LA DEMENCE - The Gay Party Bssels

Contents:

1The importance of “sexual enomics” has e out of many studi of sexual relatns between men, and still predomat analys of multiple-partner homosexualy the time of AIDS. In the early days of AIDS rearch, havg multiple partnerships was prented maly as a strategy for sexual effectivens: “Homosexual pickups were characterized as efficient and effective, maximizg the qualative ‘benef’ exprsed ( terms of the number of partners and asms) while mimizg the ‘st’ (the time spent and the risk of advanc beg rejected)” [Pollak 1993, 185]. In ntrast to the outdated functnalism of the mols, we would like to prent the nature of sexual relatns on the gay party scene Europe, g a specific register of social transactns which is current this subculture, [1] lookg at the experienc and sexual works staed by a range of pharmalogil practic (alhol, antianxiety dgs, anthetics, anabolic steroids, vasodilators, antiprsants, antiretroviral dgs, etc.

As we will see, the epimlogil realy has produced a gay subjectivy fed by risk-takg and self-ficiency (Halper 2007). [2]The Creatn of a Problematic Communy3For almost 30 years, the disurse of the social scienc and public actn, spurred on by the urgency of the AIDS epimic, has been marked by the wish to unrstand the “homosexual dispersn” (Hocquenghem 1972, 150). It is based on the notn that sexual nsumptn is herent to the “gay psyche, ” associatg the sexual liftyle wh risk-takg the stigmatizg analysis of multiple-partner sexualy ma up of brief, anonymo, silent, and prumably dangero enunters.

This tenncy has ntued to permeate the soclogy of homosexualy that was fashnable France and Belgium om 2000-2010, a barely updated form that nstut a gay inty often associated wh vulnerabily and the lack of protectn (Delor and Hubert 2000; Lert 2005). The dread wh which an AIDS doctor Belgium, still today, reunts his discsns wh patients of Danté-que scen of llective sexualy among men at La Démence, a monthly ternatnal gay club night Bssels, speaks volum about the reprentatns wily held by experts this epimic.

4Meanwhile, a Belgian NGO workg on this issue recently drew the lk between the exposure to risk of the lol gay muny wh the promotn of gay tourism to the European pal, attractg visors om neighborg untri wh a high prevalence of HIV.

[3] Such a visn of the vulnerabily, misfortune, even “monstrosy” of beg gay, [4] is clearly rived om a nceptn of the public space for sexualy between men which fails to nsir s double-sid nature, namely a space for opns, reprentatns, petg fns, but also a space for social practic, which are fact sexual (Gaissad 2010). It follows that the tensn between the persistence of sexual “misbehavr” between men wh regard to the material e of public space, and mos of exprsn where homosexualy has bee a matter of opn and right has bee a ad angle, both for “moral entreprenrs” (Becker 1963), who have end up as mpaigners for AIDS preventn, and for the scientists and social scientists workg on this subject, which they happen to fd so spirg. 5The media sndal of the bareback crisis, focg on those claimg the right to have unprotected gay sex sce the late 1990s, clearly illtrat the huge gap between the moral enterprise of the experts preventn and the exprsn of gay sexual culture, remote om official health warngs.

In an exceptnal meetg of scientific and layman’s expertise (Voros 2009), the first example origated om an alholics anonymo group Boston at the end of the 1970s, while the send me om a therapist workg wh homosexuals who fed themselv as pulsive a few years later. The two-sid sexual and enomic approach proposed prevly therefore clearly ntued to act as amework for analyzg multipartner homosexualy and s high-risk avatars.

7We would now like to look at the qutn of the mobily of men who have sex wh men, not only their ncrete movements space – although this aspect of their mobily is of great signifince nstctg a transnatnal gay ftive space Europe – but also their “inty” shifts, [13] as is maniftly happeng through the most transory forms of self-transformatn, and as an evable rult of their tense party experienc, particularly if they are facilated by the e of psychotropic dgs. Although the parture pot for this ethnographic study is La Démence, a famo gay night club Bssels, brgg together around 2, 000 men every month at Fe, a downtown venue, this lotn is of urse nnected to other urban scen such as Paris, London, Antwerp, Cologne, Frankfurt, and Amsterdam, and even further afield, Madrid, Berl, Marseill, or Rome, for big party weekends wh any number of events. ” Although they may be siar to the gay party circus scribed North Ameri (Wthaver 2005, 2006), their form n stantly be clearly distguished om other sexual gathergs the public space, such as experienc of outdoor pickups between men, which are fed by anonymy, and ma possible by a sort of urban mographic termism (“possibilism”) (Hannerz 1983), cloudg tegori of belongg, cludg terms of sexual orientatn.