‘I was just doing what a normal gay man would do, right?’: The biopolitics of substance use and the mental health of sexual minority men
Date
2021
Authors
Gaspar, Mark
Marshall, Zack
Adam, Barry D.
Brennan, David J.
Cox, Joseph
Lachowsky, Nathan J.
Lambert, Gilles
Moore, David
Hart, Trevor A.
Grace, Daniel
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Health
Abstract
Drawing on 24 interviews conducted with gay, bisexual, queer and other men who have
sex with men (GBM) living in Toronto, Canada, we examined how they are making
sense of the relationship between their mental health and substance use. We draw from
the literature on the biopolitics of substance use to document how GBM self-regulate
and use alcohol and other drugs (AODC) as technologies of the self. Despite cultural
understandings of substance use as integral to GBM communities and subjectivity,
GBM can be ambivalent about their AODC. Participants discussed taking substances
positively as a therapeutic mental health aid and negatively as being corrosive to their
mental wellbeing. A fine line was communicated between substance use being selfproductive
or self-destructive. Some discussed having made ‘problematic’ or ‘unhealthy’
drug-taking decisions, while others presented themselves as self-controlled, responsible
neoliberal actors doing ‘what a normal gay man would do’. This ambivalence is related to
the polarizing binary community and scientific discourses on substances (i.e. addiction/
healthy use, irrational/rational, uncontrolled/controlled). Our findings add to the critical
drug literature by demonstrating how reifying and/or dismantling the coherency of such
substance use binaries can serve as a biopolitical site for some GBM to construct their
identities and demonstrate healthy, ‘responsible’ subjectivity.
Description
The authors are grateful for the generous contributions of the Engage study participants and members of
the Community Engagement Committee in Toronto.
Keywords
biopolitics, technologies of the self, ambivalence, mental health, substance use, gay, bisexual, queer and other men who have sex with men
Citation
Gaspar, M., Marshall, Z., Adam, B. D., Brennan, D. J., Cox, J., Lachowsky, N. J., Lambert, G., Moore, D., Hart, T. A., & Grace, D. (2021). “‘I was just doing what a normal gay man would do, right?’: The biopolitics of substance use and the mental health of sexual minority men.” Health. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1363459321996753