La Démence ou la dépense? Le circuit festif gay entre consommation et consumation

Abstract

Grounded on an ethnography of the European gay party circuit, this article analyses gay men's identity shift, and the maximization of their (sexual) contacts, in relation to substance use and trade. Breaking away from the psychological and medical normalization at stake in the years of the Aids epidemic, these homosexual transactions may rely on an economy of self and collective excess to be thought out in terms of sumptuary affirmation of social and sexual identity.