Chemsex

Filmmakers William Fairman and Mox Gogarty spent a year filming gay men in London, interviewing them as they sat before (or, in some cases, concealed themselves behind) a red curtain, following them to sex parties, and observing them at home.

More than 20 men participated, but the film focuses on a relative few, including the owner of a gay sauna, a photographer who specializes in gay erotic imagery, a counselor at a sexual health center, and a self-described "AIDS dissident," among others.

The common thread? The effects of a social and sexual vortex into which gay men venture, at no little personal peril. It's a crossroads where drugs like G and crystal meth meet with hookup sites, giving young gay guys the tools they need to feel confident and sexy, and to find others who are in the same space -- a scene they refer to as "chemsex."

Is it all a matter of partying and getting off? Not really -- that's according to David, the counselor. The sexual health center David works at is called 56 Dean Street, and we see him in session with the "AIDS dissident," a fellow who decided to go off his HIV meds in the belief he would be better off without them.

Such distorted thinking isn't uncommon in this scene. As David explains it, young gays are emerging from immersion in a situation where even if their families have been supportive and accepting, society at large often is not. Not incidentally, several of the men we meet here are from other countries; "For most of the rest of the world," one London native muses, "this is the best place in the world to be gay."

The problem is that these guys arrive on the scene without the internal resources to know how to deal with sex and relationships. What they want, David says, is to find intimacy; they don't really know how to go about it, so when drugs make them feel connected and cared for, that's what they go with. The fact that the guy they are having sex with might be looking around Grindr even as they are in the midst of carnal relations doesn't, in their altered frame of mind, necessarily raise red flags.

Then there's the overwhelmingly intense physical and emotional sensations the drugs make possible. "Sober sex," we're told, is drab in comparison.

But the camera provides an objective point of view; watching some of these men prowl around town, sweating and high, or else rattling around their flats in a drug-induced frenzy is more than a little alarming.

More troubling still is seeing the men discuss their inability to break free of the chemsex scene. They're crushed by shame and humiliation, or else abjectly terrified; there's little glamor to be found here, and only a qualified, transitory sense that anyone is actually having much fun. (For that matter, the fun seems to be of a Pavlovian nature: "Slamming tina," one man confides, referring to the practice of injecting crystal meth, "now I get a hard-on while it's being prepared.")

The problem of chemsex -- and soaring rates of STIs, including HIV -- are hardly confined to London. But what, exactly, is the root cause, and what can be done about it? David, the counselor, reckons that the fight against HIV should never have been all about condom use; it should also have been about homophobia, both internalized and coming from external sources.

This is pretty rough viewing, so be prepared. But don't shy away, because it's a tough film to watch; it's also riveting and real.