In Europe, Dating Apps Fuel Chemsex Concerns

A man scrolls on Grinder. (Credit: Alix Coutures)

Sami, 31, an insurance salesperson living in Madrid, scrolled through Grindr to look for a date one evening in November. When an attractive man offered to meet right away, he didn’t think twice. Twenty minutes later, Sami entered the man’s apartment and into something unexpected: a chemsex party.

“Three men were taking meth and having sex,” he said. “I left straight away.’’

Europe is facing a crisis of chemsex—the intentional use of psychoactive drugs before or during sex to enhance the experience—public health experts warn. And dating apps such as Grindr, the world’s largest social networking app for gay, bi, trans and queer adults, are intensifying the problem, according to users and public health specialists. The phenomenon has also surfaced in the U.S. Sami, and the other users of the dating apps quoted in this story, declined to give their full names due to the illegality of the drugs involved.

With geolocation, coded drug language and instant access to partners, the platforms have helped facilitate a marketplace for substances that can be harmful, or even deadly, according to health advocates interviewed for this story. The apps have enabled dependence on drugs and a rise in sexually transmitted infections (STI), sparking growing calls for better prevention of drug use.

In France, 30% of men on gay dating apps are either looking for or offering chemsex, a figure that rises to 50% among patients being treated in infectious disease departments, according to Jean-Victor Blanc, a psychiatrist and addictology specialist at Greater Paris University Hospitals. The figures come from the latest study conducted by the French Observatory for Drug Addiction (OFDT).

Platforms have added some safety features, though unevenly. Some of the companies behind the apps acknowledge that chemsex is a problem and have run harm-reduction campaigns for users. Still, they are generally not held liable for what takes place, since users, not the apps, provide the substances.

“They try to find a balance between keeping their business running, because they need users to make money, and warning about risks,” said Tamás Bereczky, an adviser at Deutsche Aidshilfe, an HIV information and support organization in Berlin, and a representative of the European AIDS Treatment Group.

The spread of drug-fueled sex has become a public-health issue. In 2024, the European MSM Survey, cofunded by the European Union, with more than 50,000 participants across 50 countries, found that an average of 10 to 13% of gay or bisexual men having sex with men in Western Europe had chemsex in the previous four weeks, up from 5% in 2017.

Other apps connecting gay men include Sniffies and Scruff. They create a “gay bar in your pocket” and a space of “intense sexualization,” according to a study by researchers at the University of Texas at San Antonio and Michigan State University that was published in 2021 on ScienceDirect, an online journal.

Representatives for Grindr, Sniffies, Scruff and other apps cited in this article, declined to comment.

“During the past decade, the popularity of chemsex, particularly in Men having Sex with Men (MSM) communities, has been boosted by the spread of ‘sex encounters’ on social media,” Stella Capodieci, a scientist at at the San Gallicano Dermatological Institute of Rome, wrote along with seven other authors in a Europe-focused article published by BMC Public Health in 2025.

Apps are uniquely suited to facilitating chemsex, according to health experts. They cite designs that encourage compulsive use. Features such as geolocation, “online now” status, the infinite scroll of profiles and ranking signals like “boost,” “viewed me” or “faved me” make the apps difficult to put down.

Sami recalled a friend’s comment that reveals just how normalized chemsex has become in the gay community. The friend told him, with conviction: “I don’t do any drugs. Just meth on Grindr, because I have to be accepted.”

The apps “make us addicted to the validation system, except here the potential outcomes are much more dangerous,” Sami said. “We’re thrown into the jungle.”

For him, it also feeds a need for belonging. Sami first used Grindr when he was 20. At the time, he knew little about drugs and was trying to fit into the gay community. “I remember connecting with much older men, men in their 40s, who tried to lure me into taking drugs like heroin through dating apps,” he said.

According to their terms of service, the platforms including Sniffies, Grindr, Scruff and Hornet prohibit “public mention of non-prescription drugs” or “discussing or participating in the buying or the selling of drugs.” Writing drug names directly in a profile violates the apps’ rules and can trigger warnings or bans.

But users avoid detection by typing code names or emojis, such as “Tina” for methamphetamine or a rocket emoji for chemsex. “Using code names is worse,” Sami said. “It downplays the health risks and makes the drugs look like candy.”

Chemsex can also indicate deeper problems among participants. “It is more the symptom of underlying mental health issues than their cause,” said Bereczky, the AIDS activist.

Casual exposure can spiral fast, trapping users in patterns that drive addiction to chemsex and to substances.

“Users develop a pathological relationship to chemsex,” said Blanc, the psychiatrist at Greater Paris University Hospital. “Sex without a product becomes impossible.”

Marco, a 32-year-old Grindr user who works in communications for a charity in Paris, has been engaging in chemsex for a year and a half. He said he has tried to stop several times. Recently, he managed a three-week break. He recounted how, during a freezing Saturday night, on a café terrace in the north of Paris, he was with five friends. He told them about his addiction to chemsex and 3-MMC, a synthetic stimulant often used to enhance libido, about how relieved he was to have stopped for a while. He loosened up and had three beers.

