Moyle Leah, Dymock Alex, Aldridge Alexandra, Mechen Ben
Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham Hill, Surrey, TW20 0EX, United Kingdom.
Goldsmiths, University of London, United Kingdom.
Int J Drug Policy. 2021 Sep;95:103282. doi: 10.1016/j.drugpo.2021.103282.
The use of drugs in sexual contexts is receiving closer attention in the media, public health bodies and communities than ever before. However, research to date is most often concerned with the sex-related drug use of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) populations, and particularly men who have sex with men (MSM) engaging in 'chemsex'. Against a backdrop dominated by public health and medical science perspectives, this article seeks to move beyond prevailing sex on drug discourses characterised by risk and harm, or pleasure. Drawing on an expansive notion of enhancement, we explore intersections between drug consumption and sex via the concept of 'pharmacosex': the ways in which wider populations experiment with a range of illicit drugs that modify and enhance their sex lives in the context of broader processes of the pharmaceuticalisation of sexuality.
Drawing on two empirical studies comprising a virtual ethnography and 45 interviews with participants across a range of gender and sexual identities who regularly combine sex and drugs, this article contributes to the growing body of research that attends to the materiality of drug consumption practices in relation to the historical and social contexts from which they emerge.
Our participants reported variegated and complex modes of enhancement in relation to a wide range of psychoactive substances. Participants described enhanced emotional connectedness, bodily sensations, disinhibition and desire, but they also discussed how sex enhances drug experiences. As important but currently neglected in research literature were the therapeutic dimensions of drug-taking reported, which cannot be neatly distinguished from purely hedonic motivations. While enhancement was also experienced by participants in more challenging ways in relation to shame, regret, risk and/or harm, these experiences simultaneously afforded space for the emergence of innovative practices of risk-management, safety and care.
This study exposes the diversity of practices and meanings sex-related drug use hold for participants, but also demonstrates the paucity of biomedical conceptions of sexual enhancement limited to stamina, function and libido, and the need for a more expansive approach. The study also raises questions about the extent to which contemporary discourses of self-improvement have come to 'inhabit' sexuality in the twenty-first century, and the role drugs might play in this context. By shifting the gaze from pathology to enhancement and exploring the plurality of practice, we can better understand the motivations for engaging in sex-related drug use, thereby circumventing knee-jerk counterproductive enforcement and policy responses.
在性情境中使用药物正受到媒体、公共卫生机构和社区前所未有的密切关注。然而，迄今为止的研究大多关注女同性恋、男同性恋、双性恋、跨性别者和酷儿（LGBTQ）群体，尤其是男男性行为者（MSM）参与“化学性爱”的与性相关的药物使用情况。在以公共卫生和医学科学视角为主导的背景下，本文试图超越以风险、危害或愉悦为特征的关于药物上的性行为的主流话语。借助一个宽泛的增强概念，我们通过“药物性爱”的概念来探索药物消费与性之间的交叉点：即更广泛的人群在性的医药化这一更广泛过程的背景下，尝试使用一系列改变并提升其性生活的非法药物的方式。
本文借鉴了两项实证研究，一项是虚拟民族志研究，另一项是对45名具有不同性别和性身份、经常将性与药物结合在一起的参与者进行的访谈，为越来越多关注药物消费实践的物质性及其产生的历史和社会背景的研究做出了贡献。
我们的参与者报告了与多种精神活性物质相关的多样且复杂的增强模式。参与者描述了增强的情感联系、身体感觉、去抑制作用和欲望，但他们也讨论了性如何增强药物体验。研究文献中目前被忽视但同样重要的是所报告的服药的治疗维度，它无法与纯粹的享乐动机清晰区分开来。虽然参与者在羞耻、遗憾、风险和/或危害方面也以更具挑战性的方式体验到了增强，但这些经历同时为风险管理、安全和关怀的创新实践的出现提供了空间。
本研究揭示了与性相关的药物使用对参与者而言在实践和意义上的多样性，但也表明了仅限于耐力、功能和性欲的性增强的生物医学概念的匮乏，以及需要一种更宽泛的方法。该研究还提出了关于当代自我提升话语在21世纪在多大程度上“占据”了性，以及药物在这种背景下可能发挥的作用的问题。通过将目光从病理学转向增强并探索实践的多元性，我们可以更好地理解参与与性相关的药物使用的动机，从而避免下意识的适得其反的执法和政策反应。
