The Context of HIV Risk Among Drug Users and Their Sexual Partners

I was nice looking, like I can do anything, really. Made me feel like I
was it, like I was really good.”
Mark’s experience of intense physiological pleasure was similarly
overwhelming:
“It made my hair feel like it was crawling up the back of my neck.
Like I was buzzing, wired... I just snorted a couple of lines, so, it
lasted probably 12 hours. I was high for 12 hours.”
Similarly, Rob reported:
“I used speed with everything, wherever. To stay awake. I used it
with him for sex... I used it just to feel good. There was always a
reason to use it.”
These euphoric feelings often are accompanied by strong feelings of
sexual potency when first using methamphetamine. Jim summarized the
aphrodisiac qualities.
“It made me feel real sexy; it made your sex drive real strong, too.”
Rob reported the same experience.
“I mean it’s sort of euphoric in a sexual way.”
To youths who feel depressed, uprooted, disconnected, or unsure of their
future, the rush of a drug high initially provides meaning and a purpose to
their lives. The need for meaning and structure that drugs seem to
provide is even stronger among gay youths, whose lives are typified by
social isolation. According to Rob,
“There wasn’t anyone my age, there still isn’t hardly...I mean there’s
more as I get older, but at the time, 17 years old, walking around in
this gay neighborhood, there wasn’t very many 17-year-olds that
weren’t screaming queens, you know, that were just normal people,
walking around.”
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