Weak chemsex as cultural scripts: Understanding how Chinese gay men narrate sexualised drug use

In recent years, chemsex has attracted growing scholarly attention for its intersections with health, pleasure, and sexuality. Scholarship largely produced in the Global North, has focused on health risks, recreational use, and the emergent meanings of chemsex subcultures. Yet the voices of chemsex participants in contexts marked by drug prohibition and the political silencing of homosexuality remain limited, though equally important to examine. This study investigates the sexualised use of cannabis and poppers among gay men in China, exploring how participants narrate their drug use in relation to sexual pleasure and, in doing so, construct and affirm a distinct chemsex subculture. Drawing on in-depth online interviews (N = 20) conducted in 2022, we conceptualise this practice as weak chemsex to examine how drug use operates as a cultural script showing sexual pleasures and mediating sexual roles and power relations in one-to-one encounters. Findings indicate that, while substances facilitate pleasure, reduce discomfort, and enable role conformity, they also foster a form of non-critical obedience among bottoms, reinforcing intra-community sexual inequalities. By situating weak chemsex within the broader socio-political climate of drug prohibition and enduring stigma toward homosexuality, the study calls for culturally attuned approaches that address the relational and power-laden dimensions of sexualised drug use.