"It [meth-sex] to me can still be that incredible heightened feeling of you exist. You belong. That somebody else is taking the time to share with you."
Neal Carnes
IUPUI
nealcarnes@yahoo.com
The Meanings Gay Men Attribute To Methamphetamine And Sex: A Qualitative Study
Introduction
"Gay men are guardians of the masculine impulse. To have anonymous sex in a dark alleyway is to pay homage to the dream of male freedom. The unknown stranger is a wandering pagan god. The alter, as in prehistory, is anywhere you kneel."
- Camille Paglia
Dealing with HIV
Background
Confronting Addiction:
Gay men's meth use during sex is a social construct (Reback, 1997)
9.5% previous 6 month meth use (Stall et al., 2001)
13.5% past month meth use & 25.2% HIV prevalence (Schwarcz et al., 2007)
(NAIDA reports a lifetime use rate of 0.3% for general population meth use)
Meth & sex uniquely impacts gay men's syphilis rates (Shoptaw & Reback, 2007)
Gay men's community-acquired MRSA is highly influenced by meth & sex (Diep et al., 2008)
"What a meth I've made." Hawkman
Having "Sex for 12 Hours"
Belonging
makes cohesion possible...it binds gay men in a network
Methods & Sample
Love
Being in, Searching for and Falling out of
60-90 minute semi-structured, one-on-one interviews were transcribed and analyzed using
Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (Smith 2003)
Human Subjects: IUPUI IRB Study # 1111007511
Super hero nicknames
Recruitment: snowball and advertising in Gay press
$30 gift card for participating
11 gay-identified men
20-57 years old
reported using meth during sex in the previous 90 days
9 White, 1 Black, 1 Latino
9 -38 years - 1st sex with a man
14-48 years - 1st meth use
"Probably 17"-48 - 1st meth use with sex
What meanings do gay men attribute to their meth-sex experiences?