Synthetic Seventh Heaven

"When you come down, you think: 'Oh God, how many people have I had sex with this weekend?'", says 30-something Briton James Wharton, recalling the anxiety that gripped him after a chemsex binge.

Wharton is not alone. 

The practice of turbocharging sexual encounters with powerful drugs that peel back inhibitions and boost endurance has gripped parts of Europe's gay community, raising red flags among doctors and campaigners.

The dangers of "chemical sex" are many, including addiction, overdose and HIV infection, and the tally of victims appears to be mounting, they say.

"The increase of this phenomenon is visible in health services, whether for infectious diseases or addiction," said Maitena Milhet, a sociologist at the French Observatory for Drugs and Addiction and lead author of a study on chemsex published on Thursday.

Mixing sex and drugs -- in couples, or in groups -- is nothing new. 

But the easy availability of evermore powerful synthetic molecules on the internet is: next-generation methamphetamines; the party drugs GBL -- also known as 'coma in a bottle' -- and GHB, which acts on the central nervous system; the stimulant cathinone found in khat leaves, traditionally chewed in east Africa.

Use of the drug cuts across gender and sexual orientation, but it is particularly a problem in part of gay culture, where it goes hand-in-hand with quick-sex dating apps such as Grindr and Scruff.

"With smart phones, you can do everything from the comfort of your sofa: order up the drugs and find sexual partners to share them with," said Fred Bladou, who helped set up an emergency chemsex hotline at the French association AIDES.

- London, the epicenter -

There are no official statistics, but activists and social workers across Europe all agree: chemsex remains a marginal phenomenon within the larger male gay community but is on an upward trend.

"London is probably known as the chemsex capital," said David Stuart, manager of the ChemSex support programs at 56 Dean Street, a sexual health center in the district of Soho. 

Of the 7,000 to 8,000 gay men who come through the clinic's doors each month "3,000 are using chems and are coming here with the consequences of chemsex," he told AFP.

The risk of addiction is high, especially for gay men over 40, said Andreas von Hillner, a worker at gay counseling service Schwulenberatung Berlin.

"Many had rarely, or never, used drugs before, and very quickly, massively began consuming these hard drugs," he told AFP. "The addictive potential is very high."

Injecting the drugs -- a practice known as "slamming" -- is especially hazardous. 

"These drugs are killing us," said Stuart.

Three of 21 overdose deaths in Paris in 2015 were attributed to slamming with cathinones. All three victims identified as part of the gay party scene.

Another dangerous side-effect is the tendency to withdraw socially into a drug-and-sex infused bubble. 

"Chemsex is great when you're as high as a kite and you've got six or seven guys naked trying to pull you to one side of the room," said Wharton. "The gratification and validation of your body -- it's incredible."

"But the downside... can have dramatic knock-on effects on other important parts of your life."

- Craving intimacy -

For two full years Wharton spent all his weekends in random apartments having drug-fueled sex.

The former soldier and LGBT activist has written a book about his experiences to be published next week.

He was driven, he recalled, by a desperate search for intimacy. "You meet someone, sleep with them within an hour, and tell him very personal things. You get very close very quickly."

And then one day, he asked himself: "When is the last time I went to the cinema and saw a film, something I used to do quite often?" 

That, Wharton said, is when he began to understand the emptiness and self-destructiveness of his lifestyle.

Arguably the greatest risk for "chemsexers" is how often they expose themselves -- and others -- to sexually transmitted disease.

"A lot of people stop using condoms when their sense of risk disappears" under the influence of the drugs, explained Ivan Zaro, a social worker in Madrid.

Scientists in Britain and Ireland have pointed to a surge in cases of gonorrhea and syphilis, including repeat infections, among chemsex users.

British researchers, in a survey of 30 HIV clinics in England and Wales, found that 29 percent of gay men who had the AIDS virus had been engaging in chemsex.

Sharing needles to inject chemicals also multiplies the risk of infection, especially among men with little experience of shooting up.

"When we enroll a chemsexer to the addiction center, he finds himself in the midst of cocaine and heroin addicts and feels out of place," Zaro told AFP. 

That is largely because, said Carsten Gehrig from the German NGO AIDS-Hilfe Frankfurt, "people who take drugs to enhance sex do not see themselves as addicts."

The German government has tasked a nationwide NGO, Deutsche Aids-Hilfe, with training health professionals in treating gay practitioners of chemsex, part of a project called Simdis.

Health campaigners say the best way of treating chemsex addiction is to reject hype and moralizing -- hard-won lessons from the 36-year war against AIDS.

"We should avoid alarmism, which is counterproductive," said Bladou. "The more we stigmatize people, the more we push them away from treatment."

Source: AFP