It was around midnight and he walked to his home, 10 minutes away, Marco recalled. He felt sprightly. And a voice was already there, low and steady in the back of his mind: “Don’t go on Grindr. Don’t go on Grindr.”

Ashamed, he opened the app and scrolled. Marco matched with someone three blocks away and went to him.

Some users delete the app to avoid temptation. Alexander, a 30-year-old retail worker, said he keeps deleting and reinstalling Grindr. In moments of weakness, he turns to the platform on special occasions, such as after a party. He said he has no addiction to substances.

In December, during a trip to Berlin with a friend, Alexander was sitting in his Airbnb rental and downloaded the app again. “This time it’s fine,” he recalled telling himself. “I’m traveling.”

Within minutes, he found a hookup that included 3-MMC and meth.

“You can find a partner very quickly,” Alexander said. “The app allows you to cut to the chase and be very straightforward, technical on what you want. It is very convenient.”

Blanc said his patients that are grappling with addiction include men who say they had never touched drugs before downloading the dating apps and became hooked after their first chemex experience.

“Dating apps didn’t invent chemsex, but they’ve supercharged it,” Blanc said. “They make access to sex and drugs instant – and when things become that easy, addiction and harm follow fast. ”

Marco, for example, said he has been exposed to all sorts of drugs – 3-MMC, methamphetamine, monkey dust or alpha – many of which were previously unknown to him.

“I would never have been drawn into this without the dating apps,” he said.

“Gay people have always felt the need to gather, first in bars, then in saunas, and now through dating apps,” Marco said. “It responds to a real need, but it becomes isolating, leads to superficial relationships, and harms the LGBTQ+ community as a whole.”

The fallout for the community can be devastating. About 91% of dating-app users have reported negative experiences on the platforms, whether they use drugs or not, according to a study by Building Healthy Online Communities (BHOC), a U.S.-based consortium of public-health leaders and app owners working on HIV and STI prevention.

In the U.S., the phenomenon is commonly referred to as “Party and Play,” or PnP. Over 10% of men who have sex with men reported using chemsex drugs in the previous 12 months, according to the American Men’s Internet Survey (AMIS), published in 2023 the latest year for which data is available. Among them, 65% used ecstasy, 42% used crystal meth and 21.7% used GHB.

Dating apps can be the starting point for long-term drug addiction, exacerbating a broader drug problem in Europe that is not specific to chemsex or dating apps. The European Union Drugs Agency, based in Lisbon, Portugal, reported almost 7,500 drug-induced deaths in 2023, up from 7,100 in 2022, the latest year for which there is data.

Marco said he has witnessed GHB overdoses more than once. He recalled a chemsex party in Paris: six men in the living room of a small apartment. Some had sex, while others chatted calmly, as if it were any ordinary night.

One of them drank a glass of GHB, a central nervous system depressant, and overdosed. An ambulance was called and the man was taken to a hospital.

The mix of substance abuse and dating apps puts users at higher risk for sexually transmitted infections.

According to PROTECT survey, conducted by Maastricht University in 20 European countries between October 2023 and April 2024, among participants who engaged in so-called “novel chemsex,” 38% reported a syphilis diagnosis, 70% gonorrhoea, and 58% chlamydia within the previous six months.

In the U.S., the AMIS survey found that chemsex users were far more likely to report an STI diagnosis and serious psychological distress.

Platforms have been taking measures to reduce harm. The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control brought major dating apps like Grindr, Scruff, Planet Romeo to the table about a decade ago and pushed them to engage in prevention. They have increasingly done so, Bereczky said.

BHOC published recommendations for dating apps, some of which have been implemented. Sniffies, for instance, has added a profile field where users can state their comfort level around drug use and whether they have prevention or harm-reduction supplies.

Scruff acknowledged chemsex as a problem in 2016 and took moderation steps to ban the terms “chem” and “party” in profiles, according to Bereczky, who confirms information from several media outlets at the time, including an investigation by BuzzFeed.

Grinder has a Help Center page about drugs that points users to resources. Grindr for Equality, the platform’s non-profit arm focused on research and LGBTQ health, runs harm-reduction campaigns for users.

Hornet has published educational content about chemsex on its website.

“There is more health information around sexual health through the app today than a few years ago,” said Jen Hetch, director of the BHOC consortium. “Although more could be done.”

In the U.S., stigma and legal concerns keep many from seeking help or even openly discussing their drug use.

“There is a lot of stigma around substance use, and issues relating to the legality of substances affect how people talk about it, and their concern about their own safety,” said Hetch.

Meanwhile, addiction services are being overwhelmed, Blanc said. “The demand for care is rising, and we don’t have enough capacity to treat people, many specialist clinics are already saturated,” he said.

A few weeks later, sitting in his apartment on a Saturday night in January, Marco thought: either I get out of this on my own, or I will seek help. He waited. The craving went away. He realized, that night, that if you wait long enough, it always does. That was a victory.