At the end of January 2023, I was in Cebu City, gathering data on HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) use/non-use of transgender women who do sex work there. As a gay man – and as you would – I checked Grindr, that gay pick-up app, to see what’s what in the area. And here’s an observation: from three to four out of every 10 gay and bi men that appeared on my screen were drug users. And forget poppers or even MJ/marijuana. We’re talking CF; slam; party; PNP; chemsex… And these were also proudly contained in either the names of the users, or at least in their profiles.
This is not a Cebu-centric observation, of course.
Checking Grindr and Romeo again in parts of Metro Manila (particularly QC, Mandaluyong, Taguig, downtown Makati, Cavite, Pasig, and Pasay, among others), it is impossible not to come across someone boasting of meth use. Follow the emojis, I say, particularly of the 🚀, ☁️, 😶🌫️ and ✈️ (rocket, clouds, face in clouds, and the plane), among others, and you’re bound to encounter someone partee-ing for the weekend, or currently high and looking for someone to spend time while going down, and so on.
This has become commonplace.
And while this highlights PDEA’s failure (a topic for another day, I suppose), what gets me is how the local LGBTQIA community does not even talk about this. It’s almost like… the issue is right there, staring us in the face, but not a single LGBTQIA-centric effort actually exists to deal with this (and that’s either by LGBTQIA service providers or not).
Meth has been called the “perfect gay drug”, no small thanks to its “euphoric effect… on the brain by introducing larger than normal quantities of dopamine — the naturally occurring chemical that the brain produced in response to pleasure — which in turn can also increase the user’s desire to have sex.”
Not surprisingly, gay men in particular are four times more likely to rely meth than straight men since the drug is “associated with increased self-esteem, increased libido, greater sexual endurance, diminished sexual inhibition, and a higher threshold for pain” that make the drug a strategic tool for “gay and bisexual men to negotiate sexual sociality and increase sexual pleasure.”
Sans the pleasure, meth causes numerous undesirable issues – e.g. gay men are twice as likely to be infected with HIV if they recently used meth; and nearly five times as likely to be diagnosed with syphilis.
And the stories I have been hearing have been disheartening.
A gay guy was videotaped by his sexual partners while he was high, with the clip of his sexual abuse uploaded online sans his consent.
A former gay meth user regretting becoming a “ninong” (the term used to refer to someone who introduces someone to meth) to many straight men; he said he “urged” them to use meth to they’d have sex with another man even if they identified as straight.
A queer person almost losing their job because they kept skipping work just to go to slams; almost losing their condo for non-payment because they used the money to buy meth instead; and actually losing stuff in their house because, while high, they felt like giving everything away to their sexual partners.
A bi person was hospitalized and paid almost 80K in hospital bills from a physical issue that originated from a slam party.
And rape… non-consensual sexual activities instigated by hosts of these gatherings particularly to the less privileged (e.g. newbies, or the “sugapa“, and so on).
Drug use, as a whole, is a mere reflection of deeper and bigger social problems – e.g. for LGBTQIA community members, of our need to seek ways to adapt to discrimination; for “rugby” users, the solvent’s “power” to make people forget hunger; and so on. And so yes, drug addiction needs to be tackled holistically.
But for the LGBTQIA community in the Philippines… treating this as “not an issue for us” seems to be the response. This othering of drug users from within the LGBTQIA community.
Napansin nyo bang walang support group for addicts in the Philippines? I worked for an LGBTQIA community center in New York, and once a week, we hosted recovering addicts; but such a group does not even exist here.
The only time we really touch on this is when some conyo group is caught using drugs and then paraded in national TV. When newer Maritess-inducing stories surface, we forget that the stories existed in the first place (e.g. Taguig and Davao raids).
And I have yet to see any scientific study particularly focusing on LGBTQIA Filipinos’ experiences re drug addiction. There’s this forced invisibility, as if this issue doesn’t exist locally at all.
We need to do better. Now.
For the gay and bisexual men in particular, and the LGBTQIA community they belong to, dealing with this starts with actually starting talking about this. Because we have a big, BIG problem here, and we’re acting like it’s still business as usual.
