ABSTRACT
This chapter sets the historical scene that constitutes the material and geographic backdrop. Its analysis stems from my interest in how modes of sexual sociability haven given rise to innovations in care practices historically. It discusses illicit drugs have been a significant component of the forms of sexual sociability. The chapter argues that psychostimulant drugs have played a productive part in materialisation of gay political identity in twentieth century, serving as one of chemical infrastructures of gay life. Of course gays, lesbians, queers and transgender people have made use of many different spaces to find each other in heteronormative context. In the context of stigmatised identity, mix of anonymity and critical mass found in cities has afforded many queer individuals a greater sense both of individual freedom and community. The exchange between police and their critics reveals how powerfully drug raid reverberates with historical narratives and cultural memories of state intervention into queer social practices.
