Lust, Men and Meth: A Gay Man's Guide to Sex and Recovery by David Fawcett, Ph.D.; Healing Path Press, $19.95
In Lust, Men, and Meth, David Fawcett writes, "The most desirable effect" of methamphetamine, in a survey of gay male users, is "enhancing sex. For many users, meth makes sexual desire go nuclear. Meth disinhibits erotic imagination. It allows long-repressed sexual thoughts, feelings and fantasies to overflow into real behavior, [releasing] an erotic energy expressed by reveling in outrageous behavior."
Finally, I thought, here's a book that honestly recognizes the power of this insidiously addictive drug, acknowledging its tenacious and troubling popularity among gay men, and offering an enticing alternative. Nonetheless, this book proved to be a disappointment.
The first half is a brilliant tour de force, focusing on neuroscience. Fawcett vividly demonstrates how meth hijacks the user's libido �" initially intensifying sensuality and sexual pleasure, ultimately coupling sexual activity with an overwhelming drug-induced flood of dopamine (a neurotransmitter that stimulates the brain's pleasure/reward circuits), commandeering and re-routing the nerve pathways associated with sex. By binding its own effect to sexual pleasure, meth promotes intense sexual scenarios that desperately attempt to replicate the enhanced sexuality the drug initially delivered. So far, so good.
In the book's second half, however, the author runs off the rails, venturing into heavily anecdotal territory that doesn't necessarily follow from the hard science. First, he enters the realm of cognitive-behavioral therapy, where the experiences and thoughts of his clients become allegories for what's happening physiologically in their brains. It's tempting to present these analogies as fact (especially when they coincide with conventional wisdom), but unfortunately, the analogies apply only to those specific clients, and the parallels with actual brain science and physiology are highly speculative.
Case histories soon turn to psychobabble, as the author ventures into a world of Jungian mumbo-jumbo about alleged "templates," "themes," and "shadows," including the thorny and controversial notion of "sex addiction." Instead of a breath of fresh air, we get the same-old same-old, a far cry from the brain science with which the book began.
Disappointing as this is, it should have been predictable in view of the book's foreword by Mark S. King, who uses terms like "pathetic," "pitiful," and "twisting my authentic sexuality" to describe his own past addiction as a means of touting the book.
Fawcett himself undercuts his own admonitions against stigmatizing users. He acknowledges that meth creates a sense of community among users, but dismisses this as "an illusion," declaring, "Meth ultimately increases isolation and loneliness, and eventually creates even more stigma for a tribe of gay men by dividing the community itself." Then: "Anyone hoping to have a positive impact on this epidemic must employ both respect and empathy, and not further stigmatize the men and women caught in this drug vortex," ignoring his own stigmatizing.
In seeking to balance openness and community norms, Fawcett sets himself a daunting if not impossible task. One size doesn't fit all, with notions like "maturity," "liberation" or "authentic sexuality" currently very much in play, and often in contention, among gay men. Add a dollop of transgression (along with an implacably addictive drug), and the book unfortunately functions less like a solution, and as more of a trigger.
Such an approach may be fine for self-promotion and professional status, but to reach the user on his own, often-transgressive terms, it's counterproductive. In fact, the entire recovery-industry approach of "catching the user while he's vulnerable" is merely a laughable parody of the mythical dealer skulking about in a trenchcoat, seeking to hook the unwary through guile and deception. From the inside looking out, success is very different from what it appears to be on the outside looking in �" the viewpoint (as the user sees it) of cops and scolds.
Fawcett cites the late Eric Rofes, founder of the Gay Men's Health Movement, which began "with the basic assumption that gay men are healthy and happy. They believe that a small group of gay men who appear unreasonable and destructive to themselves are taken as representing all gay men. At the same time, they refuse to separate themselves and their movement from these men or write them off as flawed or inhuman."
Shortly before Rofes died, I was engaged in a series of discussions with him, seeking to define and develop a community-based, harm-reduction approach to meth use. I approached Rofes during a period when I was using crystal meth, and he was fully aware of that fact. Nonetheless, recognizing the need for those "social connections" that Fawcett champions, he reached out to me as an equal, without stigma or the implicit power dynamic of professional boundaries.
I now feel a responsibility to carry on where Eric and I left off �" though now, no longer as an addict. I hope my own experience might allow me to offer some hard-earned wisdom worth sharing, and some constructive suggestions for future work. Unfortunately, that lies beyond the scope of this review.
Meanwhile, as usual, the questions genuinely worth answering are uniquely individual, and the answers, if any, are a matter of hard science. In that regard, notwithstanding this book, promising as it might have seemed, we still have a long way to go.