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.'
'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.
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8 comments
BugsBunny, apparently one wise bunny, makes a critical point: "One of the reasons why the gay scene is so dysfunctional is that it offers no vision for a life after juvenile hedonism." For so long as youthful appearance remains such a dominating factor in gay life, self-esteem will continue to be diminished. Gay men all too often rank each other according to youthful appearance, disregarding any who show signs of aging (maturity). In doing so, they become their own victims as they too will be judged accordingly. Cognizant that their time of youthful appearance is limited, they try to "optimize" that time by getting as much sex as possible from as many as possible while young. This does have one peculiar outcome: the gay men most likely to to reach old age are those with more self-restraint and emotional balance. Is this Darwinism at work? When considering this, don't focus on the exceptional persons you may have known - think of the collective consequences of mixing a culture of desire with drugs and unprotected sex.
Craig in PA, USA
I hope my comments as an American visiting London on extended holiday will add value to this discussion. Some rather lengthily background and history are essential; I lived through the great dying of the 1980s and early 1990s and, without exception, all of the men I came out with and who constituted my first "family" in the gay world are long dead. I have the ashes of several of them in my home, both as a grim reminder and because in several cases there was no one else who wanted them, no one else who cared.
I participated in the desperate guerilla effort (which operated clandestinely) to bring effective but (then) unapproved therapies to dying gay men: ddI and ddC, nifurazone and antibiotics unapproved in he US which could cryptosporidium and MAI. I saw countless, beautiful, talented, vibrantly alive young men die. Some, like my friend Paul Sergios, left a written account of their predicament as well as their response to it (see ONE BOY'S LIFE by Paul Sergios).
I saw HIV coming. I am a biomedical researcher with considerable knowledge of epidemiology and the history of infectious disease and its impact on civilization. Before 1900, 40% of all deaths were in people 14 years of age or younger. This changed almost exclusively because, in the Western world, *people largely stopped exchanging body fluids with each other.* Sanitation stopped contamination of drinking with feces (ending cholera, typhoid, and greatly reducing the transmission of Hepatitis A & B as well as myriad other lethal or debilitating diseases). The public drinking cup (hung on chain at the community font) was abolished and effective sanitation of restaurant and communal cutlery and flatware, as well as the extensive use of disposable products, all but eliminated transmission of infectious agents via food and drink. Enforced use of condoms in brothels and the use of post-coitus disinfection of the penis ("prophy kits") greatly reduced the incidence of syphilis that had decimated the West 15th and 16th centuries.
THE critical measure was breaking the chain of body fluid exchange between people. To the extent we still cannot achieve this, such as in the case of nasal and oral secretions made airborne by coughing or sneezing, or deposited on communally used surfaces such as door handles, escalator rails, lift buttons and the like, we still suffer the scourge of epidemic disease from the inconvenience of the common cold to the millions of deaths each year from influenza.
In the late 1970s gay men were breaking that all important dictum of not casually and frequently exchanging body fluids with "strangers." Indeed, they broke that rule in every way possible by exchanging saliva, respiratory secretions, semen and (directly and indirectly) fecal matter via rimming and fellatio with inadequate (or absent) hygiene following anal intercourse. HIV, or something like it, was inevitable in the gay community. Specifically in the gay community because they served as the most extreme example of the rule violators AND they were highly mobile trekking across all corners of globe and poking into rarely visited regions motivated by curiosity, wanderlust, and a search for ever more exotic sexual encounters.
In 1979in sleepy Indianapolis, Indiana (USA) I might easily sexually engage with men who had literally a day or two previously been in Paris, London, Mykonos, or even in North or Central Africa. Flight can attendants would move from Mumbai to Hong Kong to Cairo and back to Middle America where the hailed from - all in the space of a few days. Anyone who had read, as I had done, John McNeill's classic book PLAGUES AND PEOPLES (a more current telling of the tale is Jared Diamond's GUNS GERMS AND STEEL) could realize that gay men were then (and are now) the epidemiologists' "canaries in the coal mine."
