Last night, Radio 4’s The Report programme included the stories of men involved in “chemsex”, including a Liberal Democrat general election candidate, Adrian Trett – who unsuccessfully ran in the Vauxhall constituency. Years of efforts to spread safe-sex practices are being lost among a new generation, which grew up after the arrival of Aids, leading doctors to warn that HIV rates and sexually-transmitted diseases cases are rising rapidly. Today, however, the community is facing a new challenge, due to the growth in the numbers of men indulging in days-long orgies organised on social media, fuelled by drugs, such as liquid ecstasy, or “G”, in a practice known to doctors as “chemsex”. The gay community in the city has known many challenges over the past three decades, linked to the Aids epidemic that ravaged its ranks from the 1980s, silently at first, and then more loudly, along with the social ostracisation that it provoked. But at its heart, it still holds on to a commercial gay club scene, complete with saunas and sex on the premises. London’s Vauxhall district is rapidly changing, fuelled by the property boom that is altering the face of the city.
