Pampalibog: Chemsex, Desire and Pleasure in the Philippines

• Main Authors: Lasco, Gideon, Yu, Vincen Gregory
• Format: text
• Published: Archīum Ateneo 2023
• Subjects: Chemsex; Sexualized drug use; Libog; Sexual scripts; Philippines; Chemicals and Drugs; Medicine and Health Sciences
• Online Access: https://archium.ateneo.edu/dev-stud-faculty-pubs/127; https://doi.org/10.1080/13691058.2023.2192256
• Institution: Ateneo De Manila University

This article draws from qualitative interviews to provide the first in-depth exploration of reasons for engaging in chemsex in the Philippines. It articulates the many forms that drugs assume as pampalibog; or enhancers of libido; demonstrating the multidimensional pleasures of chemsex along overlapping sensorial and affective planes. By showing the inextricability of the corporeal to the affective; and of the emotional to the erotic; we contend that chemsex also involves the embodied and performed attainment of pleasure. As such; chemsex is both central to modern sexual scripts yet also a negotiable aspect of any sexual encounter. In constructing this rare account of drug use in settings of pleasure in the Philippines; we situate chemsex within a historical pattern of bodily tinkering and; more significantly; demystify people who use drugs by departing not only from global public health’s pathologising approach to chemsex; but also from the scholarly tendency to locate drug use in the country within scenes of hardship and marginalisation.