When HIV first surfaced with Gottlieb's and Weissman's report of PCP pneumonia in gay men in the NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL OF MEDICINE I knew we were in trouble and I stopped having sex (altogether) and I tried cautioning my friends that this was an epidemic disease and that its progression would be EXPONENTIAL and not arithmetic: 1,2,4,8,16,32 and so on, with deaths in the tens of thousands or more in a scant few years.
Many friendships ended over these cautions. Many more ended because they were not heeded and the relentless march of the numbers simply wiped away both the disbelief and the disbelievers.
It is, I think, important to understand that these men were, overwhelmingly, not suicidal, suffering from self-esteem issues, acting out because of social repression, or really in any way more or less dysfunctional than their heterosexual counterparts. Nor were they drugged into insensibility or badly compromised judgment. Why did they do it and more importantly why did they persist in having sex (including refusing to use condoms until the epidemic was widespread)?
Perhaps at least part of the answer to this question can be ascertained by looking to my own behavior and psychology at present. I am 53-years-old. I have lived what has been (at least to me) an astonishingly satisfying and productive life. In my chosen profession I have achieved things no one else in human history has done or can ever do again (one beauty of being a scientist is that, if you are very blessed, you get to make fundamentally new discoveries about how the universe works – and that is something that can only be done once in the history of a technological species). I have traveled the world and seen and witnessed the most incredible extremes of beauty and horror. I have experienced beauty ranging from the massive infrastructure of a new petrochemical refinery to starlit desert vista during a quiet midnight atop the great pyramid at Giza; the latter for price of few Egyptian pounds in baksheesh to a sleepy guard. Horror too, I have seen much horror, but I will not speak of that here.
Some years ago I saw an interview with John Betjeman on the BBC. He was very soberly asked by the presenter what he most regretted about his life and what he would do differently if he had it to live over again. Frail, in failing health, and confined to a wheelchair, he cast his eyes down and replied (sic), "Have a lot more sex."
Sex is not a purely rational thing, and like eating, the need is recurrent and if not satisfied incessant. However, this is true for individuals in varying degrees. Similarly, how valuable sex is, how high we rank it in our hierarchy of values is very much an individual affair. From what I can see, most people tend to value sex, at least in quantity, less rather than more as they age. Many older men (gay and straight) tell me they are relived to be free of the "pressure" they felt from their biologically determined youthful sexual drives.
Many men say this, but by no means all. I have always loved sex, and while my work came first and consumed the vast majority of my time, I certainly cannot describe my life as sex-starved; many years ago I lost count at 2,000 partners.
While I have always realized that life was desperately short even under the best of circumstances (a 100-years is but an eye-blink in the ~8,000 years civilization has so far endured) I felt it well the worth the time to invest a good part of my life (both anticipated and actual to date) in an effort to better understand the universe and to try and extend the healthy human lifespan. I, at least, had that hopeful option.
Most of the rest of humanity confronts the miserable, if not downright terrifying fact that they are going to (if they are very lucky) grow old and die. Indeed, long before they die they will have lost much of their vitality and in many cases most or all of their capacity for many kinds of enjoyment. Most people are aware of this and gay men, free of the “distractions” of marriage and children, and subjected to the harsh reality of sexual capitalism where you either have the goods or you are or you become invisible, are acutely aware of it. The Greco-Roman parents of our civilization knew that life was short and that death comes to all men, and they were often quite pragmatic about making the decision of when and how to give up their lives – and for what. If you’ve got to die sometime, in fact sometime pretty soon, it at least ought to be for something worth dying for.
In reality, little has changed in either the straight or gay worlds. Ultimately, all of our actions are predicated upon the pleasure they return. Working hard and saving prudently to enjoy a comfortable old age is a wise investment; but only if you don’t die young and only if you value comfortable declining years over more extravagantly lived younger ones. These are highly individual choices and highly personal decisions and one size doesn’t fit all. Also, as any physician will tell you, the vast majority of disease he or she treats (or cannot as the case may be) is both “self-inflicted” and completely avoidable. The widespread use of alcohol, tobacco, rich foods (i.e., the very essence of the Western diet), obesity, and failure to take exercise shave years and not infrequently decades off of our lives..
