Paul Flowers: With Crisps On His Nipples

With crisps balanced on his nipples, disgraced ex-Co-op bank chairman Paul Flowers is caught napping during a four-day cocaine and ketamine-fuelled bender.

The drug-loving suspended reverend – nicknamed the Crystal Methodist at the height of the scandal that enveloped him two years ago – was earlier filmed snorting lines as he ­entertained four naked rent boys at a bizarre hot-tub party in his back garden.

The disturbing images, recorded last weekend, reveal Flowers has again fallen prey to his demons.

He is still ­technically a church minister and vowed to change his ways after “life-changing” rehab.

A rent boy who attended the party told how the ex-bank chief, who was in charge of billions of pounds, had sent him invitation texts saying “I have Charlie and Katie”, code for cocaine and the horse tranquilliser ketamine.

The male escort, who we are calling Kris, said: “There were a lot of drugs. He just doesn’t seem to care. He just seems out of control.” ...

Sunday Mirror.

It shouldn't be a crime to have a good time.

LEAVE PAUL FLOWERS ALONE!

Stars, Cars And Crystal Meth: The Unlikeliest Confection

This is the unlikeliest confection: the life story of a promiscuous, gay, drug-using, Los Angeles PA ghostwritten by a highly esteemed English professor, literary critic and author. The conjunction is so odd I’m still blinking at the disconnect. But John Sutherland, who is emeritus professor of English at UCL and reviews books for The Times, is the father of Jack Sutherland and this is supposedly Jack’s story.

Jack was born in 1973 to an unmarried Irish shop assistant who came to England to have her baby and disappeared back to Ireland. He was adopted by John and his wife, both “eggheads”, who lived in a big house in Herne Hill. Jack should have had an idyllic childhood but three things told against him: first, he was bright but useless at school, probably because of dyslexia; second, he secretly knew he was gay; third, his father was an alcoholic — there were “blackouts, violence, even an arrest or two”.

But then, salvation. John was offered a prestigious job at a Californian university, moved the family to South Pasadena, and cleaned up. He has not touched alcohol since. Jack was then nine, and just embarking on his own addictions, starting with alcopops, graduating to vodka at 12, and then marijuana and LSD. All this, he says, because he didn’t want to think about his “crappy sexual orientation”. He hated being gay, and when, at 14, he lost his virginity to a man in a park, he was so revolted he threw up...

Lynn Barber's review of Stars, Cars And Crystal Meth in The Sunday Times.

This book has got lots of coverage in the broadsheets, dealing as it does with one of their favourite gay stories; the fallen woman saved!

This one even managed to get in the new scare word, chemsex.

PS Apropos of nothing, interesting to note how many acclaimed mis lit memoirs have been exposed as largely works of fiction.

Matthew Parris: Victims

Over my political lifetime I’ve watched a common English noun acquire a kind of holiness. The word is “victim”. In almost every field of politics and administration it is being used to lift claims beyond proper scrutiny.

So widely has this word now been stretched that at least one group of victims have appropriated to their cause the word “survivor” — “victim” being no longer enough. Victimhood is used everywhere as a weapon for getting priority, money or attention. It isn’t always wrong; but it is way of seeing the world that risks distorting our perspectives on government...

Gay men in Britain have been lucky our claimed victim status never turned sour. I feared it would — and did have some hint of that in the “what will they want next?” response that gay marriage legislation attracted from some. The HIV/Aids campaign must be counted a success for victim-led campaigning but I was never comfortable with the conflation of homosexuality with victimhood. Aids was a disease. So is lung cancer. Sufferers must be offered all help and sympathy, and the apportionment of blame is cruel and fruitless. But Aids did not make gay rights a nobler cause; the whimper that homosexuals “can’t help it” infuriates me — what difference should it make if we could? — and (vigorous supporter of Stonewall’s work though I remain) it is high time gays stopped playing the sympathy card, held our heads up and accepted we no longer have any urgent claim on the nation’s finite supply of pity...

The Times. 

Of course some have founded an entire career on presenting gay men as perpetual eternal victims.

PS This from Queerty is something of a masterclass in the 'We hate ourselves so much we are literally fucking and drugging ourselves to death!' mis lit school of gay journalism.

Wouldn't be suprised if he gets asked to write a column for Attitude.

Chemsex: Just Say 'Ok Yah'

Remember Max Gogarty – the gap year travel writer from 2008, whose Nathan Barley-esque travel blog for the Guardian got absolutely ripped apart by readers?

Max's experience at the time was so awful that his father told the press "He has said to me that he doesn't like the media world now. He doesn't want to go into it any more."

Seems like Max has grown up to be made of sterner stuff. Because having cut his teeth working for Vice, he is now working at BBC3 and has a documentary about chemsex coming out this autumn.

