Silence Equals Death

you can go ladies and gentlemen with no further Ado please welcome [Applause] P thank you so much for having me here to speak it's it means more than I can say um so I'm here to talk about sex and drugs um but I'm also want to say a few words first about what happened last time I went to talk about sex and drugs a lot of you know I gave this talk at bides last year here in 2012 and um and it was great I had a wonderful time um the only thing that's different this year is that this year I remember my [Laughter] slides and uh then I was asked to speak again at bide San Francisco this year in

February and um I get asked to speak quite a bit these days which is really wonderful um talking about sex and technology has come a long way I've been talking about sex and technology for almost a decade and that was pretty sobering when I realized that when let talk together um it's just been something I've been doing at conferences all over the world um ever since I've been able to just get onto a Tex stage somewhere um to talk about sex and Technology sex and gender how sexuality affects technology and communities that use technology especially at risk communities and I've ended up speaking pretty much everywhere the only place I think one of the only places

I've been spoken is a TED talk but I don't really care care I've also given twool Tech talks on sex and Tech and one was about privacy and sex and that was really fun um so I'm I'm used to getting up and talking about sex and Technology I'm used to controversy being around the types of talks that I give um but my talks are always very inclusive and I always tell the audience what we're going to talk about before we talk um I've only had one organizer get nervous at the last minute but my talk didn't get the talk just didn't get introduced in the proper way um and I also in my other other time

besides some of you know me as a Tex some of you know me as a sex writer I write um sex ed books and I write non-fiction sex columns and things like that um and I'm also a sex educator which is something I've been doing since 1999 actually like they're putting all these dates together like World um and what that means saying that I'm a sex educator doesn't mean that I've read a couple of books and decided I was going to go write a about you know how everyone should be having sex it means that I've done lots and lots of trainings I've done about 160 hours of trainings and I have probably around 10 years of face tof face

peer-to-peer counseling um I've worked sex crisis hotlines I teach other Educators how to teach about sex and I work at one of the places that I love to teach that I've been teaching at for a very very long time is a place called San Francisco sex information and that's a place where we have sex crisis hotlines that are regular phones and also um you know people can email us or they can send us letters and things like that but um this is a place that's been around for a couple of decades and the trainers there are doctors mfts nurses um people who are professionals and a variety of different Healthcare fields and Outreach Fields as well so do needle

exchange and things like that and um and this talk the sex and drugs talk is an adaptation of a talk that we give when we teach other Educators and and what I mean by teaching other Educators is we we teach nurses we teach people that work at Planned Parenthood we teach people who have gone through the system of learning how to give Health Care to their clients but haven't gotten a well-rounded approach to talking about sexuality with their clients and the thing is is that sexuality is all these different things that they don't end up learning when they go through all the usual channels of school whether it's for psychology or you know regular uh

mft or MD or RN and you know they they probably get upwards of about eight hours of sex education unless they're focusing on reproduction so what we do is we fill in a whole lot of blanks which have to do with sex and gender um pornography sex work um even even sex crisis when people get things stuck in them you know just a variety of different things talking about different orientations and different fetishes and permutations in a very non-clinical way but also a matter of fact non-judgmental way and so this is this is my background in my history with this um my talks are always not Technical and I make that really clear up front uh my talks are

about issues that affect the communities that I'm talking to [Music] so I was going to give this talk at bsides in San Francisco this last year and this isn't something that I want to I want to drag out to talk about because it really it's really actually upsetting for me to talk about what happened but I want to kind of get you up to speed in case you're not familiar with the St story um so I was getting ready to give my talk and unknown to me my talk had actually been targeted by a feminist organization uh called the ad initiative which I actually honestly and I apologize but I hadn't heard about them until that day of my talk and um I found

