Needles, pills, powders, fumes—party and play—chemsex is having a heyday. On the one hand, chemsex leads to longer, harder, and faster highs, and regardless of whether you’re in it or on the other sides, it is increasingly touching all our lives. Users and nonusers alike are increasingly encountering for chill sessions where drugs keep the party going for prolonged periods of heightened ecstasy and risk.
Given his few experiences with chills, Sunny Mike said that “one of the positive feelings has always been the temporary sense of closeness those spaces can create.” He also added that “being fed with non-stop sexy men and drugs during hours, sometimes days, sounds and is extremely appealing.” Meanwhile, Diego Alejando noted that chemsex is useful for engaging in practices like fisting, and from the clinical perspective, our acting coach Marc Ribeiro highlighted that substances’ ability to reduce anxiety and inhibition “can feel like greater liberty at first.” Indeed, Ribeiro commented that “in chemsex, there is a powerful element of pulsation, one in which there are pulses of life, but also pulls of death.”
“Beyond the hype of the high, everyone also spoke about the abysmal ‘after…’”
Beyond the hype of the high, everyone also spoke about the abysmal “after” that follows in the wake of chemsex. Sunny Mike explained that “the hard part comes afterward… and some of the worst emotions I have ever felt were after a long period of doing drugs.” As such, he added that “the emotional aftermath makes it is hard to say the experience is worth it.” Additionally, from the other side, Diego Alejandro said he feels that chemsex has been “romanticized” and added that “after having sex with a drug user, it makes me recenter myself on the sex that I want, and to not want any more with that person.”
One of the issues for Sunny Mike is that “sometimes the connection we feel in those moments doesn’t last once everyone is sober.” Meanwhile, the events that take place during the intoxicated periods can also haunt us. Ribeiro notes that “substances introduce a “distortion” to our understandings of consent, limits, and desire… the problem is that this disinhibition not only affects fear, but it also impacts the capacity to register internal and external signals.” As such, multiple forms of tolls can remain in the wake of prolonged periods of drug use, and unfortunately, as Ribeiro comments, we speak much less about what comes after sex, even though it is “where care is most absent.”
“When encounters without substances become unimaginable, this can operate as an alarm signal.”
Dependency is also a concern as individuals find themselves less able to experience pleasure without taking drugs, like a form of anahedonia. Sunny Mike noted that he asks himself, “am I doing this because I want to have fun and relax a bit or am I doing this because I need it?” From Diego Alejandro’s perspective, drug users at chills are like “zombies, sedated on drugs and sex,” and “the problem is that the substance controls you, and not you it.” Echoing that concern, Ribeiro commented that “when encounters without substances become unimaginable, this can operate as an alarm signal.” Specifically, he advised that “when someone begins to ask whether they continue to desire what they are doing or whether they simply do not know how to stop, something is begging to be reflected upon and addressed with care.”
Speaking about his meetings with clients at a clinic, Ribeiro noted that “there are people who seek clinical assistance because they feel that they have lost control and are clearly suffering. Others come in for assistance not because of the drug use itself, but because of lack of wellbeing, anxiety, lack of connections, or a feeling of emptiness, and chemsex comes up later, as a piece of the bigger picture.” Specifically, he notes that “people are often not looking for pleasure, but for less internal noise, less fear of rejection, less control, less thought.”
Thus, he specified that “it is important to distinguish between pleasure and indulgence. Pleasure has to do with something that you can regulate, that has a limit, and that enters you into connection with the other. Meanwhile, indulgence pushes one beyond that limit. It is excessive, repetitive, and often leaves a feeling of emptiness and lack of wellbeing.”
“In chemsex, people are often seeking indulgence, rather than pleasure, an indulgence that anesthetizes the anguish, but that can also overwhelm the person. In that sense, drug use can operate like a defense mechanism, a form of protecting oneself in the face of a problem that is difficult to live with without resorting to excess.”
Given the ubiquity of chemsex in our community, films exploring the full spectrum of our reality have tricky territory to navigate. Some filmmakers take negative, blunt, and moralistic paths. With respect to the latter, Ribeiro commented that “psychology shows us that moralizing discussions tend to produce silence as opposed to reflection.” He further stated that “for me, this is where the potency of RAID is found. It does not offer a closed or tranquilizing lecture. It sustains ambivalence, which has a strong connection to what we see in consultations, in which nothing is linear, and in which the same act can be refuge and precipice simultaneously.” Lastly, he also notes that “RAID does a good job showing the way limits are crossed not only in ruptures, but that they go on eroding.” Meanwhile, Diego Alejandro noted that despite his aversion to drug users, when speaking about chemsex, “we always have to take into account that we are talking about people, feelings, sensibilities, etc.” Ultimately, we all encounter the world of chemsex and drugs in unique ways, with our individual motivations, and backgrounds, sometimes merely as two and at other times alone.
RAID opens a singular window into the ecstatic and sometimes painful world of chemsex and chills. We witness heights of release and intensely felt connection as they coexist with depths of risk and, as our performers and team members mentioned, wrenching withdrawals looming just beyond their meeting. In the end, RAID harnesses explicit cinema to explore the theme through a prism. The film does not instruct, nor does it normalize. It represents and encounters you authentically as you are.
All four episodes of RAID are available together
In addition, Keep Coming Back shifts the focus toward leaving addiction it streams May 15 and is open for pre-orders for download.
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