By Siobhán Healy-Cullen and Chris Noone
In recent years, the phenomenon of chemsex, a practice involving the use of drugs to enhance sexual experiences, has become a topic of increasing concern (some would say moral panic; see Hakim, 2019) and research. Traditionally, this practice has been studied through a lens that emphasises potential harm and pathologises those who engage in chemsex. As noted by Møller (2023, p. 922) “chemsex research mostly approaches the phenomenon from the perspective of health, focusing on ‘problematic’ aspects that tend to overstate risks and obscure the complicated role that drugs play in people’s lives”. However, a more critical perspective is emerging, viewing chemsex participants as valid sexual citizens engaged in a complex socio-cultural landscape.
Historically, societal norms rooted in heteronormative, neoliberal, and religious discourses have stigmatised chemsex practices, positioning them as deviant. We argue that these traditional perspectives oversimplify chemsex, failing to consider the nuanced ways participants engage with it. This is a pivotal point as the mainstream discourse tends to portray chemsex as inherently destructive and detrimental.
Contrary to this, a critical approach calls for an understanding that allows for various interpretations of chemsex participation. Our research is situated within a body of scholarship called critical chemsex studies, and explores the construction of chemsex identities and how research might shift away from a solely harm-focused perspective (Healy-Cullen et al., 2024)i.
Our research, conducted with eight gay men in Ireland, explores how participants discursively shape their identities within the realm of chemsex, constructing some men as ‘flourishing’ chemsex participants and others as ‘flailing’. In so doing, participants often positioned themselves as a ‘flourishing’ chemsex participant (i.e., a healthy, responsible, self-governing neoliberal sexual citizen), and ‘others’ as flailing, in one way or another, towards the bottom of this sliding flourishing-flailing continuum. Our findings cohere with international literature that situates any negative effects of chemsex as occurring to those who have failed to self-govern ‘correctly’.
Our analysis highlights how chemsex participants, often marginalised by mainstream discourse, find ways to assert their identities within a cultural framework that confines them. By drawing on discourses of harm, essentialism, and ethics, they navigate this landscape and challenge the dominant harms-based discourse.
Our findings also highlight the limitations of a public health responses centred on harm reduction, which may perpetuate stereotypes and neglect to consider the importance of collective ethics. We emphasise the need to recognise the diverse experiences and motivations of chemsex participants, encouraging a more holistic perspective on sexual health and pleasure, and a more reflexive approach to the development of supports and resources related to chemsex, so that the perpetuation of stigma is avoided.
We advocate for a shift in the discourse that envelops chemsex. Alongside other critical scholars, we call for a broader perspective that doesn’t just focus on harm reduction but considers the agency of chemsex participants. By understanding ways chemsex participants themselves construct their identities, we can challenge the stereotype of chemsex as solely harmful. This critical approach paves the way for more inclusive and empowering public health strategies that support chemsex participants as legitimate sexual citizens exploring their sexualities in multifaceted ways. Rather than labelling chemsex a ‘maladaptive coping strategy’, we recognise that it is a way for some people to engage in a complex exploration of their sexualities, navigating a landscape laden with a myriad of emotions, experiences, and choices – one that can in certain circumstances build community and intimacy.
Based on our analysis and critical chemsex scholarship more broadly, we argue that public debates must reach beyond simplistic, deficit understandings of gender, sexuality, harm, and addiction, towards more constructive, nuanced conversations about sexual becomings. Rather than situating chemsex as an exercise in self-destruction, locating it as play within an ethics of experimentation and care (or a form of edgework; see Hickson, 2018), may open spaces for chemsex participants to be recognised as people who simply wish to explore the embodiment possibilities that chemsex affords.
Notes
i: This research was conducted with the MPOWER programme – a suite of peer-driven community-level interventions which aim to achieve a reduction in the acquisition of HIV and STIs and an overall improvement of sexual health and wellbeing among gay, bisexual and men who have sex with men (gbMSM). This programme is an initiative of HIV Ireland, who funded our research, and under the stewardship of our co-author, Adam Shanley, MPOWER has developed innovative approaches to optimising the experience of sex between men so that it is as fun and safe as possible. The data that we analysed in our researched informed the development of MPOWER’s Sex Party First Aid Guide – an excellent example of a sex positive intervention to support men who engage in chemsex.
Siobhán Healy-Cullen is a post-doctoral researcher in critical health psychology at Massey University Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa, Aotearoa New Zealand. Siobhan uses critical, qualitative methods to explore sexual identities and sexual citizenship.
Chris Noone is a lecturer in the School of Psychology at Ollscoil na Gaillimhe / the University of Galway. His research focuses on experiences of health and wellbeing in the LGBT+ community. He is interested in challenging the narratives of risk and vulnerability that are often perpetuated in relation to this community by mainstream medical and psychological research.
References
Hakim, J. (2019). The rise of chemsex: Queering collective intimacy in neoliberal London. Cultural Studies, 33(2), 249-275.
Healy-Cullen, S., Shanley, A., & Noone, C. (2024). Understanding how gay men construct ‘good’ chemsex participation using Critical Discursive Psychology. Sexuality & Psychology.
Hickson, F. (2018). Chemsex as edgework: Towards a sociological understanding. Sexual health, 15(2), 102-107.
Møller, K. (2023). Hanging, blowing, slamming and playing: Erotic control and overflow in a digital chemsex scene. Sexualities, 26(8), 909-925.