out after my talk was I actually voluntarily pulled my talk um and the reason I did was because I I got to the venue and the organizer came up to me and presented me with a dilemma in which he was being pressured by this organization to remove my talk and had been threatened and had been koled and pushed around and I found out that this had been happening in emails for a while and prior to me giving my talk no one had told me that any of this was going on and the reason that they hadn't told me was because um the person from the AI initiative had expressly told them that they didn't want to talk to me um they

didn't want to talk to me about my talk they didn't want to have any contact with me um they absolutely flat out refused to me in any way whatsoever and did not want to be identified to me in any way whatsoever um so the organizer presented me with the Dilemma in which he was being pressured and threatened with problems if he didn't have my to P um because of the I I walked in and I was talking to him and he was like so I've got this problem um how much rape is in your talk and I was like how much what is in my talk and and he was like well someone's here and they're they're really

concerned that you're going to talk about anything having to do with rape and uh and so you know I'm I'm being told that there's going to be problems if this talk is allowed to continue and I was like this is this is crazy like my talk isn't about rape of course there are drugs that I talk about that can be used in that manner um but that's not what the talk is about and so understanding that he was in a difficult position I volunteer voluntarily P the talk um The Talk itself is really a harm reduction talk about drugs and sex and if you know you read the description you would have understood that that it was

you know here here are things that people like to do and here are things that can go wrong and here here's why people like to do these things and so here's how to do this safely if you decide to do that harm reduction is something I've been teaching for a very very very long time the principle of harm reduction which is in my slides in a minute but the principle of harm reduction is that it comes from a perspective of acknowledging that people are going to do dangerous or unsafe things and rather than just saying no which as we know from history here in the United States the just say no approach to drugs has been a disaster

and does not work um that approach rather than taking that black or white approach is acknowledging that people are going to engage in these activities um and knowing that they're going to do so not telling them whether it's right or wrong not prescribing their behavior but describing their behavior to them and describing the effects of these behaviors so that they can make the decisions that are best for them the communities and the loved ones that they will be affecting by their actions and their choices and it's pretty it's it's pretty basic but a lot of people not a lot of people a lot of conservatives really don't like this methodology of dealing with things like drugs and sex

because a lot of them come from the perspective of if you talk about it in a way that isn't telling someone not to do it that you're essentially say you suggesting that they should go and do this activity um and it is it's the lines of the idea of giving people information is the same as telling them to do it um which is something that hackers deal with a lot um where information You're simply giving information and information is being like confused with telling people to go do stuff um so anyway so that's that's the scope of the talk and the talk is about physical safety it's about emotional safety intellectual safety and so I was really surprised to hear that

this this was the reaction and I was really really deeply surprised to find out that this had been a campaign for a while to try to get this talk derailed um it really bothered me because they didn't know the contents of the talk and but you could easily see the contents of my other talks um so after it was pulled I wrote One blog post and I wrote One blog post that's on my Tumblr that described what happened it was a very matter effect post and that was pretty much it that was about all I said about it I mean other than face to face with friends and colle things like that I just did the

one post to let people know what had happened to me um and what had happened to my talk because a lot of people had come to see the talk I found out later that the ad initiative had brought a magazine they brought a reporter on a photographer from Marie CLA to the day that my talk was being given and that this act of getting a to P was essentially a big publicity stunt that this organization was doing in order to further the agenda of their of their Outreach and to end ad Mission their magazine and this was really really disturbing to me um as I was finding this out and finding out that it was

going to be coming out the Jun is mar cla a couple of other uh articles started appearing online and the Articles were essentially from the Ada initiative to whichever journalist or writer they were talking to I was never contacted by any of the people who wrote these pieces um and the pieces went up and essentially painted and portrayed my talk as a pro rap talk um and suggested that I was teaching hackers how to rape and that this was a welcome thing in this community and it was absolutely sickening it was it was revolting and I got really kind of depressed because it's so not what I do and it's so not who we are um and eventually when the