Based on our current knowledge of gerontology it seems virtually certain that the average lifespan of people could be increased by the simple expedient of calorie restriction: eating no more than ~1,500 to 1,800 calories per day of highly nutritious food. This simple maneuver would extend *healthy* lifespan to ~100 years and virtually eliminate cardiovascular disease, diabetes (Type II), and obesity while dramatically reducing the incidence of cancer. The fly in this ointment is that such a calorie restricted diet all but eliminates most of the foods people enjoy a great deal and it compromises the intensely pleasant social interaction that accompanies food and drink (alcohol, being “empty” calories, cannot be consumed on such a diet). We *know* that this strategy will confer vastly better health and very likely vastly more time to enjoy it. Yet few would call us suicidal or suffering from poor self-esteem because we choose to eat, drink and be merry. Ditto choices to drink (even in moderation), indulge in rich foods, and yes, even use tobacco (a practice I detest).
For myself, I have decided that the intense pleasure that sex gives me, from the casual to the intense and prolonged, is worth the risk of breaking the rules. No, I do not engage in anal intercourse without a condom (I’m a bottom) and I have no interest in drugs of any kind (never did). So, while I am overtly not suicidal, I nevertheless realize that lots of sex with lots of partners in London’s saunas is NOT safe, carries with it substantial risks, and ultimately is not sustainable; there *will* be another lethal epidemic disease and it will pass through saliva or ingested semen or via the gut and *gay men will most likely (again) be its sentimental and its first and most unaware victims.*
I heartily agree that young gay men, indeed all gay men, should be persuaded that unprotected sex and drug use are a bad bargain: not worth the huge cost in quantity and quality of life likely to be lost. Further, they need to understand just how horrible death from lethal infectious disease is and they need to realize that while HIV positive men don’t ostensibly die from AIDS anymore, in reality they do – they die from cardiovascular disease at shockingly early ages as a result of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HART) and they will soon be dying of accelerated aging (mitochondrial failure) and cancers from the even longer-term toxic effects of these drugs. Given the horrors of death from AIDS, HART was a bargain, but the price is still high even leaving aside the inconvenience, taxpayer cost, and many side-effects which erode the quality of daily life.
However, don’t expect miracles any more than you would expect telling the overweight (most of the population of the US and a third of that of Britain) to shed pounds to be very effective. Sex is pleasant and is only slightly less hardwired into us than is the desire for food. We engaged in sex, most of us, because it feels good and often it is deeply satisfying as well. It makes us, however briefly, live in the moment and forget the tragedy of life, namely that all our biographies, however dilatory and diverse, end in death. For some of us the highest value in life is music, food, art, science, commerce, family, or even that most fleeting of achievements, fame. All of these are, ultimately, trivial and arguably insignificant in the face of personal extinction. Who would find it rational to set about playing a game knaves on a sinking ship – if there were lifeboats to be had. For those of us who cannot find either belief or comfort in religion or procreation it is not unreasonable to trade off quality against quantity and risk versus reward. There are no lifeboats and the ship *is* going down.
Don’t discredit sound arguments for safer sex with nonsense: Saunas are open 24-hours because many people, me included, prefer sex late into the night (sans drugs or even a cup of coffee). Stay at any sauna anywhere in the world and you will find, invariably, that virtually all the action has stopped by 0500 and that every available comfortable surface is occupied by sleeping men. The vast majority of the few people who are up and cruising are night people like me, or late shift workers who cannot come at other times. There a few cocaine or methamphetamine fueled sex robots about They too go to sleep between 0300 and 0400).
While it may be scant comfort, I can tell you from considerable experience that condom use at Saunas here in the UK is vastly higher than in the US. At some venues, such as the Pleasuredrome, it is quite high and this is reinforced by staff who, in their interactions with the clientele, expresses their disgust at failure to use condoms. It has been my surprising (and perhaps unique) experience here in London that the vast majority of men proceed to use a condom without my asking them to do so. I would also note that the number of condoms used at the Pleasuredrome is large: out of curiosity I’ve followed staff members around on their rounds and observed the number of used condoms collected over periods as long as 18-hours. Much less pleasantly, I’ve observed the appalling accumulation of used condoms (which are *not* rapidly removed) at the Chariots Saunas; in the early AM it is impossible to walk in some areas of Chariots without stepping on used condoms which litter the floors and mats (one of many reasons I no longer frequent this chain).
