Steve_Bamlett_blog

This is a verbatim review summary of a paper I peer reviewed. Details withheld because confidential (author unknown to me anyway). But I felt the matters I covered showed where I stood on some things. chemo-sex is the use of disinhibiting and pleasure enhancing drugs such as G. See https://www.thejournal.ie/chemsex-ireland-4205588-Sep2018/

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This paper reads well, is beautifully written and emphasises important issues in the life of contemporary gay men. It is especially important on drug use and the phenomenon of chemo-sex. For this reason alone I would value seeing it in a professional journal.

The questions it raises matter a great deal although the answers it provides are pretty conventional (more interdisciplinary practice that is centred on the service user and more training) and do not advance very explicitly why these solutions matter so much in this case. I believe it is all there for the saying but much is unsaid.

A number of issues are under-theorised for the professional and academic reader who is not attracted to the subject matter, as I am, for other reasons.

1. The method is a critically analysed literature review, or ‘summation’ as the author calls it, in the light of the concept of heteronormativity. It uses good anecdotal evidence that illuminates and has pressure but it may risk appearing to lack rigour without a more theorised approach which, in this case, absolutely demands a reflexive approach from the writer and researcher. The writer needs to place themselves in the context – personally, professionally and academically and/ or  if appropriate in terms of experiential knowledge. This need not be confessional but it needs to background anecdote in order to make it rigorous and avoid the appearance of attempted objectivity or comprehensiveness.
2. Related to this is the under-theorisation of the category ‘gay men’. In our contemporary days of gender-critical and exclusionary definitions of this term, we need some opening clarity of statement that places the term. Only in the context of a wider sex/gender (in Anne Fausto-Sterling’s term) can this term really be available to anti-oppressive social work. Even ‘gay men’ identify in cis-trans continua (knowingly or not) and there is a residual binary approach in this paper (man/woman. straight/gay) that needs justifying. At the least the existence of debate must be acknowledged. The issue of the differentiation of ‘gay men’ and ‘men who have sex with men’ needs stating here too. They are not equivalent categories.
3. The crucial matter of the links between heteronormativity and phenomena like chemo-sex need teasing out and there are huge issues here. It is suggested, I think, that because gay male bodies and their interactions together are underacknowledged socially and culturally as a function of heteronormativity, gay sex is mediated by drugs more commonly and that limitation of options leads to anomie. Not sure if I get that right of course. The paper tends to talk about the lack of ‘physical’ wellbeing in gay men as a result of heteronormativity but this leaves out vast intermediate arenas of intra-psychological interaction. What are the mechanisms that explicate this association. There is an absence, in a paper that speaks so centrally of depression of issues of affect and /or emotion or even ‘mood’. Hence suicidality has little context in contemporary thought about depression in medical models or otherwise. Another area missing is a full exploration of the role of body awareness in gay men and the link between physical activity in sex and the limitations of body awareness in some cultures.
4. The primary intervention is life-story but this is not defined in professional contexts. It is rather equated with journalism from which anecdotes come, including Owen Jones’ important contribution. These remain speculative in aetiological terms but neither do they do justice to ‘life-story work’, which is as much about the work done on the life-story as in the engagements that produce it. Perspectives on that are vast from various literatures.
5. Finally, the emphasis on interdisciplinary work and the limitations of the medical model are illustrated and I am shocked by the suggestion that mental health professionals exclude same-sex partners from formulation and treatment, although the evidence may be contested (not by me however). We need to know how such a proposal for more interdisciplinary work may be implemented and why in this case. Another vast area.

Hence, my decision is to ACCEPT. I am not asking for anything but minor revision but the author(s), if they agree with my points may wish to consider addressing some in detail. I think the issues of chemosex and the body vital and it needs covering urgently but it is for the editors to consider my points in the light of what they wish the journal to be. I hope this is not too indecisive. I feel the contradiction in myself.