Chemsex: Reintroducing Sexuality in the Pleasure and Pain of the Infans

Chemsex is the rising phenomenon of recreational drug use during sex among queer people, involving a certain mindset and particular substances. Chemsex users face difficulties already noted in the psychoanalytic addiction treatment literature. However, chemsex also raises specific clinical challenges regarding queer sexuality. This article mainly draws on theories by Lacan, Aulagnier, Laplanche, Saketopoulou, and Olivienstein, and my clinical work with a specific patient. It argues that chemsex can lead to the rupture of formations akin to the false self used to inscribe subjectivity into a precariously heteronormative social bond, in a way that is akin to Zaltzman’s anarchic drive. Despite entailing numerous risks, it is also a means to cling to life, unbinding pleasure from inhibitions faced by queer analysands, such as negotiation of abuse or HIV status. Moreover, chemsex itself can be a vehicle of change, should the therapist admit it as a means of exploring sexuality or even, as McDougall suggests regarding addictions, as a solution to archaic anxieties. This can happen, as with my patient, in tandem with therapy and the processing of the challenging transference-countertransference it entails. In giving new meaning to this patient’s subjectivity and incorporating past traumatic experience, a more fulfilling life has the potential to be attained.