To sum up, if you want change this frankly suicidal behavior in young gay men you need to first realize that it is not all (or even mostly) driven by low self esteem or societal oppression. It is just as rational as lots of other choices that both straight and gay people make which can and do shorten and destroy the quality of their lives. Instantaneous feedback in the form of peer pressure needs to be made not only socially acceptable, but mandated: if you see someone having unprotected sex or getting ready to do so, ask them, in a supportive way, “Listen, do you really want to do that? I know this seems cheeky but I’ve seen so many beautiful young men die so horribly I just can’t sit here and say nothing.” If they don’t bark back at you continue and say, “You are staggeringly good looking lad/man and I can’t believe you don’t have a lot to live for…” If you do get a hostile response what *should* happen is that others in the vicinity should pipe up and say, “OK mate, its your life and all, but all he was trying to do was the right thing: to get you to think before you make a decision you may never be able to undo and might well regret.” This may sound hokey but it works.
The pamphlets and broadsheets are all well and good, but only on-the-spot and socially sanctioned action to stop this kind of behavior will really be effective, or alternatively, another wave of grotesquely disfigured and not infrequently demented walking skeletons to serve as reminders of what the cost of irresponsibility is likely to be.
Also, realize that all promiscuous sex, straight or gay, violates the cardinal rule of public health, namely to avoid, indeed ideally eliminate, exchange of body fluids. Gay men engage in vastly more promiscuous sex than straight men for one very simple reason: because they can. This fact isn’t likely to change and gay men, by their nature and circumstances (two willing, indeed eager partners), will continue to suffer a heavy burden of infectious disease and will in all probability be the sentinel population for the next great pandemic. We need to understand that, prepare for it as best we can, be alert for early warning signs, and above all, make and informed decision to accept or reject the very substantial risks that accompany a lifestyle of lots of sex with lots of partners.
That’s my choice and I’m not suicidal: I’ll be dead all too soon in any event (barring stunning advances in gerontology and regenerative medicine) and if I have to go, well, unlike Betjeman, I’d rather not regret that I didn’t have more sex.
One final and very important point: Gay men do not live in a vacuum. We are part of a nation-state and part of a now global civilization. HIV infection is incredibly costly to treat, and other STIs represent a heavy and growing burden on an already badly stressed healthcare system. In most of the developed (alas not the US) the community, i.e., society at large, pays for and bears the burden of healthcare. At great cost in blood and treasure homosexual men and women have won a large share of the rights accorded to everyone in UK and EU society. That social license to increasingly compete as equals (and indeed to even exist absent persecution) is a fragile thing and it depends upon responsible behavior. Rampant HIV infection and the resultant need for vastly increased expenditures on HART and therapies to manage complications will inevitably have social ramifications. Divert healthcare and other taxpayer dollars from things like education healthcare for children, families and the elderly and I promise you that tolerance for homosexuality will vanish in a flash and strictures on irresponsible behavior, both onerous and ugly, *will* be imposed.
Mike Darwin
This really upsets me because its soo true. Young men are dying because of esteem issues., They see the world as increasinly threatening and they only place they feel happy is on the scene with drugs in them. But it doesn;t have to be like that. They should realise how important they are, quit the drugs and date and meet the guy of their dreams. AVOID FIRE AND FITLADZ
I think the article is relevant in that it describes an ongoing situation in "gay club land". For some people, gay scene epitomizes liberation and self-expression. However, what happens with what lies beneath? Are these said clubs willing to change their ways in order to help in the rehab of these individuals? I really doubt it. it is profitable for them to advertise this self-destruction. For some of them, it is this lifestyle the one that promotes good business. Money matters to them more than lives.
If you really care about people you would not only offer them mind-blowing fun, wild sex in dark rooms and free liberty to prove as many drugs as they can. You could also offer them options. Entertainment can also give you food for thought. Club owners, magazines, gaydar, etc set new lifestyles in gay population so use that "skill" to everybody's advantage. How about having rooms for non drug users? Promoting free alcohol raves? Giving incentives to those who help promote safe sex? A new culture of appreciating that we gays are not only sex driven animals but intelligent individuals is also worthwhile.