Fingers crossed it gets a better reception than his travel blog.

Popbitch.

Ah yes, who can forget the sad story; Hate mail hell of a gap-year blogger - Cyber-bullies who attacked young author are accused of class hatred.

The connection was pointed out last week by an eagle-eyed Fagburn reader, who may or may not also write for Popbitch.

And some say the current moral panic over chemsex is just media-driven hysteria by the pearl-clutching gay bourgeoisie!!??

Remember when they kept saying we were all going to get addicted to crystal meth?

PS You can watch the fillum here this weekend!

Apparently if you have gay sex on drugs this happens...

One of two actual promotional images.

PS Video interview with the 'HOW POSH!!??' directors, Wills and Max, who claim it is 'an entirely under-reported story.' Seriously.

The Advocate: Crystal Madness

The Advocate commentary.

Odd, according to their own search engine The Advocate has published over 200 articles talking about crystal meth and gay men in the last 10 years.

Homo narco hysteria much!

Update: Pintauro also claims he contracted HIV through oral sex - something rarer than hens' teeth, if it has ever actually happened. Let's hope he's not another fantasist pushing a gay mis lit story...

Update2: The Problematic Case Of Danny Pintauro, DC Homos.

Dazed: Chemsex

“I’ve been politely asked to quieten down and get on with it – which I can fully appreciate – since I was probably sharing my thoughts on animal cruelty while simultaneously attempting to give someone a blowjob” explains James, a 23 year old actor from London. He is describing his experience of chillouts, an emerging subculture featuring drugs and group sex amongst urban gay and bisexual men, principally in London but, increasingly, across other cities in the UK.

Gay chillouts are often an event in and of themselves (rather than an after-party) and they aren’t for smoking weed and comedowns: the purpose is to get high. As James’ anecdote encapsulates, it’s a strange confusion of the social and sexual – where drugs can allow groups of strangers to be both gregarious and gratified without some of the awkwardness such anonymity might produce. The other slang term used for this, now adopted by clinicians and health workers is "chemsex"...

From a thoughtful, non-hysterical and largely non-judgmental article on Dazed online by Sean Faye, which looks at the chemsex scene as much a social as a sexual activity. A rare break form the usual 'They're fucking themselves to death!' narrative on this. Though he appears to conclude we should be starting knitting circles or something.

PS This study by Sigma Research has just been published by the BMJ. The Dazed article only mentions some rather partisan 'staistics'.

Gays In The News: Top Fashion Hairdresser

Mail Online.

Crystal Meth: The Musical!

METHTACULAR! written and performed by Steven Strafford, directed by Adam Fitzgerald, is Strafford’s hilarious and harrowing account of his three year run as a crystal meth addict in Chicago. As Steven weaves together stories, songs and Facts of Life references, audiences will laugh their way down into the depths of a drug addled, sex crazed life. Methtacular! is a roller coaster ride you won’t soon forget. 

At last...

Chemsex: Ask A Silly Question

Yes, it has.
Mainly by David Stuart, who has a vested interest in talking this up as a 'problem'.
See also his narco-hysteria about gay men and crystal meth, GHB etc etc...
Thanks for asking.

This comes after the Pink News interview above. Guess the sources!

PS If you want to be taken seriously, David - and not be seen as just a rampant and vain self-publicist - why do you send out some photo of yourself giving us all a teasing Grindr-esque glimpse of your manly muscled tits?

Just a thought.

Update: The Guardian have run a shockingly bad story on this nonsense. Fagburn asked this journalist, Denis Campbell, if he had evidence to back this - sadly after filing this story, and claiming to be a Health Correspondent - he has now disappeared.

Crystal: More Balls

2014 marks an important anniversary.
It was twenty years ago that the first article in the UK gay press warning about Crystal Meth was published in the short-lived magaine, Phase.
Every year ever since we have been warned by the gay and straight press that the UK gay scene is about to get taken over by Crystal AND WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE!!!
You may have noticed this has not happened.
To mark the 20th anniversary we are being taken over by a new flood of warnings about meth.
Maybe it's been helped cause boring people may have now heard about it from Breaking Bad and the "shamed Crystal Methodist" Paul Flowers
The other week the Independent On Sunday was warning about a "meteroric rise" in "slamming" (injecting at sex parties).
Based on some data that showed this wasn't really happening.

