Gay liftyle is fuelled by dgs, rearch reveals | Society | The Guardian

Contents:

• 'GAY BAR' TRACKS THE WAVE OF A WHOLE CULTURE — AND ONE LIFE
• GAY LIFTYLE IS FUELLED BY DGS, REARCH REVEALS
• HOW DIET COKE HELPED ME EMBRACE MY GAY INTY
• “IT’S ONE OF THE BETTER DGS TO USE”: PERCEPTNS OF COE USE AMONG GAY AND BISEXUAL ASIAN AMERIN MEN
• COKE MARKETG CAMPAIGN 'SHARE A COKE' SLAMMED FOR ALLEGED ANTI-GAY DISCRIMATN
• THE STRANGE BUT TE HISTORY OF INDIANAPOLIS' GAY BARS

'GAY BAR' TRACKS THE WAVE OF A WHOLE CULTURE — AND ONE LIFE

Atherton L's book starts off a crowd room a gay bar where he's gone cisg wh his partner, whom he refers to throughout the book wh the Leonard Cohen-spired nickname Famo Blue Raat. He wr betifully about his llege days Los Angel, where he went to his first one, though he n't rell the name, wryly notg, "Of urse I n't remember my first gay bar — I was dnk.

" That history clus the famo 1969 uprisg at the Stonewall Inn New York, but Atherton L also div to other, lser-known bars, cludg on that endured police raids meant to put gay people their place. " Atherton L explor topics like archecture and urban geography, as they relate to gay bars, betifully; he wr wh a real knowledge that's more than jt tellectual dilettantism. About the changg looks of bars before the turn of the century, he observ, "A new type of gay bar began to appear London's Soho the neti — airy, glossy, ntental.

" Along the way, Atherton L dips to other topics related to the gay muny: the appropriatn of gay culture by straight people, mic, drkg, and the valu of the younger generatn of LGBTQ people. And while succeeds on many levels, perhaps the most remarkable one is Atherton L's nstant qutng of himself, and the realizatns of how he's changed sce he walked to his first gay bar years ago: "Maybe, I thought, I'm a dis ball.

GAY LIFTYLE IS FUELLED BY DGS, REARCH REVEALS

Young gay men are much more likely than straight men to take dgs, cludg ecstasy, e and marijuana, acrdg to two studi Bra and one-third of men surveyed the Uned Stat who had sex wh other men said they ed dgs at least once a week, and lifetime e of e was nearly twice as high as that of the general age-group. 'The gay scene is bar and club orientated, ' said Monty Moncrieff, project -ordator at Antidote, a dgs service for gay, lbian, bisexual and transgenr people. 'It is still a haner om the ecstasy hoe mic boom which did to some extent start the gay clubs of London, ' says David Smh, a senr health promotn officer for gay men.

'But while much of the dg e is club-related, wh recreatnal dgs beg taken as a liftyle choice, there are ncerns that dg e among gay men n be a form of pism om difficult liv. 'The study by Md shows that gay, lbian and bisexual people are more likely to suffer psychologil strs than straight people, wh gay men 13 per cent more likely to harm themselv and lbians 6 per cent more likely. Published fal eded form as:PMCID: PMC3024451NIHMSID: NIHMS237221AbstractRearch on dg e among gay and bisexual men has primarily foced on examg the lk between dg e – most notably, methamphetame – sexual practic, and risk of HIV transmissn.

HOW DIET COKE HELPED ME EMBRACE MY GAY INTY

Drawg on -pth qualative data om 40 terviews wh gay and bisexual Asian Amerin men, we exame perceptns and meangs associated wh e e the San Francis Bay Area gay muny. Overall, the fdgs suggt that an crease the favorabily of e e might be an untend nsequence of methamphetame preventn mpaigns, targetg the gay muny, wh their emphasis on the harmful effects of dg e, unsafe sex and HIV risk.

