Circuit parties are weekend-long, erotically charged, drug-prevalent dance events attended by up to 25 000 self-identified gay and bisexual men who socialize and dance nonstop, sometimes for 24 hours or longer. Although these parties started originally as part of the gay community’s response to raise HIV/AIDS awareness and to build community and cultural identity, they may have become a site for transmitting HIV across geographical regions and socioeconomic groups of gay and bisexual men. This article reviews the descriptive published studies on circuit parties. The authors use these studies and the literature on drug use and high-risk sexual behavior in gay and bisexual communities, along with sociological and social psychological research, to propose a causal model of why circuit parties may contribute to unsafe sexual practices that increase HIV infection risk. The authors abstract 5 prevention messages relevant to circuit parties and review intervention studies in nonparty settings for insight into how to reduce risky sexual behavior within circuit events. These intervention studies help to identify 5 context-specific groups that can effectively carry the prevention messages. The 5-by-5 matrix represents a first stage in developing a causal model for reducing HIV infections, along with evaluable principles of intervention, at circuit parties.
Lee SJ , Galanter M, Dermatis H, et al.Circuit parties and patterns of drug use in a subset of gay men. J Addict Dis. 2003;22:47-60.
2.
Mansergh G , Colfax GN, Marks G, Rader M, Guzman R, Buchbinder S. The Circuit Party Men’s Health Survey: findings and implications for gay and bisexual men. Am J Public Health. 2001;91:953-958.
3.
Roth DL , Lastra D. Disney gay day accented by family, marriage and fun. The Miami Herald. June 6, 2002.
4.
Lewis LA , Ross MW. The gay dance party culture in Sydney: a qualitative analysis. J Homosex. 1995;29:41-70.
5.
Wotherspoon G.City of the Plains: History of Gay Sub-Culture. Sydney, Australia: Hale and Iremonger, 1991.
6.
Signorile, M.Life Outside. New York, NY: Harper Collins; 1997.
7.
Mattison AM , Ross MW, Wolfson T, Franklin D, and the San Diego HIV Neurobehavioral Research Center Group. Circuit party attendance, club drug use, and unsafe sex in gay men. J Subst Abuse. 2001;13:119-126.
8.
Colfax GN , Mansergh G, Guzman R, et al., Drug use and sexual risk behavior among gay and bisexual men who attend circuit parties: a venue-based comparison. J Acquir Immune Defic Syndr. 2001;28:373-379.
9.
Ross, MW , Mattison AM, Franklin DR Jr.Club drugs and sex on drugs are associated with different motivations for gay circuit party attendance in men. Subst Use Misuse. 2003;38:1173-1183.
10.
Chibbaro L Jr.Bill passes targeting rave scene“chilling effect” on circuit parties feared . Washington Blade. April 18, 2003.
11.
Chonin N.Congress acts out against club culture . San Francisco Chronicle. April 27, 2003.
12.
Ornstein C , Sahagun L. Festival is called syphilis threat. Los Angeles Times. April 18, 2003.
13.
Peregrin T.Safety first: U.S. gov’t studies circuit parties . Windy City Times. July 11, 2001.
14.
Klitzman R , Pope HJ, Hudson J. MDMA (“ecstasy”) abuse and high-risk sexual behaviors among 169 gay and bisexual men. Am J Psychiatry. 2000;157:1162-1164.
15.
Swanson J , Cooper A. Dangerous liaison: club drug use and HIV/AIDS. IAPAC Mon2002;8:330-338.
16.
Chesney MA , Barrett DC, Stall R. Histories of substance use and risk behavior: precursors to HIV seroconversion in homosexual men. Am J Public Health. 1998;88:113-116.
17.
Gorman M.A tale of two epidemics: HIV and stimulant use . Focus. 1998;13:1-3.
18.
Gorman EM , Barr BD, Hansen A, Robertson B, Green C. Speed, sex, gay men, and HIV: ecological and community perspectives. Med Anthropol Q. 1997;11:505-515.