Marie Clair article started to come out Marie Clair um wrote the title of my talk wrong and I don't know where that miscommunication came from the only instance of my talk title being the title that they used is their use of the title where they took out the you know plus sign the plus minus sign which was you know it was supposed to be sex plus and plus minus drugs um and they just said that it was sex drugs like it's it's a a pro a r talk and I was like what is going on here so I had this really bizarre sort of smear campaign happening about me and the talk and what really bothered me more than anything

was the way that hacker culture was portrayed um especially in the Marie Clair magazine um it was all these welli color photos it was a five-page article a five page Sprint and it essentially painted hacker culture as a culture that's predominantly male um a culture that turns a blind eye or encourages encourages sexism encourages assault um encourages women as targets and that the women the few women that are in hacker culture are victims that s of need to be saved and this this is a completely Twisted view of the hacker culture that I know and experience especially that I travel to so many hacker conferences and I write about them and and I speak occasionally at them um it just painted

hacker culture is a very vicious place and even called hacker cons like tailes which is just completely offensive and completely wrong so the point that I'm trying to make here is that we have some damage to Route Around and I think that me being asked to come and give this talk here is part of undoing some of the damage that's been done here and I want to kind of talk a little bit about the damage because the mission of the Ada initiative which I I want to read it to you because it's a number of hacker conferences have adopted the the code of conduct that this organization has written and I believe that their stated values are

something that we all share in many ways um it say the Ada initiative supports women in open Tech and culture through activities like producing codes of conduct anti-harassment policies advocating for gender diversity training allies and hosting ad C conferences sounds great right this would be great if it was practiced according to the Ada initiative in any context talking about sex and sexuality is unacceptable in any of these instances Community instances professional instances or the intersection of both and especially talking about sex is inappropriate when there are women in the room and that's that's their line right so it's I mean when genders you're stick it's pretty convenient to remove the very people that talk about

their experience from the conversation right so and also I mean it fors a very offensive notion that women need to be saved or pulled away or you know protected somehow from these difficult and taboo and challenging topics um and somehow couldn't hold our own so they have managed to get their anti-harassment anti anti- sex policy into about 55 conferences um and they have some pretty high named conferences listed on that which is why I think it's important that we have this discussion about about the damage and the potential damage seen r large in what happened with the haer communities in this organization um there the you know their anti-harassment policy is at google.io um it's at where is it I've got it it's

wik media Foundation Linux foundation and the python software Foundation um so really quickly too I should talk about the reactions to what happened after my talk was pulled I got a lot of support from the hacker communities at large and I just again I can't say how much it means um after a decade over a decade of doing this work and doing all this Outreach and talking about all these things and putting up the love [ __ ] for it having so many people go to bat for me meant more than I can ever express um one of the biggest and loudest reactions to what happened but was done so very elegantly was from Bron which is uh it's

the Belgian hacker conference it's September 26 and 27 be there um and they wrote this statement as our anti-harassment policy was based on a sample policy supported by the organization that in our opinion has acted against those exact values we try to encourage we do not feel that we can give the impression to support those actions it is therefore that we are currently working to rewrite our policy from scratch this will be done with help and support from community members of all genders familiar with the matter and familiar with rouon values so instead what they decided to do was take out the policy and ask their Community how do how do we do this how do you want to do

this um what's what's going to be meaningful for you and what's going to work for everybody and I think that that is that's the template that I want to start to begin to encourage here because essentially I think that if Ada initiative really wanted to solve the problems that they're saying they want to address or any organization that wanted to talk about gender issues or sexism and Technology I think that the first step is asking you what the issues are and asking you what goes on here and what you feel that you might need or get suggestions or find out talking to the organizers talking to security finding out what the rate of inces are and

finding out what the community needs and what the community feels is missing and then working toward building something that meets the needs of the community rather than coming in from the outside and applying issues to a community it just doesn't make any sense so so okay so what what's the damage here um what what's the damage that we need to WRA around right now we have had a really super high profile piece go out that has reached millions of readers millions of viewers online um that paints hacker culture in this very very negative light um and there are negative lights that hacker culture doesn't mind being painted in that's for sure um but this one is particularly

