Wired Sex
This CIHR-funded project explored how online technologies (websites and hookup apps) and sexualized drug use impact the lives and communities of gay, bisexual, two-spirit, trans and queer men (GBT2SQ).
Methods:
A scoping review of literature about GBT2SQ men and substance use online;
Qualitative interviews with service providers who work with GBT2SQ men in relation to substances across Canada;
Interviews with GBT2SQ men who engage with some substance use and online spaces.
Key Findings:
Service providers believed that sexualized drug use is omni-present across different GBT2SQ online spaces.
Drug use can be a coping mechanism to deal with heteronormativity, marginalization, and stigma. GBT2SQ men emphasized the positive impacts of sexualized drug use, including its ability to stimulate pleasure and reduce anxieties.
There are negative impacts of substance use, such as dependency and experiences of sexualized violence.
GBT2SQ men used online technologies to navigate of consent, for both sex and drug use. Online technologies facilitated them to casually engage in sex work.
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Holmes, D., Numer, M., Hammond, C., Joy, P., & Sinno, J. (2021). Assembling bodies and technologies: a poststructural ethnography of sexualized drug use among gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men. Gender, Technology and Development, 25(2), 193–216. https://doi.org/10.1080/09718524.2021.1940437
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Joy, P., Hammond, C., Holmes, D., Sinno, J., & Numer, M. (2021). Sexualized drug use and online technologies. Awry: Journal of Critical Psychology, 2(1), 27-48.
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Holmes, D., Numer, M., Hammond, C., Joy, P., Sinno, J., Patten, S., & Leblanc, M. A. (2021). Wired Sex Assemblages Among Men Who Have Sex with Men: Sexualized Drug Use, Hookup Apps, and HIV Service Provision. Journal of Homosexuality, 70(4), 754–778. https://doi.org/10.1080/00918369.2021.1999122
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Numer, M., Holmes, D., Hammond, C., Joy, P., & Sinno, J. (2022). Assemblages of excess and pleasures: The sociosexual uses of online and chemical technologies among men who have sex with men. Nursing Philosophy, 23(1), e12370.
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Patten, S., Doria, N., Joy, P., Sinno, J., Spencer, R., Leblanc, M. A., ... & 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, 29(1), 106-126.