, chems have provided a way of managing this.
AIDS
The 1980s was a terrible decade for gay men. AIDS was claiming lives, adding to existing homophobia. It didn’t help that gay men were most noticeably affected when AIDS started, before governments woke up to AIDS ripping through straight communities in some parts of the world, and long before HIV infection could be controlled. For many people, being gay was quite simply associated with death and perversion.
UK laws at the time prevented sexual health education relating to homosexuality (discussed in the blog related to the Paul Sinha episode), both making it more difficult to access advice and information and fuelling public fear. Many gay men felt like outcasts and internalised the loathing which was directed at them, sometimes by members of their own families as well as by strangers. Chemsex offered an accepting community where the realities of oppression and shame were temporarily dulled. For some, though, the comedown and return to normality brought more shame and feelings of difference, fuelling more and more chemsex use to escape from real life – until chemsex became real life.
And so it has continued. Far from abating, as social media and apps have become the way to meet partners and party, so the stress and pressure has increased. While it may be theoretically easier to meet a partner, now issues such as perfecting a profile, or presenting oneself appealingly yet fairly honestly in photographs, fuels body image issues and self-doubt. Some men find use of chems is so normalised as to be expected of them. But, David argues, regular use to the exclusion of relationships reflects a need to escape some sort of personal challenge. Though for some men chems use may be a manageable solution, as so often happens in life, the solution can easily become the problem.
Risks
As well as becoming a lifestyle which excludes long-term stable relationships – the lack of which may have drawn some men to chemsex in the first place – being high and disinhibited can place participants at risk of injury, infection and abuse. Particularly when used in combination, chemsex and party drugs can make HIV medication less effective. Then there’s the general effect of heavy long-term drug use on physical and mental health. David reckons two men die from chemsex associated causes every week in London.
But David does not see chemsex as just a drug problem. Judgement and cracking down on drug use/dealers doesn’t work. What does help is connecting with the people for whom chemsex is a problem, prioritising their mental health and showing them alternative ways of being that they may find healthier and which offer more possibilities for well-negotiated, more lasting relationships. In the absence of really good sex and relationships education to prepare men and boys who are coming out for the realities which face them, chemsex will continue to flourish.
Chemsex documentary:
David’s website:
https://www.davidstuart.org/
SUPPORT:
The Eddystone Trust:
https://www.eddystone.org.uk/chemsex-support
Sex Health Wellbeing:
https://s-x.scot/
We Are With You:
https://www.wearewithyou.org.uk/help-and-advice/advice-you/chemsex-how-stay-safer/
Cate Campbell 