“Sick people came back to life and were back on the dance floor, just in time for the Great Summer of 1998”
My Grindr profile reads “in London there is 1 top for every 1000 bottoms, so be patient. I use drugs to fuck because I haven’t had a natural erection in 20 years, so bring drugs”
I get a lot of messages expressing shock, horror and disdain. One guy said “you’re everything I hate about gay men”. I forgave him immediately, he was young and still full of hope.
My first boyfriend invented the term chem sex but I made it popular among the skanky hoe community. Let me tell you the story. It was originally chem session shortened to chem sesh and soon chem sex, plural. In 1994 the first batch of crystal meth aka Tina came from Thailand and was marketed as strong speed. It changed everything. We could fuck harder and longer and maintain razor sharp wits. That is until we started talking a whole lot of paranoid gibberish and the sex became chaotic and dinner party invitations stopped.
In 1995 I asked my boyfriend at the time to come around my place to shoot this strong speed and fuck. He came over and we ran a bath. I wrapped my legs around him and with a pre-loaded needle injected his vein, softened and pulsating from the bath vapors. I then got him to shoot me. We were rushing like mountain rapids. And we fucked for days. Straight after our chemical session my boyfriend went out dancing with his friends and when he returned he said “let’s have a chem sesh” too rancidly out of it or too lazy to say it in full. I knew what he meant. The term chem sesh was born. Nice to be famous for something. I forgot to tell him I stole his best line, before he died.
I was on Gay.com that night and jumped in a chat room called Hairy Holes so I could speak to likeminded homosexuals. It took a few minutes to load, using dial up internet. I entered the chat room eventually and my opening line was “anyone want a chem sesh?” I was inundated with chat from hairy holes seeking to understand the meaning of the term and I was happy to explain through demonstration.
1997 undeniable proof emerged that antiretroviral treatments were stopping people dying from Aids. Sick people came back to life and were back on the dance floor, just in time for the Great Summer of 1998. Soon men in mixed status relationships realised these drugs could also prevent HIV transmission. We were on our way back, from the dead. The cost of HIV was enormous and unfair. If you were born 1930 to 1970 your gay life was sexual freedom quickly followed by death. Great highs and great lows, separated by a few minutes in the grand scheme of things. I was the bridge between the unlucky and the lucky. If the sex educators hadn’t slid a condom over a banana in PE class in 1987, I’d probably be dead.
But its 1998, and the drugs worked