Today Channel 4 News joined in the hysteria with an item; Is Crystal Meth Behind London's Rising HIV Levels?
Viewers learn that some gay men in London take drugs, some take crystal ("a very small proportion"), some like having sex on drugs - and some people even use something called "Grindr" and tell other gay men they take drugs!
It was all shocking stuff.
An expert says there is a "public health nightmare".
Antidote said that at London's two clinics for gay male drug users, 187 men had meth as their main problem in 2010.
[Channel 4 News admitted a recorded rise in meth users at the clinics "must be treated with caution - it may reflect greater awareness of the clinics."]
Crystal can certainly do terrible things to some users - so I wouldn't be surprised if a high proportion of gay men are having problems, even if they are a very small proportion of users - and Antidote are doing a great job helping them, but out of a London gay male population of maybe 200,000-500,000 is this really inidicative of such a big problem?
Or is this just more media gay + sex + drugs = death hysteria?

PS The Daily Mail join in the fun!

Update: An excellent piece by Professor David Nutt on the UK press this week reporting a woman's "Death by cannabis". Last week Anorak did a nice montage of tabloid stories about the EVIL ACID HOUSE MENACE!

'Slamming': 'Meteoric' Crap About Gay Men And Drugs By - Surprise! - The Independent

Three times as many gay and bisexual men in London inject drugs than in England as a whole, according to new analysis, which also found that four times as many use crystal meth in the capital than across the rest of the country.

The figures, compiled by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), reinforce experts’ warnings of a “meteoric” rise in the number of gay men injecting drugs such as mephedrone, GHB or crystal meth, in the capital. The trend – known as “slamming” – gives users a more intense high and commonly takes places at sex parties which can go on for several days, according to experts; they warn that the trend could be linked to a disturbing rise in HIV infection rates.

The number of men injecting in a sexual context quadrupled between 2011 and 2013, according to Antidote, the UK’s only lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender drug and alcohol support service. More than 60 per cent of their clients injected drugs last year. This is double the number who injected in 2010. Nine years ago, fewer than 1 per cent were injecting drugs.

Antidote has been “overwhelmed” by men presenting with health conditions from the sexualised use of these drugs – which increase libido while decreasing sexual inhibition...

The Independent.

Apologies for not writing this earlier today.

Even though I've been writing this blog about coverage of gay men in the media for almost four years now, sometimes an article comes along that's so spectacularly shit and cranium-shatteringly stupid that I am - temporarily - literally lost for words.

Of course, one can have nothing but respect for the thoughts of a journalist who bills themselves 'Human Rights Correspondent' - as does Sarah Morrison.

So when she warns of 'a “meteoric” rise in the number of gay men injecting drugs' it's hard not to believe her - even though the number of gay men we are talking about here is so small it's almost statistically insignificant - and not think it's easier to file a news story based on hyperbole and scare-mongering.

And I am sure Sarah has an intimate knowledge of the gay chem-sex parties ("which can go on for several days, according to experts") of which she writes.

One can only admire a journalist who writes an expose that hinges on the word "anecdotally", cites tiny subject-specific self-selecting surveys as "proof", and backs it all up by quoting someone called "Jason (not his real name)".

Likewise, Antidote are a great organisation - and it would be cynical to suggest they have here invented a problem - "Slamming" WTF? - that doesn't really exist as that's how they can get even more funding.

It's not like they have any history of that sort of thing. 

Oh no.

Boys, The Independent On Sunday has discovered we are all fucking and drugging ourselves to death.

Although there is absolutely no evidence for that.

PS Interesting you can't leave comments after this feature. Shame - as every gay man I've communicated with thinks it's a piece of utter shit. I've asked Sarah Morrison and the IoS to get them to turn it on.

PPS The straight - and sometimes sadly gay - press love these kind of unfounded scare stories. See also: "bug chasing", and the imminent invasion of crystal meth - now regularly predicted for 20 years!

The Guardian: Closing Early For Christmas

The Guardian: Making festive fun filler out of other people's misery.

Mail On Sunday: The Crystal Methodist

Oh, who cares really?
An old school sleazy tabloid sting - the sort of thing they used to do to queers.
And a nice mix of old and new angles/obsessions;  "naughty vicar" "fat cat banker" "drugs shame".
Why can't people - whoever they are and whatever their backstory - be sovereign of their own mind and body?
Shame.

PS The line about buying drugs "to get young men off  their heads for sex" isn't by Flowers but comes from something said by a younger man he met on Grindr, who filmed him and shopped him to The Mail On Sunday, presumably out of the goodness of his heart.

Drugs: Crystal Myths

Breaking Bad: Why doesn't the UK have a crystal meth problem?

Methamphetamine has been used worldwide for decades, devastating the communities where it is found. So why is it relatively unknown in the UK?

New figures from the Home Office estimate that in the past year about 17,000 people aged 16-59 in England and Wales took methamphetamine - fewer than for any other drug recorded. About 27,000 people had used heroin, 47,000 crack cocaine, 120,000 ketamine and two million cannabis...
In the UK the drug is often used at sex parties and combined with others like Viagra and GBL, says Dr Owen Bowden-Jones, consultant psychiatrist at the Club Drug Clinic in central London.
Most of its 300 or so referrals for using crystal meth are from London, but some are starting to come from other cities like Manchester. A small number are from the straight clubbing community, but they remain the exception, says Bowden-Jones.
"On the West Coast of America it's a drug of deprivation, in London it seems to be a drug of affluent gay men and in Eastern Europe it's associated with prostitution."