inaccurate um it doesn't illustrate who we are it doesn't illustrate how we treat each other and it doesn't illustrate in any way accurately how we learn and gather information and that is particularly upsetting to me um we also have an example of a woman stepping on another woman to get ahead and I think that this is something that outside of hacker culture i it happens a lot especially in the workplace and this is a topic for a whole other talk but I think it's an important topic to bring up and I think that it's something that we don't want in our communities um yeah so when you think about it you know when you think about the pieces and you

know they they circled in you know the donglegate issue and they brought those red the [ __ ] creeper Cards into the conversation as well um oh great I'll get to that a minute um it none of it makes a convincing spell for women in Tech none of it makes a convincing argument for bringing women into technology at all I don't I don't even understand it's this wasn't thought through at all so none of this also encourages any free and open discussion of anything of any any taboo topics any any difficult and challenging topics um and and when you think about the gravity of this you just think there's got to be a better way and I have a few ideas of what those

better ways are and you'll have to pardon me from reading from notes because this this this is really important to me I've been working on this for a while so the extremist feminists that you know a initiative and yeah I'm a writer um and again I'm going to use as an example the red cards and the creeper cards and I'll I'll explain why in a second that there's these are not Solutions oriented approaches to the problems that they're suggesting the reason that I'm I'm not a fan of the red cards to the creeper cards is that they're essentially an anti-h har reduction approach to dealing with the situation um what they do is they blame and shame individuals and

they attack individuals rather than dealing with the behavior because the problem is the Behavior it's not the people and so it's it's it's blaming and shaming and I think that the last thing that hackers need is to be isolated and shamed any further about anything so I I just I'm calling [ __ ] on the righted

[Applause] cards so taking the idea of the red cards what's a solution to that what's the solution to that how about we write and publish something that talks about how not to be creepy I mean why don't we describe what creepy behavior is so that we can even imply it to ourselves right and make sure that we're not doing it so taking that and extrapolating it a little bit what is creepy Behavior creepy behavior is well it's someone who willfully pushes another person's boundaries someone who pushes boundaries that are stated someone that transgresses boundaries and this happens with without knowledge sometimes and so we need to give people an out to understand you know what constitutes boundary Crossing

and what constitutes checking in with people and being able to read other people's boundaries and then on the flip side of that why don't we also write and publish and make public something that talks to people and tells them how to deal with creepy Behavior so rather than going you're a dick I'm going to punch you you're a bad person you know why don't we why don't we come with some more productive Solutions so that people who AR intending to be creepy which is what's happening most of the time um don't end up in a position where they're defensive and shamed and they don't know what they did wrong and they they're not sure what happened

um so please steal these ideas by the way um how about we publish primers on diffusing conflict wouldn't that be helpful in hacker spaces right why don't we publish a primer on bystander intervention bystander intervention being seeing someone that you're wondering if is at risk and learning productive ways to intervene learning productive ways and ways that are effective to diffuse a situation that may be harmful for someone um and also a primer on target non-target status would be really really nice as well understanding what the difference is when someone is living in sort of a targeted world or targeted environment such as being female um where you live in a world and you you know most of the time

especially you know in the outside world you're dealing with people who are assessing you on a value or non-value scale and having to cope with that and having to work around that constantly I think that these things would be really helpful and I think that these would be really protective solutions to these problems um if you know indeed they are problems and it is really up to you the hacker communities to determine if this is something that you want so I think another thing that would be really really great to do would be to talk about the effects of drugs and alcohol on sexuality and on people in general um and you know I mean the number one date

rape thread in the world is alcohol think about it in talking about drugs and sex we can also talk about things like informed consent and we can talk about things like you know moderation all these things that have somehow gotten skipped over in this other conversation this other this other insertion of values into a space that I think is you know hacker culture is is not young but figuring these things out is still in a very young stage so I think that we can take this as an opportunity to do something really exciting and I'm going to dismiss the idea right up front that oh it's a good thing those cards were made or oh it's a

good thing the a initiative did what they did because it got the conversation started I think that's [ __ ] what we're doing is we're routing around damage this conversation was already happening in many ways the fact that I was giving this talk at B last year means that we're already having this conversation you know so anyway so I'm going to talk about sex and drugs but I need to do something here really quick can we how would you like me to do this oh good switch back to my switch to my feet switch to my clock and now you're not up okay okay thanks don't have to reink anything so thank you no problem I'm

