London's gay scene in crisis
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By Paul Burston. Illustration Barry Falls
Posted: Tue Nov 27 2007 -
The hedonism of London's gay community has taken a self-destructive turn, with hardcore drug use and unsafe sex leading to levels of death and disease unseen since the '80s. Worse still, no one is talking about it. Time Out reports on the biggest threat to the scene in 20 years
Something scary is happening on the gay scene. Doctors know it. Club promoters know it. Clubbers know it, too. But nobody is talking about it, at least not openly. Twenty-five years after Aids was first identified, much has changed in the fight against the disease. A generation has grown up with the message that safer sex saves lives. So why are new infection rates so alarmingly high? And why do some gay men seem so hell-bent on destroying themselves? On Friday, the day before World Aids Day, the Royal Vauxhall Tavern is hosting a night called 'The Biggest Suicide Cult in History'. Strong words, and no less than you'd expect from the man responsible, performance artist David Hoyle. But the flyer goes even further. 'All over Vauxhall they are fucking without condoms', it reads. 'All over Vauxhall they are dancing till Tuesday morning. All over Vauxhall they are taking G, K, C, V and E [that's GHB, ketamine, cocaine, Viagra and ecstasy]. All over Vauxhall they are dying.'
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'I truly believe that a lot of gay men would prefer to be dead,' says Hoyle. 'They clearly have deep-seated self-esteem issues and they go out seeking oblivion because, deep down, they don't believe their lives are worth living.' Hoyle is an outspoken critic of the commercial gay scene, and his words are clearly designed to provoke a reaction. But you don't have to look too far on the scene to find people behaving in a manner you might describe as 'self-destructive'. In the past eight years, the number of gay men with HIV in the UK has almost doubled. Partly this is due to an increase in the numbers coming forward for testing since the advent of lifesaving combination therapy. But partly it's due to a rise in unsafe sex or 'barebacking'. Dr Sean Cummings of Freedomhealth is a leading expert on gay male sexual health, and has warned for years of a second epidemic. Today he confirms that sexual health clinics 'have reached crisis point with rocketing rates of new STD diagnoses'. And where there's syphilis and gonorrhoea, HIV often follows.
'I get offered a lot of unsafe sex,' says Simon Casson, promoter of Duckie. 'I'm completely open about my HIV positive status, and I meet a lot of men who want me to fuck them without condoms. I used to go to gay sex clubs and saunas and there was always a lot of unsafe sex. People in those environments tend to be off their faces on drink and drugs. Why else would a gay sauna in Vauxhall be open for 24 hours, unless people were on drugs? I think there is a significant constituency of gay men in London who use a lot of drugs and who are into unsafe sex. It's actually not that socially taboo. It's quite accepted. Just look at all the men advertising for bareback sex on Gaydar.' Alternatively, walk into any gay sex shop and the evidence is all around you. Bareback porn is outselling all other forms of gay adult entertainment. And I don't mean the 'pre-condom classics' made in the days before Aids and reissued by studios like Falcon. I mean films produced now, often in the UK.
For years, the focus was on eroticising safer sex. Now it seems the reverse is true. Barebacking is portrayed as just another gay lifestyle choice, like living in a loft-style apartment or shopping at IKEA. Surely this must be having some effect on people's behaviour? As one gay porn producer wrote in a letter to the gay weekly Boyz recently: 'Porn does influence the kind of sex you have in reality, and bareback porn contradicts all the good work on HIV prevention being carried out by health promotion charities.'
Incidentally, it was in Boyz that I also read about the British gay porn actor who contracted HIV on a porn shoot. Which begs the question: how many gay men will get off watching the film in which he became infected? And how many will imitate that behaviour the next time they have sex? Several younger gay men I've spoken to in the past few months have argued that HIV is no big deal. They've heard about combination therapy, they've seen the ads with muscular men climbing mountains and they've jumped to the conclusion that life on anti-retrovirals is one long picnic. There are even the fatalistic few for whom contracting HIV is seen as some sort of rite of passage, or a stepping stone towards having lots of unprotected sex without having to think about the consequences.
