Gay men and extreme sexual practices in the era of chemsex and online digital dating platforms

Abstract

Chemsex is a phenomenon in which, typically, gay men take very powerful and high-risk psychoactive drugs while having sex, often without a condom, otherwise known as bare backing. This frequently, but not exclusively, occurs in a group sex context in a residential or a commercial sex on premises establishment. This use of chemsex can lead to increased rates of HIV transmission, sexual and physical assault, a significant impact and corrosion of mental health and frequent occasions of fatality. Gay men are already a stigmatized group so those who engage in chemsex face multiple stigmas. Christopher Bollas’ seminal paper on Cruising in the Homosexual Arena 1993 (Bollas, 1993) was the inspiration for this article. This article attempts to provide a contemporary psychodynamic and group analytic understanding of the group and inter- and intra-psychic dynamics of more recent developments in gay male cruising practices at this later stage of the AIDS pandemic. The changes result from the demise of the gay male bar scene, its effective replacement with the availability of dating apps, the new digital hook up culture and the aggressive emergence of, for a small subgroup of gay men, the almost overnight replacement of the much less harmful dance floor drugs with extremely hazardous chemsex drugs such as crystal meth, mephedrone and GHB/GBL. Through a group analytic lens this article discusses the challenge of navigating the ungoverned spaces of the extreme and often very dangerous sexual practices in a small but significant subgroup of the modern gay male community.