Gay sex may be illegal in Dubai, but that hasn’t prevented a sizable gay scene flourishing. It’s not even that secret once you know where to look. Expats and locals meet in certain hotel bars, or cruise Deira Public Park looking to see who’s around. Invite-only parties take place in the luxury private apartments that line the Palm Islands and most get around the ban on gay mobile apps by downloading a VPN (virtual private network).

Like the UK, where the rise of chemsex has been well documented, Dubai is also gripped by an underground drug culture. Only the gay men aren’t looking for GHB, crystal meth or any of the other drugs associated with the UK subculture. They’re looking for poppers. Poppers is big business in Dubai. And like paracetamol, codeine and heroin, it is totally illegal. But that doesn’t stop gay men wanting to get their hands on it.

“There is such a demand,” says Geoff, a 36-year-old British expat who works for a global bank in Dubai. “Guys talk about poppers a lot on the apps. People talk about the need for having poppers when they come round and see you. I was having ‘interactions’ one time with an Egyptian guy I met online. He was so obsessed with having poppers it became the whole narrative while we were in bed. And at one point he put it up his nose and burnt the inside of his nostrils – he was so keen to have it. There’s such a weird demand for it and I think it drives people’s behaviour.”

Poppers – or alkyl nitrites in liquid form – have been around for decades, originally sold as a treatment for angina in little capsules that were snapped open – or popped – which is how it got its name. The gay scene adopted it in the 1970s as a fun party drug that offers a quick high. However, in Dubai the perception of poppers has shifted.

Whereas gay venues can remain permanently open in the UK and openly advertise their function, things are different in the Emirate of Dubai. Strict homophobic laws necessitate any gay gatherings to be more clandestine. The venues are not permanent gay bars. Instead, one of the more relaxed hotel bars is adopted for the night. Sometimes the owners and other straight customers are not even aware – groups of men hanging out together is a common sight in Arab countries where the gender divide is more culturally enforced. It also goes without saying there is no kissing in public and certainly no poppers. This lack of poppers in a more social environment has changed the drug’s image in Dubai, says Geoff.

“I think what is different is that in the UK poppers get done in gay clubs and it’s a bit fun,” he says. “That isn’t really how they are used in Dubai because the gay scene repurposes venues to be a gay venue for a night. Poppers are purely used for a sexual angle.”

This “sexual angle” was famously explained by American psychiatrist Thomas P Lowry in his 1982 essay Psychosexual Aspects of the Volatile Nitrites, originally published in the Journal of Psychoactive Drugs. “The inhalable nitrites may be the nearest thing to a true aphrodisiac,” Lowry wrote. Importantly, he later notes that when under the influence “anal penetration becomes easier, probably from a combination of muscular relaxation and decreased pain perception.”