Euphoria, disinhibition and, for some, addiction… Highlighted by the Pierre Palmade affair but scrutinized for a long time by LGBT associations, chemsex consists of having sexual intercourse under the influence of psychoactive products. Several followers of the practice have shared their experience and call for caution.
“My first rail broke barriers at home.” A few months ago, Logan did not know the “chesmex”. Until her new boyfriend proposes to her 3-MMC (sometimes touted as a cheaper alternative to cocaine) during intercourse.
Since this discovery last September, the life of the 21-year-old young man has been punctuated by “chemsex” sessions, sexual relations under stimulating or euphoric products – a highly publicized practice after Pierre Palmade’s road accident.
Under these conditions, “sex is 10 times better,” says Logan. “As soon as I take it, my desire is increased tenfold”, describes the young Alsatian. “I want to jump on the person in front of me. And then I feel a deep well-being, I no longer have any pain.”
“We no longer see the time passing”
A few years ago, her boyfriend Hugo was initiated in the same way, at 19 years old. “I was with an older man at the time, who offered to test me to be more comfortable, because I am quite a reserved person and he thought I had to hard to open up to the world”, he describes.
“And that changed everything: suddenly I was no longer afraid, more hurt, sex could last for hours and hours,” he says. “We no longer see the time pass.”
“It is often a starting point: we turn to chemsex because we are looking for pleasure and want to break loneliness”, analyzes Fred Bladou, in charge of the prevention and reduction of risks linked to sex. “chemsex” within Helpers Associationwhich fights against HIV and discrimination against HIV-positive people.
Disinhibition
“The substances give the impression of being overpowered, the desire to communicate with others and to party”, explains the specialist to BFMTV.com, who specifies that the followers of chemsex are overwhelmingly men with relationships. with men.
Some 14% of them had practiced chemsex during the previous year, according to the report of the French Observatory of Drugs and Drug Addiction published in 2019.
“People will then feel very alive: any feeling of fatigue disappears and everything that we could usually forbid ourselves for a lot of reasons, we will allow them.”
However, the substances consumed during a chemsex session are not without danger to health, underlines AIDS info servicewhich recalls that these can cause cardiovascular or cardiorespiratory problems, overdoses, loss of consciousness, panic attacks, depressive disorders and suicidal thoughts… Not to mention the risks of transmission of STIs.
From occasional use to addiction
At 23, Hugo admits to having “an ambivalent relationship” to chemsex. On the one hand, he believes that he has a “reasoned” consumption, which has “helped him a lot” with regard to his sexuality. “With moderate doses, we are not completely picking up,” he says. “I have almost no side effects: my descents (phases of decline in the effects of the psychoactive substance, editor’s note) are not violent, nothing”, confides the young man.
If “studies show that 3 out of 10 chemsexers may encounter difficulties (psycho-social, financial, sexual) linked to their practice”, Fred Bladou would like to point out that “60 to 70% of them also have controlled consumption and who did not allow themselves to be overwhelmed by their consumption”
“As there are people who drink a glass of alcohol from time to time, there are chemsexers who do a 4 hour session every quarter and they will never have any problems,” he says.
At the same time, “others will switch to these addictive behaviors, develop very severe addictions, perhaps to the point of sinking”.
Hugo also calls for “caution”. He tries to space out the sessions as much as possible, with a limit of 2 or 3 drinks per month to “leave his body a little quiet” and “give him time to return to a normal state”. He also avoids mixtures with alcohol and forbids himself to pass the slam course – the consumption of intravenous psychostimulants.
Limits that her boyfriend Logan finds it harder to set. Since September, the young man has been drinking several times a week, even every day. His descents are more violent than those of his friend: punctuated by “anxiety”, “nervousness” and “frustration”.
“After a few days without, I have only one hurry: to go buy to have the pleasure of feeling myself again, of feeling free”, confides Logan, who exercises as a clairvoyant in the Alsatian region. .
He recognizes that these sessions represent “a hell of a budget”: from 180 to 200 euros per week.
On the thread of “happy consumption”
The two men are aware of the addictive side of these sexual relations under substances. “Sexually, I still manage to do without, but it’s true that it’s clearly not as good,” admits Logan.
He also knows that these sessions have several times made him miss obligations, friendly, family or professional. “Sometimes I cancel my appointments with the doctor or with clients or family reunions because I have no desire to go out… It just risks ruining this moment of euphoria or descent.”
Nicolas* was 18 when he discovered chemsex through homosexual dating apps, when he arrived in Paris for studies. Six years later, he doesn’t want to hear about it anymore.
“I had a moderate and happy consumption for a year, and the rest it was 3 years of galleys”, explains to BFMTV.com the young man, who used to mix alcohol, ecstasy and GHB.
“At first, I felt like I had found something that suited me,” he recalls. “A very handsome boy proposes to me, I let myself be tempted because I feel like I have access to something exclusive. And then it had no negative impact on my life: I was doing it to myself giving, it helped me compensate for my stressful studies.”
Access to substances that raises questions
The young man, now an executive in the public sector, remembers having “lost control quite quickly”. “I started to increase the frequency and nothing existed around it. In the end, I started to inject myself and then the addiction was much more frontal. I could wake up on Saturday morning, 8 am, and want to get high”, says Nicolas, who managed to get out of this spiral thanks to to narcotics anonymous talk groups.
This spiral is precisely the reason why Fred Bladou refuses to fall into “angelism”.
“To say that these practices are risk-free would be to lie to people,” he explains. “From the moment we exceed a limit that we had set, it can go very quickly.
On a daily basis, this specialist from Aides takes care to “work on reducing risks rather than on their cancellation”. For this, he recommends that chemsexers know the products they consume well, to consume them in the correct dosages. “But above all,” he insists, “don’t forget to have a life on the side. Chemsex shouldn’t take precedence over everything else.”
“It’s the accessibility to these substances that we must talk about,” said Loïc Michaud, a former follower interviewed on the BFMTV set. “Today you can order them very easily on the internet and they arrive in your mailboxes. It is possible because they are designed in Asia, in the Netherlands, in Poland and the designers are always one step ahead of the legislator: they manage to change the molecule of the product so that it is in the nails”.
Jean-Luc Roméro, deputy mayor of Paris whose husband died in 2018 during a chemsex session, welcomes the fact that the subject is finally being addressed publicly. However, he regrets that he resurfaced in connection with something “unhealthy and moralizing”, on the occasion of the accident caused by Pierre Palmade. “In chemsex, it’s not people who kill other people,” he concludes.
* The first name has been changed, at the request of the person concerned.
For help, it is possible to contact the “chemsex emergencies” call number from Aides on 01 77 93 97 77 (non-surcharged number) or Drugs info service on 0 800 23 13 13 (anonymous and free service and call, 7 days a week from 8 a.m. to 2 a.m.).