Keywords: addictn / substance e, bisexuals, ethnicy, gays and lbians, health behavr, HIV/AIDS preventn, men’s health, mori, risk, behavrs, risk, perceptnsRearchers have documented particularly high levels of dg e among men who have sex wh men (MSM) pared to the rt of the populatn (Cochran, Ackerman, Mays, & Ross, 2004; Greenwood et al., 2001). Notably, high levels of dg e have been documented among MSM gay urban epicenters such as New York, Los Angel, and San Francis (Clatts, Goldsamt, & Yi, 2005a&b; Grov et al., 2006; Stall & Purcell, 2000).

Even though a few studi have noted a crease MSM dg e recent years (Stall & Purcell, 2000), dg e among young MSM, pecially young MSM gay club/party scen, appears to rema high (Greenwood et al., 2001; Hugh & Eliason, 2002; Kipke et al., 2007; Wood, Nil, & Dargan, 2009). Rearchers have observed the important role that bars and clubs play gay and bisexual men’s liv and the ways the arenas serve as prcipal social and muny centers for MSM populatns (Lewis & Ross, 1995).

“IT’S ONE OF THE BETTER DGS TO USE”: PERCEPTNS OF COE USE AMONG GAY AND BISEXUAL ASIAN AMERIN MEN

Some rearchers have foced on the role that dg nsumptn plays muny buildg among MSM (Hartman, 2000) bee of creased sociabily and posive affect om dg e (Green, 2003), or the uniquely central role of bars and dance clubs gay muni (Lewis & Ross, 1995; Slav, 2004). Others have argued that dg e wh the settgs operat as a mechanism for pg wh the stigma of homosexual practic wh the broar society (McKirnan, Vanable, Ostrow, & Hope, 2001) or that feelgs of shame and isolatn and ternalized homophobia draw gay men to dg e (Cabaj, 2000).

For non-Whe MSM, this feelg of shame and isolatn might be particularly acute given what some rearchers have scribed as racism wh the gay muny (Phua, 2007), and the view wh popular culture that gayns is synonymo wh whens (Han, 2008; Kumashiro, 1999; Nemoto, Operar, Soma, Bao, Vajrabka, & Crisostomo, 2003; Tnis, 2007).

COKE MARKETG CAMPAIGN 'SHARE A COKE' SLAMMED FOR ALLEGED ANTI-GAY DISCRIMATN

For example, Green (2003) argued that g club dgs might be a strategy for negotiatg tensns that arise om sexualized teractnal patterns (a kd of “sexual socialy”) wh gay muni and club scen. The physlogil effects of club dgs might facilate the mands many gay club scen for “sexual aroal on mand, sexual endurance, and the abily to have sex wh newly acquated partners” (Green & Halkis, 2006, p.

Moreover, few studi have examed motivatns for g one dg rather than another or the perceptns of each dg’s acceptabily wh particular social groups and the gay muny the past , rearchers studyg dg e among MSM have been particularly ncerned wh issu of dg and alhol e as relat to behavrs that put dividuals at risk for HIV fectn.

THE STRANGE BUT TE HISTORY OF INDIANAPOLIS' GAY BARS

Bonell and lleagu (2008) argued that this foc on methamphetame and s role creasg sexual risk takg not only disunts the role of other dgs, but rc gay men’s health to HIV and preventn.

Clearly, gay men are engaged risk behavrs and dg nsumptn practic unrelated to sexual activy; however, the issu are equently viewed as sendary to rearch on risk behavrs that put dividuals at risk for HIV fectn.

After nearly a of work on dg e the San Francis Bay Area club scene, we have noticed a signifint change over time our participants’ perceptns of the acceptabily of e, particularly among our gay and bisexual male participants. We found that many of our participants viewed e and s e wh the club and party scene que favorably, and believed that e is the new, fashnable “” dg of the gay scene. As we noted above, methamphetame has long been discsed as an example of normative dg e wh the gay club and dance scene (Bermeister, 2007; Reback, 1997), and has more recently been the foc of much of the lerature on dg e wh the gay muny.