BuzzFeed has teamed up with Dispatches, a television program in the U.K., to produce a documentary about the sex drug GHB that will air later this week.
GHB, also known as G, is a popular party drug among gay or bisexual men. The primary reason people take it is because they believe it facilitates “better sex.”
Related: Fetish photographer talks about being paid to photograph escorts doing chemsex
Over 5,000 GHB users, ranging from teenagers to sixty-somethings, participated in a survey for the documentary.
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Of that number, 2,700 identified as gay or bisexual men, making it the largest-ever survey about GHB use among queer men.
Researchers learned that nearly two thirds (62.5 percent) of respondents had suffered “serious problems” ranging from loss of consciousness to sexual assault while on the drug.
One interviewee compared being on GHB to “being dead, but still walking.”
“I know of somebody who was dead on the sofa at a sex party,” the person added. “The party went on for more than a day and nobody bothered to check on him.”
“He’d been dead for two days after a G overdose.”
Here’s some more of what BuzzFeed learned:
- 28 percent of respondents said they had been sexually assaulted (touched without consent, woken up with someone inside them, or raped while they were conscious) while on the drug.
- 82 percent said they knew someone who had been sexual assaulted while on the drug.
- 37 percent of assaults were in view of other people.
- 47 percent of respondents knew or suspected they had been given GHB without their knowledge.
- 18 percent reported being given a deliberate overdose.
- Overdose is so common that many consider it a “rite of passage.”
- Several reported contracting STIs, including HIV, while on the drug.
- More than a quarter of respondents said they knew someone who had died from the drug.
“It’s like a roulette wheel of death,” another person told researcher. “We need to get the message out how dangerous this stuff is.”
Dispatches: Sex, Drugs and Murder will air on the U.K.’s Channel 4 this Sunday at 11 p.m.
Related: Man recounts violent sexual assault after waking up from an overdose at a party
CenterRight
It just shows that we really need to double down and enforce the existing anti-drug laws to deal with these druggies and dealers. They are parasites to our society and need to be locked up longer instead of letting them go back to the streets and keep doing the nasty stuff.
Brian
And here I thought you’d be overjoyed that they are dropping dead in large numbers.
PLAYS WELL WITH OTHERS
Brian: RIMSHOT!!
MalachiMoore1570
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Paco
How does a drug that has a described effect of “being dead, but still walking.”, make sex better? Is it massive insecurity and shame that makes them prefer to be nearly unconscious when they have sex with other men?
Are they even capable of enjoying gay sex completely sober? I just don’t understand.
Brian
I don’t get the appeal of any of this either. I don’t understand how anyone even chooses to try this in the first place, let alone do it enough to develop an addiction.
1898
i honestly never knew that people were using it recreationally. before reading this article, i only ever knew ghb as “the date rape drug.” i’d never heard of people giving it to themselves or knowingly taking it from someone else.
my ex was date raped after someone slipped ghb into his drink. when he woke up hours later, he had a broken jaw and severe rectal trauma. when the dna results from the rape kit came back, they found the dna of three different men inside him. he was diagnosed with HIV shortly after. (this was before post-exposure prophylaxis was widely available)
CenterRight
1898, I don’t want to sound cold hearted about men getting harassed while they were unconscious but your ex was partially responsible for his own misery. If he had not used the nasty drug voluntarily, if he had lived his life without all those anonymous hookups, he would be a different person today free of the burden of those traumas.
1898
@CenterRight please re-read what I wrote. please note the part where I wrote that someone slipped it into his drink. in other words, he didn’t know about he was being drugged. it was not voluntary. he was drugged by a predator, and he had no way of knowing ahead of time that this person was a predator; he thought he was on a normal first date with a normal person. they met in a public place for a drink and he wasn’t planning to go home with him. the person who drugged him had other ideas.
CenterRight
1898, I don’t blame you for wanting to believe your ex’s story and yes being drugged without one’s knowledge happens to gays once in a blue moon. However, if one is so naive and so careless about who one hangs out with, maybe one needs to learn the lesson the hard way. In most cases, people allow bad things to happen to them because they are no good to begin with.
Heywood Jablowme
@CenterRight:
What a vile and disgusting comment. You are really a sicko. Queerty should ban you yet again and await your next screen name, Straight-and-Narrow / CastleSF / etc.
1898
@CenterRight: “needs to learn the lesson the hard way”? sounds exactly like something a rapist would say.
Josh447
Beware: Centerright is a plant to get clicks. Don’t fall for it. Don’t reply.
BigJohnSF
I once heard that the overdose amount is roughly twice the optimum dosage – very little margin for error. Know what you are doing.
But the sexual assault aspect has to do with the company you keep, not the drug.
Brian
Everyone who overdoses thinks they know what they are doing. A better choice is to make smarter choices in life and don’t do it at all.
balttymore
I’m in my 40’s and G was a big thing in my early 20’s…There was always a fine line between fun and passing out….The problem is that you can’t/shouldn’t drink any alcohol with it…..
Chrisk
I used to have a lot of fun with it. They don’t call it liquid ecstasy for nothing. And yes you have to be very careful with it. I used to have little vials and I knew exactly what I was doing myself.
Thad
I’m completely out of the loop on this. I thought we were discussing BGH, bovine growth hormone, that increases milk production but many dairies eschew.
I feel so….wholesome.
PLAYS WELL WITH OTHERS
it’s the same thing with heroin now and fentanyl a simple microgram difference is it makes it a lethal dose dealers will try and push it to the limit to squeeze every last cent out of every sale.
For some they are lucky that narcan is available I was certified in administering narcan and had the ultimate experience of being in the absolute right place at the absolute right time experience of bringing an eighteen-year-old kid back from certain death it’s crazy it’s literally playing Russian roulette with a spike….
GLF
Is “terrifying” really the word here? If you choose to take drugs, you choose to take the consequences. That doesn’t apply to people who are *drugged*, of course, but it seems like this documentary (not a study, to be clear) is talking about users engaging in voluntary behavior. There are plenty of us who enjoy sex without needing to take whatever party drug of the moment is hot. This is something I’ve never understood about our community. I presume it’s a combination of self-hatred and peer pressure combined with a lack of common sense.
1898
make no mistake, there are plenty of straight people who use drugs during sex, whether it’s weed, coke, ecstasy, etc