Apps and Sites, Drugs and Sex

 I never knew much about meth until I became a regular user of the gay hookup app Grindr. I’ve already gone through the first time I ever tried meth. This part is a bit different from just that interaction. This is where I go more in depth with the effects that gay hookup apps and websites became such an influence and reasoning behind me becoming gradually addicted to not just drugs, but also risky sexual behavior with literal strangers on a regular basis.

It’s a well known fact within the gay/trans crystal meth recovery world that meth and sex are usually intertwined with each other so much that it becomes a codependent relationship with the two. Each thrive off of one another. This isn’t always the fact, but it is often the fact. Sometimes within this community we even see people, quite like myself actually, that were able to become sober because their sexual desires changed or dissolved away all together.  But everyone’s story is different.

Here’s some background information about these Apps and Sites I am talking about. Most people are familiar with Grindr. Including many straight people who are not part of that world. But what many don’t know is that there are many many other apps and sites. The ones that I have personal experience with are the apps Grindr and Scruff and the websites BBRT, NastyKinkPigs, Adam4Adam, and Sniffies. .

I learned how to identify other users as guys that parTy.  They would often identify themselves in their headlines or profile info sections that they participated in the pnp fantasies by having some identifying emojis that symbolize that they partied. The common emojis used would be 🎈the balloon, 🎉party, 💎diamond, 🎱8 ball, 🎯Darts  🌬️Blowings wind, 💨wind poof. Or sometimes they would straight up say in their profile that they are looking for pnp. Some sites even have ways to say that you party within the settings you set when setting up your profile.  Needless to say, It became noticeably easy to identify potential people who I would be able to party with. I was one of these people too.

Something else that is a unique thing about the queer party and play community is how risky the sex can often become during one of these parties. It was common for people to set up group parties and invite multiple guys over at once. More often than not, it was kinda a requirement that the sex would be bareback (not using a condom). This is what leads to such a high amount of HIV and other STIs to be spread around this community. I personally quickly became HIV positive and often prone to STIs. When you’re in the middle of a sex and drug orgy like that, the only thing you are focused on is pure, uninhibited pleasure. All common sense and thoughts of safety leave. 

Often for me, the longer my drug addiction grew, the more extreme my limits became. And at the same time, especially when I was homeless, I would seek these interactions because it was a means for me to continue to get high. I would often just use people to get high by letting them use me for sex. This went on for years. 

My sex life and my drug life became one in the same eventually. I would only have sex when I was high. And I would only get high if I was having sex (not by choice, I just didn’t always have my own drugs to use). My world became very narrow minded. 

At one point, I finally found myself using the apps and websites, reaching out to other people and without even saying hi first or anything normal like that, I would immediately start the conversation with “parTy?” It didn’t even matter if their profile or headliner said anything for me to even think that they did. This was because on some of the sites, it’s known that that is where you go to meet party guys easily, because basically all of them do party. 

These days, many people are going through experiences like mine. It’s becoming more common for people in the LGBTQ community to have experiences with drugs due to how easily made available those drugs are on these hookup apps and sites.

I’m not here to trash talk these sites. Because at the same time that I was regularly using these places to find drugs, I was often using them to find somewhere to shower and hang out for a while and get off of my feet and off of the street. I also count myself blessed with some of the people that I met on the apps. Some of them became friends of mine when I needed friends the most. Sometimes though I also met some horrible people. 

Within the queer meth community, there are a lot of different personalities, extreme ones. Sometimes, you end up meeting up with someone who gets extremely paranoid when using meth. Sometimes you meet a guy who gets aggressive on meth. Sometimes you meet a person who is homeless. Sometimes you meet someone who is rich. Meth can bring out some of the worst traits in a person. But it can also bring out the best in a person. I met my fair share of these extreme personalities. But I’ve also met quite a few people who once they found out that I was homeless, they did things to help me. Like give me a place to stay for a day or two, or more.

Eventually though, after years of unsafe and extreme promiscuity, my sexual desire and drive started to disappear. I have been subjected to so many obscure sexual situations that I lost all sensitivity to sex. Sex quickly became something that I dreaded. This became a problem with my plans for hooking up to get high though because I would still seek out others to meet and get high with, and I became the guy that just meets up to get high and bounces. This happened a few times before I actually started to realize that this was becoming a thing.  Eventually, sex became a chore. A chore that I would eventually stop doing all together.

It was soon after I stopped hooking up with guys that I started to use less and less meth. If it wasn’t for this change in my sex life occurring, I don’t think I would have quit using drugs when I did. 

At this point, I am a little over 10 months sober. And it’s been almost just as long for me to regain any sort of a sex drive. When I first got sober and started to go to meetings, I would not even think anything about the many attractive guys that I would see in passing or in the meetings. For the longest time, I thought I was broken and I would always be like this. I felt like I lost a piece of my humanity. But, just as I was told by others, I eventually started to get that feeling back. 

Nowadays, I am back to bird watching the guys across NYC just like so many others do.