The rise of chemsex: queering collective intimacy in neoliberal London

ABSTRACT

Since 2011, various public health organizations 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 crystallized 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as a desire for an intimate mode of collectivity during a historical moment when collectivity itself is being superseded by competitive individualism as the privileged mode of being in the world (Gilbert, J. [2013]. Common ground: democracy and collectivity in an Age of individualism. London: Pluto Press). In doing so, this article provides a different account to pathologizing 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.

KEYWORDS:

• Chemsex
• neoliberalism
• gay and bisexual men
• intimacy
• London
• collectivity

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Jamie Hakim is a lecturer in media studies who researches male embodiment and intimacy in relation to digital culture. His book the Male Body in Neoliberal Digital Culture will be published by Rowman and Littlefield in 2020 as part of their Radical Cultural Studies series.

Notes

1. Ethical approval for the data collection was granted by the University of East Anglia’s General Research Ethics Committee on 26 April 2016.

2. The only gap in the sample comes in the form of an absence of South American men. According to the interviews, South American gay and bisexual men were a notable presence at chemsex parties. This is probably related to the fact that South Americans constitute such a large percentage of the migrant population of Lambeth, Southwark and Lewisham (McLiwane et al. 2011). This absence is one that repeats itself across sexual health research in the UK. Recent research suggests this might be because much of the South American population in this borough have poor English speaking skills and are not so easily targeted by the methods deployed here (Granada and Paccoud 2014). A different approach to sample construction, in further research, is required to fill this gap.

3. One interviewee talked about a distinctive chemsex culture in London’s gay saunas and two talked about meeting other men at nightclubs and having chemsex with them at the end of the night.

4. The words ‘monged’ and ‘twatted’ are British slang terms that are both used to refer to the experience of consuming alcohol or recreational drugs to the point where a person begins to lose control over what they are doing.

5. Large British restaurant chains.

6. The British government’s foreign intelligence agency, which is based in Vauxhall.

7. Something else that has diminished with the closure of these spaces is the on-site paramedics and recovery rooms that were made available for people having bad, if not potentially fatal, reactions to the drugs that they had consumed at these nightclubs (Borria 2013). It is safe to speculate that the disappearance of these has had a significant impact on the number of chemsex-related morbidities now that these drugs are being consumed in private accommodation, away from this rapid response attention.

8. On 15 December 2016, an academic conference was held in London posing the question ‘The End of Neoliberalism?’, inviting participants to debate these issues. See https://www.lwbooks.co.uk/event/the-end-of-neoliberalism-0 [Accessed 12 April 2017].