A psychoactive paradox of masculinities: cohesive and competitive relations between drug taking Irish men

Abstract

This article explores one dimension of Ireland’s illicit drug landscape: men’s predominance as recreational users of illicit psychoactive substances. It uses a gender lens on Irish men’s drug taking practices, to reveal how men’s drug use and drug intoxication converge with masculinities in paradoxical ways. Drawing from twenty in-depth interviews with Irish men who identified as illicit recreational drug users, their drug histories and experiences are unpacked; making visible the intersections between men’s use of illicit psychoactive substances, gender, culture and place. I explore how illicit drugs can have, at times, paradoxical uses within homosocial spaces. Men’s bedrooms, house parties, the street, nightclubs and pubs (albeit discretely) were common places where men engaged in the recreational use of illicit drugs, and it was in these spaces that men’s illicit drug use was interpreted as a symbolic activity with gendered meanings. By employing a masculinities lens to analyse men’s recreational use of illicit psychoactive substances, men’s drug taking interactions reveal intricacies within the gender order. I argue that illicit drugs are resources that some men utilise to navigate conventional understandings of masculinity, albeit in paradoxical ways.

Keywords:

• Drugs
• Ireland
• masculinities
• masculinity
• Men

Acknowledgements

The author would like to express his gratitude to the men who participated in the research and to the three anonymous reviewers who provided very helpful comments and suggestions on earlier drafts of this article. Special thanks also to Dr Sara O’Sullivan, Dr Anne Cleary, Dr Hilda O’Loughran, Duke L. Von-Rath and Jennifer Ridge.

Disclosure statement

The author declares that there is no conflict of interest.

Funding

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Notes on contributors

Clay Darcy completed his doctoral research at the School of Sociology, University College Dublin, Ireland. His PhD thesis entitled ‘Here are the drug takers: men, masculinities and illicit recreational drug use’ explored Irish men’s views on, and experiences of, illicit recreational drug use and examined how men use illicit drugs as symbolic social objects to communicate messages about their masculine identity. Clay’s research interests include: masculinities; drug use; health and wellbeing; youth and childhood; and qualitative methods.

Notes

1 See Ní Laoire (2005) for more on rural Irish masculinities.