I am glad that this debate has arisen and I think that in order for any healthy resolution to evolve, this discussion needs to be addressed on a regular basis.
I totally sympathize with the last comment in regards to the difficulty of coming to terms with being gay in a Hetero world. Straight people have many of their own hurdles and prejudices to overcome too. But yes, we all live in a white man's heterosexual world.
I was disowned 20 years ago by my parents who were addicted, not to drugs, but to their twisted version of religion. Fundamentalist religion is a nasty psychological habit. Nothing new there. I was told that I would burn in hell, and that people like me are shot in certain countries. Thanks mum. Love ya dad.
Naturally, comments like those and others, drove me, an 18 yr old boy at the time, to self-destruction. This went on for more than 20 years. But their comments also drove me to strive for my dreams, gave me fuel to defend my sexuality. I was destructive, but also strived for a productive career. I realise that not every gay man is able to survive these disciminations, like I did. And lots of gay men would've survived my ordeal better than I did. Ultimately though, like those guys in Vauxhall, I was a victim too.
I should've turned into an axe murderer, coz there were many times when I felt like I wanted to kill my parents. Their words were destroying me, filling me with pain, hate, anger, doubt. They stopped seeing me, but started calling me on the phone and continuing the psychological abuse for years. So of course partying was a great temporary relief. I'm lucky I didn’t end up in prison. But you can only post-pone and sweep these problems under the carpet for so long, because eventually, these problems will start to rot, and begin to grow and eat through the carpet like a nasty disease.
In regards to the gay clubbing scene in Vauxhall, which is not representative of the whole gay scene, yes, some of those guys are victims, like I used to be, and they all have their own separate reasons for their self denials and abuse. It's no good weeding out groups of individuals because they take GHB and then blaming them for 'destroying' themselves and the gay scene in Vauxhall as well. I repeat. They are victims. This attitude is only adding more blame, guilt, and anxiety to their existing personal issues.
Many people use drink and drugs to still the pain. And many others go to Vauxhall for a laff and are quite together. One of the reasons why the gay scene is so dysfunctional is that it offers no vision for a life after juvenile hedonism.
And what are their issues? Well I can only guess a few, for now. Low self esteem from: Homophobia - acceptance in the gay scene - feelings of not fitting in - growing older - appearance - lack of career focus – the list goes on…
Where does the real core, the seeds of this destruction lie? Who should we really challenging here? Of course some of these clubbers need a reality check, and lots of 'free' counseling (therapists are for the rich. Poor people just get on with it and suffer). This issue needs to be addressed in a compassionate way. The flyer for "the Biggest Suicide Cult in History" states that this performance is for: 'bug-chasers, drug wasters, key workers, toothless wonders, and wankers who read QX" - in other words, all the victims. We should be aiming at the perpetrators as well, the people that lay down the foundations to these destructive practices. The media, religion, society in general. I'm not a big fan of QX, as this magazine encourages the behavior in Vauxhall and reinforces corny outmoded stereotypes. Ok, now and then a token, political article appears on ONE of it's many pages, which is slipped in between the bulk of the magazine which otherwise promotes a steroid, gym, vacuous, botox lifestyle. Anyone who sits outside of this stereotype, is ignored and laughed at.
As for gaydar, this site should also be involved in our serious debate. It has reduced our ways of dealing with each other in the most inhumane ways. Of course, not everyone on gaydar communicates inhumanely. But this digital form of communication has been a great platform for abuse, sex/drug addiction, and discrimination within its own community. Most people on gaydar only want to know how big your cock is, or if you’re a top or bottom, before they even ask your name. And if you don't fit their criteria, your blocked or deleted. Ok. Nothing wrong with a fast quick no strings fuck now and then. But, some respect thrown into the mix wouldn't go astray.
Having said all that. Drugs and alcohol are not a bad thing. I used to be painfully shy and drugs helped me overcome my shyness and develop my social skills. But ofcourse, that’s not why I originally turned to drugs in the beginning. The real problem is, to address our deeper insecurities and learn to rise above them. Sounds easy? It’s not. And when, and if, we decide to use drugs/alcohol occasionally - to not let them 'use us' and rule our lives. Easier said than done, I know. But this discipline extends to all sexualities, not just gays. It’s one of the many battles of Life.
