Chemsex: What Is To Be Done?

The media-manufactured moral panic about chemsex continues apace in this article for Attitude online.

Apparently, it's all because of 'loneliness'.

All the sad young chemsex gayz...

But remember kids; 'Drugs are not, in themselves, bad.'

Phew.

Can a special issue on the CHEMSEX APOCALYPSE!!! be far off?

Hysteria Watch: Ban The Banger!

Did the World Health Organization (WHO) say that processed meat is as likely to cause cancer as smoking? No.

If something is unlikely, and then its chances of happening go up by 20%, it’s probably still quite unlikely.

Full Fact.

Amazing how so many journalists will happily whip up hysteria about a statistically insignificant 'problem' by pushing junk science and dodgy data.

Did someone say 'chemsex'?

Anyone for 'slamming'?

Sex: High Risk Myths

Utter nonsense from the vanilla erotophobic fart machine that is The Independent.

The author is a self-styled 'sex researcher' ie completely reliable, yeah?

All names have been changed - presumably to protect the probably made-up people.

Odd that this is about straight men who go to 'sex clubs' (which don't really exist) when 'bug-chasing' by gay men was shown to be a media-constructed homophobic myth 12 years ago.

Coz ALL DEM SAD TORTURED GAYZ ARE LITERALLY FUCKING THEMSELF TO DEATH!

What next?

An exposé on straight 'slamming'?

Theatre News: The Clinic

Two boys go on a date through Grindr. One is trying to reduce his use of mephedrone and G, the other is struggling with his recent HIV diagnosis.

When their date goes wrong, their paths spiral in different directions. Symptoms of modern gay London are encountered from slamming to intimacy problems, and the mental health effects of growing up LGBT in a straight man's world.

But avenues of support exist in both boys' shared sexual health advisor, and a remarkable trans woman who runs the beauty clinic in Vauxhall. And at the play's heart lies a very contemporary gay love story.

Written by Patrick Cash, The Clinic is informed by many hours of interviews and unprecedented access to NHS sexual health clinic 56 Dean Street in Soho. It is directed by Luke Davies (LAMDA), produced by Lead Substance Use Advisor at 56 Dean Street David Stuart and features a cast of legendary gay scene figures and incendiary new queer talent.

The Clinic is at King’s Head Theatre, 115 Upper Street, Islington, N1 1QN, Monday 24th to Saturday 29th August.

Hilariously the play features Fagburn's old chum, Stewart Who?, playing a character based on his nemesis, David Stuart.

Here's an Attitude online interview with the cast.

Full disclosure; The Clinic is written by Patrick Cash, who once wrote a very nice article about Fagburn. 

I am sure he will deftly critique the media's current moral panic and hysteria about chemsex...

David Stuart writes on the joy of chemsex in the new FS magazine.

London: Possible New Night Mayor Threat

Evening Standard - exclusive!

Just when you think we've seen the last of this Tory goon, like T2 he appears.

Does anyone remember Ivan's appearance on Question Time?

He came across as even thicker than Adam Rickitt.

Update: During a Gaydio radio interview he goes on a bananas rant about all those disgusting gays and their drugs and their unsafe sex and those 'slamming' parties he read about somewhere.

Only Mayor Massow can save London from this tidal wave of gay filth!!!

PS Mail columnist Susan Vine attacks anti-poverty campaigner and food writer, Jack Monroe, for being a lesbian mum; 'No one forced her to have a child. Indeed, if she was in anyway uncertain of her sexual orientation, arguably she should have taken greater precautions...'

Sarah Vine is the wife of Michael Gove - Gove used to share a bachelor pad with Massow.

Can dots be drawn here?

Update: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

Drugs: The Problem With Pleasure

A third of gay or bisexual men took illegal drugs in the last year, according to official figures published today.

Drug use by gay or bisexual men was three times higher than for straight men and was higher in the majority of individual drugs consumed including cocaine, ecstasy, amphetamines and cannabis.

Illegal drug use by gay or bisexual women was four times higher at almost 23 per cent than among heterosexual women, figures from the Crime Survey of England and Wales said.

“Gay or bisexual adults were more likely to have taken any illicit drug in the last year than heterosexual adults. In particular, gay or bisexual men were the group most likely to have taken any illicit drug in the last year, with higher levels of illicit drug use than gay or bisexual women and heterosexual men”, the crime survey said.

The 2013/14 figures estimate a third of gay men and almost 23 per cent of gay women took an illegal drug in the past year compared with 11.1 per cent of heterosexual men...

The Times.

Here's the relevant section in the crime survey.

For reasons that should be obvious, if there are two pretty everyday behaviours that it's hard to get reliable data on it's people's drug use and sexuality.

What's interesting here is that similar figures keep being reported; gay men are three times as likely as the general population to use recreational drugs - figures of around 30% to 10% also regularly surface.  

What Fagburn finds fascinating is why this is so often problematicised; the 'logic' presumably being that drugs are bad, and people only take them if they're mad or sad.

Of course, they used to say the same thing about buggery...

But why not accentuate the positive and frame it as; 'Yay! Gay men are having three times as much fun'.

PS Here's a textbook 'My Gay Drugs Hell' article from EQ View today. In what way does this tell us anything about the vast majority of gay men's experiences of drugs? Why are no other accounts permissible? Here's a report from London Friend on the above survey's findings - apparently it's 'a dismal picture'. Why? The current issue of Attitude has a feature about 'slamming' - as ever the source for this supposed 'epidemic' is our old friend David Stuart. I could go on...

Study: Marriage By Gay Men Is Often To Mask Self-Esteem Issues

A study by the London School of Hyperbole and Hysterical Nonsense shows many gay and bisexual men use marriage in order to mask self-esteem or self-confidence issues.

Even though studies don't actually 'show' anything really, apart from the researcher's bias.

It is the first qualitative research in the UK into “gaymarriage”, or marriage under the influence of gayness.

Lead author Dr Adam Bore from Project Smegma said: “A vulnerable section of society is using marriage in new ways that is putting them at serious risk.

“Although our study shows that gaymarriage is uncommon overall, there is a need for specialist support for men who have thought about it.

"Like us."

Researchers analysed survey data from 12 gay and bisexual men in Soho and Islington conducted in-depth interviews with 3 gay men from the area.

The authors note that the visibility of gay marriage in the media may be normalising it. 

Sometimes they do it in buildings, researchers have also found.

Fagburn could not literally be arsed to check any of its so-called 'findings'.

The report concludes; 'If we say this is a problem - nay, a veritable rainbow atomic bomb gay tidal wave waiting to happen - can we have some more funding please?'

With apologies to Pink News.

But maybe some dudes get gaymarried just cause they want to - like when they have sex on drugs or have EVIL DEADLY CHEMSEX!!! - and there's no need to problematise or pathologise it?

And maybe we should all calm down a bit?

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!