Love, Shame and the Chemsex Epidemic
In the summer of 2016, I sat amongst a crowd of gay men, most of them friends, in a theatre in Islington. House music pumped through the sound system. Onstage, five guys, semi-naked, partied before us. The audience exhaled nervous giggles and gossipy whispers as the lights shifted. The piece was 5 Guys Chillin’ by Peter Darney, and as each character spoke verbatim, recounting their relationship to drugs, sex and the powerful combination of the two. The tension was palpable.