19.
Gorman EM , Carroll RT. Substance abuse and HIV: Considerations with regard to methamphetamines and other recreational drugs for nursing practice and research. J Assoc Nurses AIDS Care. 2000;11:51-62.
20.
Gorman EM , Morgan P, Lambert EY. Qualitative Research Considerations and Other Issues in the Study of Methamphetamine Use Among Men Who Have Sex With Other Men. National Institute on Drug Abuse Research Monograph. 1995:157;157-181.
21.
Kalichman SC . HIV transmission risk behaviors of men and women living with HIV-AIDS: prevalence, predictors, and emerging clinical interventions. Clin Psychol. 2000;7:32-47.
22.
Kalichman SC , Heckman T, Kelly JA. Sensation seeking as an explanation for the association between substance use and HIV-related risky sexual behavior. Arch Sex Behav. 1996;25:141-154.
23.
Kelly JA , Kalichman SC, Kauth MR, et al.Situational factors associated with AIDS risk behavior lapses and coping strategies used by gay men who successfully avoid lapses. Am J Public Health. 1991;81:1335-1338.
24.
Kelly JA , St Lawrence JS, Stevenson LY, et al.Community AIDS/HIV risk reduction: the effects of endorsements by popular people in three cities. Am J Public Health. 1992;82:1483-1489.
25.
McKusick L , Coates TJ, Morin SF, Pollack L, Hoff C. Longitudinal predictors of reductions in unprotected anal intercourse among gay men in San Francisco: the AIDS behavioral research project. Am J Public Health. 1990;80:978-983.
26.
McNall M , Remafedi G. Relationship of amphetamine and other substance use to unprotected intercourse among young men who have sex with men. Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 1999;153:1130-1135.
27.
Molitor F , Truax SR, Ruiz JD, Sun RK. Association of methamphetamine use during sex with risky sexual behaviors and HIV infection among non-injection drug users. West J Med. 1998;168:93-97.
28.
Ostrow DG . The role of drugs in the sexual lives of men who have sex with men: continuing barriers to researching this question. AIDS Behav. 2000;4:205-219.
29.
Ostrow DG , Beltran E, Joseph J. Sexual behavior research on a cohort of gay men, 1984-1990: can we predict how men will respond to interventions?Arch Sex Behav. 1994;23:531-552.
30.
Ostrow DG , McKirnan D. Prevention of substance-related high-risk sexual behavior among gay men: critical review of the literature and proposed harm reduction approach. J Gay Lesbian Med Assoc. 1997;1:97-110.
31.
Reback CJ . The Social Construction of a Gay Drug: Methamphetamine Use Among Gay and Bisexual Males in Los Angeles. Report for the City of Los Angeles, AIDS Coordinator; 1997. Available at: http://www.uclaisap.org/documents/final-report_cjr_1-15-04.pdf.
32.
Kelly JA , St. Lawrence JS. Risk behavior change in gay men. Am J Public Health. 1990;80:351-352.
33.
The terms circuit and circuit parties are used for these events “because they appear to follow a circuit from one city to another every few weeks” (see reference 14).
34.
Other less systematic and more decentralized data sources are also available, including local publications such as Boi Magazine in the Chicago, Illinois, area; websites such as www.justcircuit.com; or the chat rooms found at www.gay.com and www.m4m4sex.com. Many cities also have bars and retail stores (often clothing and bookstores) that advertise national and local parties.
35.
Hebdige D.Subculture: The Meaning of Style. London, UK: Methuen, 1979.
36.
Yinger JM . Counterculture and subculture. Am Sociol Rev. 1960;25:625-635.
37.
Gordon MM . The concept of the sub-culture and its application. Soc Forces. 1947;26:40-42.
38.
Signorile M.A troubling double standard . The New York Times. August 16, 1997.
39.
