ABSTRACT
Gay men are well acquainted with fear since it is so often used to contain representations of their sexuality, their sub-cultural practices, and their broader pleasures. In this regard, chemsex is no different. Its cultural representations (often produced by gay men themselves) become monstrous aberrations that haunt the edges of respectable gay culture. Chemsex, becoming such a monster, is pushed beyond the boundaries of an imagined safe space. However, when interrogating the lived experiences of gay men who do chemsex, more nuanced ways of engaging with fear and boundary-making activities emerge. Some maintain a proximity to the feared objects in order to control them, others actively embrace the frisson of prohibition that fear can create. Further still, some develop agentic and playful approaches to fear and boundary-making. All of these approaches to a greater or lesser extent transform fear into pleasure. It is argued the pedagogical value of chemsex lies in its ability to teach us about the queerness of boundary-making activities, whereby agentic transgressions can lead to new forms of embodied knowledge and pleasure.
