There are all sorts of aphrodisiacs that you can use to spice up your sex life, although illegal drugs have always been a particularly popular choice. Prying into the sex lives of thousands of people around the world, a new study in the Journal of Sexual Medicine reveals which substances are most commonly used to provide a little extra sparkle in the bedroom.
Based on the responses of 22,000 people who took part in the Global Drug Survey, the study reveals that the druggiest sex currently occurs in the UK, where one in five people reported having slept with someone while high on MDMA, and 13 percent said they’d combined sex with cocaine.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, alcohol was found to be the drug most likely to get things moving in the boudoir, with 60 percent of people worldwide having had drunken sex. This was followed by cannabis, which expedited the seduction of 37 percent of men and 26 percent of women.
Study author Will Lawn from University College London said in a statement that “while using drugs in combination with and to specifically enhance the sexual experience tends to be associated with gay and bisexual men, we found that in our sample, men and women of all sexual orientations engaged in this behavior.”
Interestingly, though, the study does reveal some distinct differences between groups when it comes to chemical courtship. For instance, gay men were around 60 percent more likely to use drugs to improve sexual experience and function than heterosexual men. Additionally, while one in 10 homosexual men reported using GHB (sometimes referred to as ‘chemsex’), only 0.7 percent of straight males claimed to have used this particular drug when having sex.
Based on the responses of participants, the researchers conclude that GHB is the most effective drug at heightening sexual desire, while MDMA produced the greatest increase in feelings of intimacy and “emotionality.” Several studies have indicated that MDMA tends to generate a dramatic rise in empathy, which is why the drug is currently receiving a great deal of attention as a potential facilitator of couples therapy.
However, the use of illicit drugs comes with many dangers, and several fatal overdoses have been associated with GHB. Lawn therefore hopes that these findings can be used to implement more targeted strategies to protect users, saying that “by engaging with your audience and accepting that drugs provide pleasure as well as harms, you can deliver harm reduction messages in a more trustworthy and nuanced manner.”
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