We interviewed a local party producer in the Chicago, Illinois, area with whom we have a continuing relationship and who has close links to almost all the national party producers. We asked about the income and costs associated with a circuit party weekend. The income is mostly from attendance, and the costs are from event passes, advertising, renting venues, equipment rental (eg, lighting, sound systems, fog machines), decor, DJ fees, performer fees, and fees for personal assistants. The very rough estimates he provided suggest combined producer costs of US$46 000 to US$50 000 for mini circuit parties and roughly US$300 000 for national parties. The net profit per event is roughly US$25 000 at the local level and US$350 000 at the national level per party weekend.
40.
Potvin L , Gendron S, Bilodeau A, Chabot P. Integrating social theory into public health practice. Am J Public Health. 2005;95:591-595.
41.
Volkow ND , Chang L, Wang GJ, et al.Association of dopamine transporter reduction with psychomotor impairment in methamphetamine abusers. Am J Psychiatry. 2001;158:377-382.
42.
The levels they reported were from 9% to 21%, depending on the type of party, in contrast to 4% to 9% for HIV-negative men.
43.
Sanello F.Tweakers: How Crystal Meth is Ravaging Gay America. Los Angeles, Calif: Alyson Books; 2005.
44.
Halkitis PN , Parsons JT, Stirratt MJ. A double epidemic: crystal methamphetamine drug use in relation to HIV transmission among gay men. J Homosex. 2001;41:17-35.
45.
Urbina A , Jones K. Crystal methamphetamine, its analogues, and HIV infection: medical and psychiatric aspects of a new epidemic. Clin Infect Dis. 2004;38:890-894.
46.
Ellis RJ , Childers ME, Cherner M, et al.Increased human immunodeficiency virus loads in active methamphetamine users are explained by reduced effectiveness of antiretroviral therapy. J Infect Dis. 2003;188:1820-1826.
47.
Santora M , Altman LK. Rare and aggressive HIV reported in New York. The New York Times. February 12, 2005.
48.
Markowitz M , Mohri H, Mehandru S, et al.Infection with multidrug resistant, dual-tropic HIV-1 and rapid progression to AIDS: a case report. Lancet. 2005;365:1031-1038.
49.
Shilts R.And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic. New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press; 1987.
50.
Fishbein M , Ajzen I. Belief, Attitude, Intention, and Behavior: An Introduction to Theory and Research. Reading, Mass: Addison-Wesley; 1975.
51.
Cohen RS . The Love Drug: Marching to the Beat of Ecstasy. Binghamton, NY: The Haworth Medical Press; 1998.
52.
U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration . An Overview of Club Drugs. Drug Intelligence Brief. February 2000. Available at: http://www.usdoj.gov/dea/pubs/intel/20005intellbrief.pdf.
53.
Aronson E , Wilson TD, Akert RM. Social Psychology. New York, NY: Harper Collins; 1994.
54.
Festinger L , Pepitone A, Newcomb T. Some consequences of deindividuation in a group. J Abnorm Psychol. 1952;47(suppl 2):382-389.
55.
LeBon G.The Crowd. London, UK: Ernest Benn; 1896.
56.
Zimbardo P.The human choice: individuation, reason, and order versus deindividuation, impulse, and chaos . In: Arnold WJ, Levine D, eds. Nebraska Symposium on Motivation. Lincoln, Neb: University of Nebraska Press; 1969.
57.
Carrington C.Circuit culture: ethnographic reflections on inequality, sexuality, and life on the gay party circuit. In: Teunis N, Ed. Sexual Inequalities: Essays from the Field. Berkeley, Calif: SAGE Publications. In press.
58.
Offir JT , Fisher JD, Williams SS, Fisher WA. Reasons for inconsistent AIDS-preventive behaviors among gay men. J Sex Res. 1993;30:62-69.
59.
Seal DW , Kelly JA, Bloom FR, Stevenson LY, Coley BI, Broyles LA. HIV prevention with young men who have sex with men: what young men themselves say is needed. AIDS Care. 2000;12:5-26.
60.
