5. Sex and Intimacy

Marijuana is one of the smartest plants in the world. It escapes captivity, adapts quickly to its environment, hides from police and has a lot of sex.

—Laurence Cherniak,
The Great Books of Hashish [1]

First things first: strictly speaking, marijuana is not an aphrodisiac. Although the idea is a very old one, there is no chemical evidence that marijuana produces an increase in sexual desire. For most smokers, marijuana can and does increase sexual pleasure, and for some users, it leads to an increase in desire, as well.
    Still, the popular image persists that cannabis and sex are somehow linked in a cause-and-effect relationship, and the notion that marijuana is a true aphrodisiac is revived periodically. In the nineteenth century, the idea surfaced in Alexandre Dumas's The Count of Monte Cristo, published in 1845. Dumas describes the effects of hashish on the Baron d'Epinay:

... there followed a dream of passion like that promised by the Prophet to the elect. Lips of stone turned to flame, breasts of ice became like heated lava, so that to Franz, yielding for the first time to the sway of the drug, love was a sorrow and voluptuousness a torture, as burning mouths were pressed to his thirsty lips, and he was held in serpent-like embraces. The more he strove against this unhallowed passion, the more his senses yielded to the thrall, and at length, weary of the struggle that taxed his very soul, he gave way and sank back, breathless and exhausted beneath the enchantment of his marvelous dream.[2]

    The same theme can be traced back centuries earlier, to the Arabian Nights, where the reader will learn that hashish has at least two sexual uses. After smoking it, husbands would fall asleep peacefully, unwittingly leaving their wives free to enjoy other lovers. But hashish was also considered an aphrodisiac—which is made clear in the tale of a lover who was about to consummate the sexual act, only to awaken and discover it was all a hashish-induced dream. (And to add insult to injury, the poor fellow found himself surrounded by a laughing crowd, "for his prickle was at a point, and the napkin bad slipped from his middle.")[3]
    In our own time, the myth of marijuana as an aphrodisiac became prevalent in the l960s, having enjoyed a brief appearance earlier in the century as part of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics' concerted propaganda campaign against the drug. During the sixties the idea of a connection between cannabis and sex became a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy, since the most conspicuous users of marijuana were young men and women enjoying a variety of new freedoms. Marijuana appeared simultaneously with the sexual revolution, and to many it seemed that the two were inherently linked. Indeed, several users surveyed for this book told of their first sexual experience in the context of discussing their initial use of marijuana, and several others spoke of their first marijuana experience as parallel to losing their virginity.
    At the same time, the explicit use of marijuana solely or primarily for sexual purposes appears to be far more common among relatively older users, although cocaine has taken over among those who can afford it. Smokers under forty who use marijuana to enhance sexual experience tend to smoke it at other times as well. It should also be noted that smokers who combine marijuana with sexual activity do not generally consider the drug to be a necessary or even frequent part of their sex lives.
    In the mid-1970s, the women's magazine Redbook published the results of a survey of its mostly middle-class, well-educated readers. Nearly half of the unmarried women who responded said that they had used marijuana in conjunction with sex. A few years earlier, Charles Tart's survey of marijuana users indicated that smokers tend to regard themselves as better lovers when they are high.[4] Among other reasons, they mention more pleasurable orgasms, a closer contact with their partners, and especially a more sensitive and sensual response to touching and being touched. In another survey, Erich Goode found similar results and revealed that smoking marijuana before sex was more popular among women than men—at least in his sample—and that marijuana was found to be useful in breaking down sexual inhibitions. An Atlanta woman confirms this last point:

The most terrific experiences I've had while stoned have been sexual encounters. I finally learned how sensual my body really is, and I can say without a doubt that marijuana contributed to this discovery. I often get high before making love. My body responds in a more fluid, warm manner, with visual imagery intensified, and every touch sending notes of ecstasy to my brain.
    No, I have not become a "loose woman" because I smoke pot. But I'm a lot looser than I was ten years ago. I'm not sure how much of this is due to grass, and how much is because of my personal growth; for me, the two go together and can't always be separated. But I do know that my sexual expression has been greatly enhanced since I started getting high.[5]

    The fact of a connection seems clear enough, but, as usual, the reasons for it are less obvious. One of the most common perceptions of smokers is that marijuana prolongs the sexual act, and it appears that for many men, at least, this is not only a psychological effect—marijuana is known to slow down the awareness of passing time—but a physiological response as well. Another explanation often given is that along with the heightened intensity of sex under marijuana, there is an increase in relaxation, producing the paradox of "relaxed concentration," a combination that has also been noted by people who drive when they are stoned. Mark experiences this paradox in these terms:

People say that grass is an aphrodisiac, but I don't think that's exactly true. It doesn't make you more sexually powerful or anything like that, but it does make everything more vivid and intense. I think a lot of it is that you end up getting utterly lost in what's going on. The rest of the world just stops being there. The thing about concentration is that if the activity generates its own energy, as sex does, you've got it made. Even though you're relaxed, you're not likely to fall asleep in the middle of making love!