ABSTRACT
The use of drugs by men to facilitate, enhance, and alter the sexual experience has an extensive history. Representations of these practices emerge almost in synchrony with the wider availability of drugs and the possibility of a self-representing gay male sexuality. However, this visibility comes with parallel attempts to control, contain, and discipline it. This chapter outlines some of the earliest representations of practices that appear similar to what has more recently been named chemsex and then traces how an extensive apparatus has been built up that attempts to discipline chemsex. By engaging with the participants of this research, the chapter illustrates how individuals navigate this disciplinary landscape and come to position themselves along a disciplinary spectrum which traps them through cycles of self-monitoring and regulation to align their chemsex practices with dominant norms of health, productivity, and responsible citizenship. Yet, despite the traps of this spectrum, it is possible to trace forms of resistance that open up questions of a moral kind.