[Music] good it's getting changed oh yeah you're good okay thank you thank you so much so let's get to the fun talk so I'm here about to talk about sex and GRS um yes now we do the good stuff so like I said this sex and drugs talk comes from um a history of giving a talk very similar to this this talk has been adapted and it's been changed for this audience and one of the ways in which it's been adapted is that I've taken out some of the other more clinical drugs and I've taken out discussion of hormones and I've taken out talk of specifically drugs that are for sex such as Viagra and things like that and the

reason that I did that was a to trim the time a little bit um and I'm happy to any questions about those topics and and those drugs later um but I wanted to talk about drugs that are specifically used recreationally and in recreational context because that's that's more appropriate for the discussion here um and the way I'm going to begin the talk is we're going to talk about the system functions sexual system functions just to like you guys probably already know a lot of this stuff there's probably some stuff you don't know um but it also kind of once you understand a lot of the system function you really start to understand what the effects of drugs and alcohol are on the

system and I'll I'll explain why in a minute and the way that I'm going to talk about the drugs themselves is sort of an up down horny thing so it's here are the drugs here's what the drug is here's why people do these drugs which again like I said is a very controversial way to talk about the drugs because I'm not going to be like these drugs are awful I'm going to be like people do these drugs because they're fun okay people do these drugs because they like to do it people have sex because it's fun hopefully um people seek sex because it's pleasurable and so like I said that's a very different way of approaching this it's from a harm

reduction perspective again here's harm reduction as well and you see at the bottom in parentheses this talk is actually unchanged from last year the argument is that information or education is the same as advocacy is the exact reason that my talk was pulled from San Francisco B sides so it was especially especially painful for me to have an anti-h har reduction approach have my talk pulled um so as some of you may know harm reduction is practiced in a number of different countries around section drugs one great example is the way that it's done in Holland um where they have basically legalized a lot of the the practices that are illegal in this country in

regard to se and drugs and by doing so what they've been able to do is they've been able to to regulate the use of these things they've been able to make safe spaces for these activities to occur so what they've done is they reded reduce the risks to the individuals reduce the risk to the community by providing places like safe shooting zones and for for heroin and needle exchange so that people can get clean syringes and not be spreading hepatitis and HIV as much as they would um and also sex work as well which is very dangerous when it's criminalized so it's it's had a lot of really really good impacts in a lot of different plac

that's something that unfortunately will never happen in this country at least probably not in our lifetimes but we can at least practice these things in a way that works as individuals and in our community so that we can keep our communi safer and healthier in the long run so how I talk about sex is it's it's from the school of sex positive education that I come from and what does sex positive mean sex positive is essentially a way of talking about sex and sexuality that is non-judgmental it is stress it stresses accurate information um and by being non-judgmental it means that it is not prescriptive it's not telling people what to do it is just telling people how

things are done and describing things to people um sex positive does not mean anything goes one of the nice things about sex positivity is that in the larger conversation sex positivity also accepts and acknowledges the need for boundaries so there's a there's sort of a a misnomer about sex positivity where it's like oh it's everything and it's you know W it's everyone running well but no it's actually about understanding boundaries and understand and and understand that that is part of having like a really hot sex life so I use words like some many and most and the reason for that is that words like all and everyone and all the time are actually inaccurate when it comes to sex

