Wired Sex: Sexualized Drug Use and Hook Up Apps
This CIHR funded project explores how online technologies such as websites and hookup apps combined with sexualized drug use impact the lives and communities of gay, bisexual, two-spirit, trans and queer men (GBT2SQ), specifically in relation to STBBIs and HIV prevention and stigma reduction. This study was conducted in three parts, first a scoping review related to GBT2SQ men and substance use online; second, qualitative interviews with service providers who work with GBT2SQ men in relation to substances across Canada; and third, interviews with GBT2SQ men who engage with some substance use and online spaces. Though the findings are expansive, the research team at the SHaG Lab discovered five primary themes in their analysis. Service providers believed that sexualized drug use is omni-present across different GBT2SQ online spaces. They talked about the historical link between substances and the various spaces GBT2SQ men use to hook up. Additionally, the SHaG Lab found that drug use can be a coping mechanism to deal with heteronormativity, marginalization, stigma, and other social issues. GBT2SQ men in the study emphasized the positive impacts of sexualized drug use, including its ability to stimulate pleasure and reduce anxieties. The SHaG Lab also explored the negative impacts of substance use, especially service providers’ concerns that were fuelled by witnessing the harm their clients experienced. The fourth theme that emerged from this study was the navigation of consent, for both sex and drug use. Following this research, the SHaG Lab has suggestions for how service providers can help and support GBMSM who seek their services. For example, the SHaG Lab recommends service providers build capacity and understanding about hookup apps and sexualized drug use. The SHaG Lab also recommends integrating hookup apps and harm reduction strategies into service providers’ work and exploring ways to make harm reduction strategies more effective in their work.
In the continuation of this study, the SHaG lab interviewed GBT2SQ men about their experiences with SDU and online technologies. It was found that participants frequently used social networking apps to negotiate their practices of SDU in three interconnected ways. First, GBT2SQ men used these online technologies as a way to practice harm reduction by creating and expanding their knowledge about sexual health and allowing communication to build trust between possible sexual partners. Second, these online technologies allowed for the communicating of pleasure by gauging others interest in possible drug use and the ability to begin consent negotiation. Lastly, these hook up apps and online spaces became places to navigate the ethics and politics of sex. GBT2SQ men simultaneously create anonymous spaces to explore their sexual desires in ways that are comfortable for them but also can limit meaningful connections. Online technologies, through the interconnectedness of reducing harm, communicating pleasures, and ethics and politic can (re)create and (re)produce meanings of sexualized drug use for GBT2SQ men.
Related Publications
Holmes, D., Numer, M., Hammond, C., Joy, P., Sinno, J. (2021). Assembling Bodies and Technologies: A Nethnographic Account of Sexualized Drug Use Among Gay, Bisexual, and other Men Who Have Sex with Men. Gender, Technology and Development. DOI: 10.1080/09718524.2021.1940437
Joy, P, Hammond, C, Holmes, D, Sinno, J, & Numer, M. (2021). Sexualized Drug Use and Online Technologies: Examining the negotiations and practices of gay, bisexual, and men who have sex with men. AWRY: Journal of Critical Psychology. (Open Access) Link: https://awryjcp.com/index.php/awry/article/view/38
Holmes, D., Numer, M., Hammond, C., Joy, P., Sinno, J., Patten, S., & LeBlanc, M. (Accepted) Wired Sex Assemblages among Men who have Sex with Men: Sexualized Drug Use, Hook-Up Apps, and HIV Service Provision. Journal of Homosexuality.
Patten, S., Doria, N., Joy, P., Sinno, J., Spencer, R., LeBlanc, MA., Holmes, D., & Numer, M. (2020). Sexualized drug use in virtual space: A scoping review of how gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men interact online. The Canadian Journal of Human Sexuality. DOI: 10.3138/cjhs.2019-0052