Then of course there's the other kind of 'combination therapy', the cocktail of recreational drugs in common usage on the gay club scene. Ecstasy has given way to a combination of drugs including coke, crystal meth and GHB. Clubs in Vauxhall even have 'recovery rooms' where people are left to 'sleep off' the effects of GHB – assuming of course that they don't develop breathing difficulties or have a cardiac arrest. Several prominent gay DJs have told me that 'GHB is killing the scene in Vauxhall'. It's killing the customers too. Earlier this year, there were reports of three deaths related to GHB at a well-known after-hours club. A barman I know has had seven friends die from GHB in the past 12 months. And to echo that famous Aids warning from the '80s, that's just the tip of the iceberg.
'GHB is a nasty, poisonous drug which is killing gay men on a regular basis', explains Dr Cummings. 'We've had a number of deaths of our patients resulting from use of the drug, either together with other drugs or alone . Death often occurs during or immediately post-sex and so the victims are found in humiliating circumstances. The scenarios are usually awfully upsetting for all concerned, especially partners and family members. Coroners will frequently be coy to spare the feelings of loved ones [by recording accidental death], but this has the inadvertent effect of concealing the likely real numbers. There is nothing glamorous about finding a young man dead in a harness, having fallen, struck his head, inhaled his own vomit and suffocated.'
'I understand the connection between sex and drugs,' confesses Casson. 'I experimented in that area for years, and I ended up HIV positive. Do I regret it? Yes I do. The gay world told me that it was okay to live like that. It's not. You can't go out clubbing for three or four days at a time, necking every drug you can lay your hands on, and not expect something bad to happen to you. Gay men tend to meet each other in drink-fuelled, drug-fuelled environments, and it's killing us. People are dying and there needs to be a wake-up call.'
In the early '80s, before Aids really hit Britain, there was a hi-NRG song played each week at Heaven called 'So Many Men (So Little Time)'. What few of us knew then was how prophetic these words would be. Twenty-five years on, how many men must contract HIV or die from drug overdoses before we change our behaviour? How long before we call time on a lifestyle that's killing us?
'The Biggest Suicide Cult in History' is at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern on Friday.- Add your comment to this feature
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39 comments
Unfortunately this behaviour seems to be a sign of the times, and not just amongst the gay male community. Life is considerd cheap nowadays, the way this is expressed varies from community to community. Although women are not excluded from this self destructive trait, it tends to be more male dominated. The mistaken importance of persona has left the person null & void.
Rip those masks off people let your true self shine through!
Warts and all!
ooooh god yes i know...dear..i do rant....going on ...dear.maybe it wasthe glass of SHERRY going to myhead..lol..BUT FOR FUCKS SAKE WE MUST EMPOWER OURSELVES..BECOME STRONG WE ARE THE THIRD SEX AND WE USED TO BE TREATED AS PROPHETS..WOT THE FUCK HAPPENED...GAY MEN EMPOWER YOURSELVES LIVE GOOD LIVES..LOVE..HAVE GOOD MEMORYS,LOVE EACH OTHER.../
WHY HAVE WE TURNED ON EACH OTHER ,WE DO WE HATE EACH OTHER SO BADLY,its like we revel in victinhood,sometimes i think we take pleasure in fucking each other up destroying each other,we aim so low,we act like squalid beggers sitting at the base of the table begging fore crumbs..to be aproved by straight socirty licking the plate when they have finnished theire meal..we are so much more ..so much more it makes me cry how badly we treat each other,,like shit..we treat each other badly while seeking ,neh begging straight society for crumbs to be approved..fuck straight society we are our own people..and we deserve much,much more..LEARN TO LOVE ONE ENOTHER AND TAKE CARE OF EACH OTHER........?
hmmmmm maybe i used the wronge word ..chastise..ok a god damm good telling offf then .lol..we have to or at least educate them on there selfish and fucked up behaveiour..becouse if we dont were gonna see a ..supervirus,,comein alonge and people will die in there thousands all over again...?