Our daily lives outside the clubs must also offer us some form pleasure. I’m talking about our working lives. But sadly, the Monday to Friday existence for a lot of us, is not always so rosy. Efforts should, and can, be made to overcome the grayness of the 9 to 5. It takes a lot of strength, self-examination, and also a lot of outside support. You can’t achieve all this on your own.
I absolutely adore Mr.Hoyle and his performances and I think he is an important force in the gay community. I am far from perfect, and I am aware that it is too easy for me to criticize other people's criticisms of the gay scene. I myself don't particularly agree with what the stereotypical gay scene represents either. I try to get on with muscle marys, bears, twinks etc. But ultimately, you are not going to get on with everyone in life, gay or straight. These separate areas of the gay scene offer alternative lifestyles for the array of 'gayness' that exists. We still need more alternatives, as these current alternatives eventually become established and elitist as well.
I still don't think that we gays are the biggest suicide cult in history. But the deeper problems of our self-destruction need to be addressed not only to the victims, but to their causes.
Though valid points are made by both previous contributors re: overgeneralising and possibly feeding the prejudice of the tutting homophobes amid snipes of 'I told you so..', I recognise what's been said about the nihilistic self-destructive tendency that 'otherness' encourages. I speak out of personal experience and do not purport that this is universal amongst homosexual men, but growing up, trying to come to terms with sexuality, existence in a predominantly hetero world, bullying, all took their toll - constant insecurity was tormenting and clubbing whilst wasted was really a way out, not just a passive distraction, but an exhilarating euphoric experience for those hours that it lasted. Drugtaking is very common amongst clubbers but I accept that clubbers are just one scene and don't represent the entirely of the homosexual population. The gist of the article to me seems to be the underlying causes of the hedonistic nihilism that are a reality, and it does occasion reflection. I certainly am glad that that isn't my lifestyle any longer, but to be frank, occasionally, I do yearn to just get completely trashed and to lose myself, I think I yearn to feel that I have no responsibility and no care whatsoever, but soon I sober up and get on with what myriads of us do in this crucible that is London -- plod along, but as I said, fortunately, it's only occasionally.
It's ironical that Mr.Hoyle's live peformances are based on his own self destructiveness. Paul Burston's attempts to throw light on this serious issue is simply fanning the self righteous flames of Religious homophobes, by generalising and explicitly portraying gays as self destructive monsters on a trip to hell. This twisted perception is exactly what these fundamentalists want to hear, in support of their own twisted hatefull views. As if self loathing, self destruction, and recreational drug/alcohol use is exclusive to gays. The media bombards us everyday with stories of Heterosexual self destruction. Stories about rock stars, sport stars and super model millionaires indulging one minute, and re-habing the next, are plastered all over the papers everyday. Kate Moss, Pete Doherty, Amy Winehouse etc... And are we made to envy these so called 'role models'? You decide. Is the gay scene the biggest suicide cult in history? I doubt it. Nice title though.
Most of the gay press consists of freesheets paid for by the clubs and bars that make up the scene, so we don't expect any serious journalism from them. Good job then we can turn to TimeOut – or can we? Apparently not. Burston gives us mostly his opinion, and that of Hoyle, without bothering to do even basic research. Over the last ten years, the number of new HIV infections per year has doubled in gays, but quadrupled in straights. Whereas ten years ago there were more new HIV infections in gay men than in straight people, now there are twice as many new infections in straight people. People aren't "dying all over Vauxhall" like flies – at least not from HIV. The death rate has remained stable for years. So much for those myths.
As for drugs, yes, people's judgment will not be at their best under the influence. But the same goes for booze, hardly a more benign substance. If misused, alcohol also kills, makes dependent and encourages violence. But that, to Hoyle, who appears at the Vauxhall Tavern, and to Burston, who counts so many barmen among his acquaintances, seems to be quite all right.
What we are left, then, is a hysterical piece fanning moral panic not worthy of the name of journalism. TimeOut missed an opportunity to give a serious issue due consideration. Instead, your author offers opinions and bar-room talk, painting a picture of London's gays as debauched, barebacking whoremongers. One wonders where the self-hate lies in that?