BBC News magazine, Duncan Walker.

As the article makes clear Crystal can be a highly problematic and addictive drug, but why has the UK gay media for twenty years now been making out we're drowning in the stuff when we're not?
Writing about drugs that's "evidence-based"?
Fuck that. 

Drugs: Hysteria

Queerty.
A story taken from the in no way sensationalist and 100% completely reliable Vice.
Oh noes the gays are fucking themselves to death and we're all going to die!!!
The first UK article warning about how crystal meth is ravaging the gay scene appeared in Phase magazine in 1994.
That year again... 1994.
They have appeared yearly in the gay and straight press ever since.
Funny it hasn't happened yet.
Still I guess it's hard to pitch an article about something that's not actually happening.
I asked "someone" who wrote an expose feature for Attitude about how meth was taking over the London gay scene, and, when prompted, he told me he never actually went to gay clubs.
Hahaha!
Odd that these things become such an issue of concern for people who know nothing about drugs.
Or gay men.

Hard to pick a favourite quote from this orgasm of balls above but here goes.
"According to David Stuart, director of Antidote, London’s only LGBT-specific drug and alcohol support service, gay men are partaking in this high-risk behavior because they “feel their sex is ‘diseased’ or sinful—the kind their parents disapprove of.” 
Umm...

"If we say this is a bigger problem than it is can we have some more funding, please?" he probably didn't add.

Just say no... to right-wing drug hysteria - William Burroughs.

Drugs: Crystal Myths

The first feature in the UK press about how crystal meth was taking over the London gay scene was in a short-lived gay magazine called Phase in 1994.
At least once a year every year since then there’s been at least one scare article claiming the same thing - Crystal Meth Is Coming!
Almost always written by people who know about as much as drugs and gay clubs as I know about Chinese opera.
Here's another one on Pink News via The Lancet.
It’s a great sensationalist story – gay sex and drugs and death and all that – but has never been based on any reliable research, just hearsay and drugs hysteria – and often homophobia.
And it's never happened.
Year after year after year.
Odd that.
Do you think they were just making it up?

But this is the economy of the media - gay and straight - this is how it works.
If you're a journalist you can't sell a story to an editor by saying; "All evidence indicates use of this drug among British gay men is negligible and stable."
And similarly, why would an editor want to run an article pointing out the same uninteresting fact to their readers?
'Dog bites man' isn't news.
'Drug-crazed gay men are fucking themselves to death!!!' is.
The facts can go hang. *
One thing that's become apparent to me after writing this blog for a few years is how certain gay groups also often overstate certain "problems".
It won't look good on your grant application if you just say; "Yes, there are problems, but things are about the same as last year, really. And any comparisons to what has happened in the States are ridiculous."
Much better to say; "THERE IS A NEW DRUGS PLAGUE THAT IS GOING TO KILL US ALL."
And then point out how you're working in this field and can you have some money, please?
A cynic might say they're just trying to secure government/local authority/lottery/whatever funding.
That's quite understandable - this government is cutting so much health funding to nothing.
But this is just a load of stupid nonsense.
Warning: Drugs - or rather writing or reading about them - may damage your brain.

* There are two things you can tell the most stupid and unbelievable lies about in the UK media - and sleep assured almost no-one will question or try to check them.

1. Drugs.

2. This week 's Officially Declared Enemies; Iran and Syria are quite popular at the moment.  
"But I read they eat their gay babies!"

Matthew Mitcham: Crystal Myths

AUSTRALIAN 10-metre platform diver Matt Mitcham says he battled a methamphetamine addiction in 2011 that almost derailed his career and his life, but the 2008 Beijing gold medallist will be free to compete on future Australian Olympic teams. 
In a book to be released on Monday, ``Twists and Turns,'' Mitcham reveals his battle with low self-esteem, anxiety and depression, panic attacks and repeated self-harm as a teenager, which helped begin his dependence on crystal meth... 

The Australian (and all gay media).

Now, far be it from me to accuse Matthew Mitcham of making this up just cause she's got a book to sell, but it does seem odd that his "addiction" to crystal never showed up in any of the random and frequent drug tests professional athletes have to undergo. 
Still, if I was a minor celebrity gayer, and was trying to make my rather dull, bourgeois and vanilla life sound interesting I'd probably make up a story about how "I battled a Tina addiction", too.
Like what that Rufus "My In-No-Way-Made-Up Drugs Hell" Wainwright did...