right lets get our seriouse thinking heads on for a moment,hiv is mutateing all the time,and right about now we are being more sexualy recless than we were in the 1970s even when we no the risks..in the 80s there was seriouse thought of putting gay men in to holding camps..against our will ,it was overuled thank god..now this virus is mutateing all the time..how long before its completely drug resistant..at this rate not long[and no i,m not scaremongering i,m saying this as i see it..whitch is very scary]we have got to act sooner than laterwe will unfortunately have to band together and chastise gay men who wontonly have unsafe sex..it sounds bad i know..but for fucks sake ...stop haveing unsafe sex and fucking up on drugs enogh allready to many have died..for gods sake.i want us to be healthy..ok..becouse the conseqwenses are unberable..and this time if theres the threat to public saftey the unthinkable may happen...so lets wake up and unite..to educate and take care of each other........dxxxxx
Hi all, nice site love the comments, esp from Oliver also from Damo. But I wish that people would take care, and play safe, But play with my ex then you deserve all you get, mostly the older Queens out there in North London, you know who I mean the Rosses and Mikes and Davids of this world, far as I am concerned, you reap what you sow, and what you sow is death, tough aint it, I have been gay 55 years and love it, sex between man and man is out of this world, but please play safe. I do, Brian xxx
is this true steve,were its so fucked up and dehumanised that bodies are being dumped in the park after oding..wot the fuck is happening to us..were becomeing ..MONSTERS..and why is this going on uless things change ..something realy bad is on its way...bodies being dumped in the park thats reel ..bad
I live a stones throw from all these places. Someone should look in to how many bodies have been dumped in the park after OD-ing. Another one of those things that a lot of people know about but few openly acknowledge.
I used to be a doorman on clubs in the 80's and 90's.
It is worse now and people do care less about each other. We were shocked when we heard about the first death and dump.
A little more commonplace now it seems.
But then it's not all limited to the hardcore gay club scene.
Straights prefer to bottle and stab each other. Us - we try to drug and fuck each other into oblivion.
Gay men don't have a monopoly on self hatred. Everybody's at it.
Oh - and to those who'll start bleating on about celebration. Yup, had my times off my nut but never was too foolish. Could be just appetite or could be that I have lost far too many people I know to early unpleasant deaths from disease or drugs.
If gay men don't give a shit about each other the straights sure as shit won't.
i agree with you nick ...where has all the glamour gone from the scene,the forward thinking,the commradery,the...fun...the social aspect..the scene now seems to have decended into this squalid homogenized heap?...shit clubs..shit music..very dull?i wewnt to one club in vauxhall ..my god the queens were takeing the tops of outside before they got in [it was december ,freezing and pissing down now i like to see a sexy guy who dosent but this smacked of desperation,like the guys only think there worthey if they have a so called .....hot body...to me they came across as ..sexless ,emasculated,and a little tragic..like dull dreary sheep...naff...bring back some style ,glamour ..forward thinking....fun...dxx
I really picked up on this last time I was in London 6 months ago. Lots of guys I met were like the walking dead: indifferent, apathetic and so tired from all the psychological and physical abuse. Vauxhall hasn't helped: it's so decadent, but without any glamour, excitement or fun. I'm thinking now, where's the gay appeal in that? Who wants to meet x or y in an incoherent and depressed state? Bring back insight and creativity, humour and panache into the scene, starting 2010!
Excellent article. I'd simply add that the current promotion of post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) doesn't always help matters. Of course PEP is vital in an emergency, but it should not be promoted in ways that encourage people to think it's OK to have unsafe sex because you can wipe out the risk with a handful of pills for a month. In this context I can't say I much like the fire-extinguisher imagery on the THT's recent PEP information materials. The point is, we know condoms work. From the mid-eighties until the late nineties we had a more or less steady rate of c.1500 new infections each year in Britain amongst gay men. Now it's three times that number. Unsafe sex is NOT 'cool', it is not 'edgy'. Some gay men are doubtless stupid andf selfish but most are probably just thoughtless, and for most young gay men today HIV is probably about as real and meaningful as the risk of false teeth, and likewise something best not thought about. The challenge is how to change this.
