What is ChemSex?

"The term “chemsex”, coming from the contraction of “chemical sex” was coined to indicate the voluntary intake of certain psychoactive and non psychoactive drugs in the context of sex parties and sexual intercourses with the intention of facilitating and/or enhancing the sexual encounter mostly among men who have sex with other men (MSM) [1].

"According to different studies, mainly homosexual and bisexual male partygoers use one or more drugs in combination to facilitate prolonged sexual sessions possibly with multiple sexual partners [2], although MSM are more prone to use sex enhancer drugs in comparison to non-MSM. A serious harmful behaviour related to this latter evidence is that those MSM, who are aware of being HIV positive and take anti HIV medication (e.g. Highly Active Anti-Retroviral Therapy, HAART) more commonly use “chemsex” drugs than the ones who are HIV negative or with an unknown status [3-5]. This is mainly done to potentiate physical performance impaired by the disease and to counteract the effects of consequent pharmacological treatment [6].

"Whereas in the nineties of the last century the most common abused drugs in the “party and sex” contest were: cannabis, ecstasy, amphetamine and cocaine, more recently “chemsex” has been associated to new psychoactive drugs and sex enhancers such as, γ-hydroxybutyric acid (GHB) and congeners, mephedrone, methamphetamine (commonly called crystal methamphetamine or chrystal meth), erectile dysfunction agents and alkyl nitrites (or poppers) [5, 6]."