I was today years old when I found out that there is something called “Critical Chemsex Studies.”

For those of you, like me, who could only guess what that might mean, “chemsex” refers to casual gay sex and orgies that take place while under the influence of stimulants and other drugs such as meth and extasy.

It apparently now has a “Critical Studies” academic field attached to it. Because of course it does. Critical studies and total degeneracy go together like peas and carrots. You can now find academic journal articles on the subject.

Is it finally time to destigmatise chemsex? | @MichelleLhooq https://t.co/fvPp7ITb7S

— UnHerd (@unherd) February 13, 2023

 When people gather anonymously to talk about dancing in the shadow of drugs and sex, the energy in the room glows with a warm ball of white light. This feeling, I think, must be the immanence of healing. So much shame and secrecy is still attached to chemsex — a term that refers to using substances such as methamphetamine, GHB/GBL, and newer synthetic drugs such as 3-MMC while engaging in casual and often group sex. To evade public scrutiny, the act is often facilitated online using coded language (“Party and Play,” “PnP,” “Tina”) or even specific emojis (diamond, rocketship). Rarely is this subject discussed beyond hookup apps — and even less so outside the gay male scenes where the term originates from.

Apparently it never occurred to the author that the reluctance to have open conversations about the practice of “chemsex” might have something to do with its disgusting nature and that using illegal drugs is…illegal?

Nope. Not at all. Instead this fact requires the development of an entirely new field of academic studies, because any social norms or laws that undermine the exploration of every appetite and base desire must be squashed like a bug. Living your best life is living out the most hedonistic impulses that strike on at any moment.

While the combination of drugs and sex is nothing new, chemsex as an underground cultural phenomenon became popularised in conjunction with the mainstreaming of online dating apps and HIV antiretroviral drugs in the late Eighties and Nineties. “Stigma towards methamphetamine from those who did not use it kept us united as a group… we called ourselves ‘chemsex club’,” wrote David Stuart, an HIV activist who claims to be one of the first to use the word. “We were united less by commonalities or friendship, but more so by our shared preference for chems.”

So the whole HIV/casual sex/drug use connection isn’t seen as a warning that perhaps going down this path is unwise; rather it formed the basis for developing an informal “club” of people whose main goal is apparently self-destruction through hedonism. And then writing about it in academia, apparently. Because no degeneracy can be fulfilled without being affirmed by the credentialed set.

Most of the current discourse around chemsex comes from the public-health sector, which tends to frame it in a paradigm of risk and harm reduction. But a field of academic study sometimes called critical chemsex studies has recently emerged that aims to centre the practice instead within the realms of pleasure, intimacy and identity. One seminal text in this growing field is Pleasure Consuming Drugs by the writer Kane Race, which tackles the question of how drugs have come to mediate sex in the gay discourse.

This is the result of creating a culture laser focused on the promotion of hedonism. And, I would suggest, it is extremely difficult to avoid devolving into hedonistic culture if there is isn’t some profound connection between the soul of a culture and worship of the divine.

In a religious society the answer to why somebody should control their desires is obvious: because God demands it. There are higher pursuits for which the human being was created.

But lacking that explanation, it is difficult to come up with a substitute. Delayed gratification is perhaps the best. Don’t indulge now because you will be able to indulge even more later. This is pretty weak tea for most people.

It has ever been thus, though. Societies have always had their share of hedonists, and that isn’t the real problem here: it is the systematic normalization of hedonism and the cloaking of it in honors that is. Creating an entire academic field of study, complete with seminars, books, journal articles is an attempt to proselytize to the vulnerable. It is recruiting people, normalizing the behavior, and grooming the next generation.

“See? We’re legit!”

It’s important to push back on this. Not because we will drive it back into the shadows, but at least to challenge its place in the cultural landscape.

It really shouldn’t be that hard to say: you are a sexual degenerate and this is morally wrong and physically dangerous.

But somehow it is. Chemsex artists are now being celebrated at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Because of course they are.