ive commented on this site many times thank god this infomation is there,..RIGHT NO I,M GONNA BE HARSH...and becouse i,m a gay man and i love gay men .realy ,realy do,....BUT GET UP OF YOUR GOD DAM ..KNEES AND STOP BEING SO F......G WEAK,WHERES YOUR ..BALLSWERE OBSESED BY BEING..MEN ..WELL THEN BE ..MEN WITH ALL THE RESPONSABILITYS AND STRENGHTH THAT IENTAILES STOP BEING FUCKED UP PUSSYS,...i,m saying these things becouse i love gay men and i want us to be healthy and happy ,leading good lives,loveing ourselves ..AND EACH OTHER..i am sick of seeing gay men trying to fuck each other up...wot the hell is wrong with you ...cowards..stop it its destructive ,negative and boreing..it makes us not trust our own kind...no more ofthat shitty behaveiuor..no more..come on lets get our game on and be a united gay community,..somepeople will find this offencive...but it needed to be said....oliver68.xxxxxx
Brilliant article which as much as it pains me to say, i think is very accurate. Anyone on the "scene" will also agree. Does anyone know where I can find a copy of the ad that was used in the past creating awareness on the danger of GHB? I think it followed the lines of "would you like to end your night like this (showing a pic of 2 sexy guys in bed) or like this" (showing a guy on life support. If anyone has any info please email adam.hanwell@hotmail.co.uk
Many thanks
Sadly true:
Keywords: having lots of fun in combination with close sub-culture, no or limited family responsabilities, skare of getting old; once you try it you have the feeling that sex without drugs is boring or even worse, that normal, intellingent, responsable things (excluding sex) are boring and your life end up being only SEX, DRUGS AND ROCK EN ROLL; escape the problems, fear of death...........and actually heading quicker towards it.
Reason: taking drugs is a totally accepted "fun" in the gay scene, nearly a value: "you don't do drugs!!ยจ???"
Solution: make big adverts showing the statistics relating to deaths taking g, heard attacks taking coke etc,....maybe with pictures as they do it for the sigarettes now. An example is, as some Mid-West States in the USdid tackling the problem of Crystal Meth: they put big adds on the street and newspaper of the physical devastating effects of the drug; and it worked!!!!!
A gay guy that has experienced it to close.
(if there are any mistakes is because I am Italian)
Kind regards
like i said before,I LOVE GAY MEN,but why have we split into such ridged cliques and gangs,ie mascle marys,bears twinks ect ect....we are all gay men and we all have something to bring to the table....the gay table....its funny looking back at the past we seemed so united[i hope i,m not looking through rosy tinted specticals]..we had a real fight on our hands a fight to be accepted,a fight to not be queerbashed...we had to stand united. has the monster that is aids ...BRUTALISED US SO...made us give up...sometimes it seems that we were we have become mercenary and cruel to ourselfes and each other,sometimes we are more homophobic than the worst homophobes could ever be...and deep down NONE OF US WANT THAT,...SO LETS TRY CHANGEING WE CAN DO IT,lets stop treating each other as sexual OBJECTS to be disgarded when bored with ,lets stop needing addictions,and lets stop the maddness and insanity of UNSAFE SEX,if we stop these negative harmfull things,WE .....WILL... all start to become stronger,we will start to rediscover love for each other and ourselves,we will onces again have a pride in our community,being there for each other whether there ,tall,short thin,fat muscles or no muscles ....old...young white ,black,yellow,red, brown ....or pink..A STRONG GAY COMMUNITY IS A HEALTHY GAY COMMUNITY ONE THAT ACCEPTS AND LOVES WITHOUT QUESTION ...IT ...IS..OUR NATURE TO BE LOVEING AND ACCEPTING..AND IT WILL BE AGAIN.....HOW WONDERFULL IT SHALL BE...COME ON LETS DO IT..I LOVE YOU ...DXX