Evidence of such shared transactive knowledge can be seen in articles frequently written in Circuit Noize magazine detailing drug cocktails. Similar articles appear in local gay presses operating out of most major urban centers in the United States. Although widespread, such information is certainly not shared universally, given that drug overdose is not an uncommon occurrence at many circuit parties. Thus, knowledge transference about drug cocktails is still necessary and relevant to a prevention program.
61.
Kelly JA , St Lawrence JS, Diaz YE, et al.HIV risk reduction following intervention with key opinion leaders of population: an experimental analysis. Am J Public Health. 1991;81:168-171.
62.
Kelly JA , Murphy DA, Sikkema KJ, et al.Randomised, controlled, community-level HIV-prevention intervention for sexual risk behavior among homosexual men in US cities. Lancet. 1997;350:1500-1505.
63.
Kegeles SM , Hays RB, Coates TJ. The Mpowerment project: a community-level HIV prevention intervention for young gay men. Am J Public Health. 1996:86:1129-1136.
64.
There are a host of such local cultural icons from the circuit party context. Our ethnographic observations reveal some of these to include water bottles in the back of men’s jeans (indicating that the man is doing drugs, because drugs cannot be mixed with alcohol), chewing gum and lollipops (which men use to help counteract jaw grinding that methamphetamines produce), and pen caps (which some men use to assist in snorting cocaine or crystal methamphetamine).
65.
Gorman EM . Research with gay drug users and the interface with HIV: current methodological issues. In: Meezan W, Martin JI, eds. Research Methods and Issues With Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Populations. New York, NY: Harrington Park Press; 2002.
66.
In this discussion, our intention is not to shift responsibility exclusively to HIV-positive men. As we mentioned earlier, safer sex responsibilities are shared between partners, whether seroconcordant (either positive-positive or negative-negative) and especially if serodiscordant. We isolate HIV-positive men in this section because, from an epidemiological perspective, infection travels from the infected partner to the uninfected partner, giving seropositive men a special, medically based importance (not necessarily a cultural or normative importance).
67.
Rofes E.Dry Bones Breathe: Gay Men Creating Post-AIDS Identities and Cultures. Binghamton, UK: Haworth Press; 1998.
68.
We acknowledge, of course, that HIV can be more inadvertently transmitted via the improper use of condoms or, in rarer cases, condom failure, that is, condoms breaking.
69.
Ghaziani A.Anticipatory and actualized identities: a cultural analysis of the transition from AIDS disability to work . Sociol Q. 2004;45:273-301.
70.
Ball S.HIV-negative gay men: individual and community social service needs . J Gay Lesbian Social Services. 1996;4:25-40.
71.
Ball S.A time limited group model for HIV-negative gay men . J Gay Lesbian Social Services. 1998;8:23-41.
72.
Botnick MR . HIV as “the line in the sand”. J Homosex. 2000;38:39-76.
73.
Cheuvront JP . High-risk sexual behavior in the treatment of HIV-negative patients. J Gay Lesbian Psychother. 2002;6:7-26.
74.
Elovich R.Staying negative—it’s not automatic: a harm-reduction approach to substance use and sex . AIDS Public Policy J. 1996;11:66-78.
75.
Johnston WI . HIV-Negative: How the Uninfected Are Affected by AIDS. New York, NY: Plenum Press; 1995.
76.
Koetting ME . A group design for HIV-negative gay men. Soc Work. 1996;41:407-416.
77.
Odets W.In the Shadow of the Epidemic: Being HIV-Negative in the Age of AIDS. Durham, NC: Duke University Press; 1995.
78.
Wayment HA , Silver RC, Kemeny ME. Spared at random: survivor reactions in the gay community. J Appl Soc Psychol. 1995;25:187-210.
79.
Glueck MA , Cihak RJ. AIDS Bug Chasers. Available at: http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2003/1/28/210144.shtml.
80.
Triunfol ML . Barebacking and bug chasers: expressions of an HIV subculture. AIDScience [serial online]. 2003;3(4). Available from: http://www.aidscience.org/Articles/AIDScience030.asp.