and also this these ideas can be very harmful ideas to introduce when talking to like say our clients on the phon oh everyone has an orgasm that way I mean can you imagine the shame that or embarrassment or or how broken someone feels when when they hear that if that's not working for them so we've we've thrown that out and we use words like some many and most because this makes sense some people orgasm that way many people find that when they orgasm that way this happens things like that um also the perspective I come from is that gender is not binary and this is also another controversial approach um I will for the Talk use standard pronouns for

the sake of familiarity um but don't come from a school that believes that gender is binary and also orientation isn't a binary thing either so if not straight do not equal gay necessarily so just so you know this is one system you may have seen this system before this is this is a it's it's you know in sex said it's so crazy because like all we have are these what we've been doing like with the sex education we've been doing as fa for so long is that we've essentially been teaching a pleasure entric approach to sex which is completely at odds with the rest of what we get at least in the United States which is a reproductive approach to sex

so everything that we have in terms of slides and diagrams and things like that are are reproductive and they don't so all the pleasure Anatomy is left almost out of this image and and I I actually wanted to show you this for a reason because then I can I can fil the ls for you so it's really really fun um so this as you know is the female reproductive Sy system but there's also a pleasure system in here and I'm just going to go up a point that's kind of where the Claris is this is the pubic bone laia this is they don't even have it oh yeah here's the urethra right here so what's

missing is this that goes from the bladder to the urethra that's where urine leaves the body that would be really nice to see don't you think um but this is this is where the the famed G-spot is actually um it is the erectile tissue that surrounds the area that urine leaves the body the urethra and it's also packed with glands that respond pleasurably to stimulation in many cases when a person is aroused and also what's missing from this diagram is all of the erectile tissue that essentially fills a lot of these areas and I'll tell you why that's important but let me show you where it is cu it's not on here the clitoris is

actually a wishbone shape and it goes goes past the opening of the vagina and meets just at the end of the vagina like again I said it's a wishbone it goes all the way back to the perenium here and this entire area this entire area is filled with erectile tissue this erectile tissue is analogous to the erectile tissue that is in vep so what happens when a woman is aroused aroused is that these tissues fill with blood and they engorge and they Swell this swelling may be noticeable be noticeable um part of what happens with that swelling is the swelling um it's the erectile tissue also surrounds uh quite a bit of the barrel of the vagina and it

presses uh blood up against the walls of the vagina which comes through as a clear fluid and that's what creates vaginal lubrication oh laser pointer cool are there any cats are you guys so um oh also um you can see the anus there um at rest it's not a big open thing I'm like what crack are they on when they make these things like like it's all Hollow in there it's not um so unlike the vagina the anus is not self-lubricating um and so what that means is that when people watch you play with it in pleasurable sexual way what they need to do is use a lot of lubricant um and lubricant is also very

very key to having pleasurable anal play as well um one of the things that we say is that if it hurts you're not doing it right um and I'm not doing it right I mean that you're going too fast you're not turned on enough you're not using enough Loop or maybe you just don't want to do that right now so that's about it um so the erectile tissue as I was saying um fills and engorges with blood when this this person with these with this equipment is aroused and what that means is having a healthy cardiovascular system this is blood flow um the diff one of the differences between the two systems in that what gives women the

capacity to have multiple orgasms is that in this system there is no essential shut off cell so in order to maintain an erection blood fills the penis and then the Bel goes click and it keeps it erect until it's done and in this system it fills and empties and fills and empties and this is what gives us the wonderful capacity be able to do orgasms over and over again if we want to or if that's something that we do so also another important thing to keep in mind here as we're going to move forward and talk about sex and drugs really it just has to do with drugs um is that the anus all all of the the muscles around

the anus are what's called smooth muscles and what that means is that um a lot of them most of the the muscles actually around the anus and the spinter are involuntary muscles and so what that means is that sure you can bear down but you actually can't control like voluntarily control the opening and closing um so what that means is and that's also why people get things stuck in there incidentally because it expands and contracts on its own and so it can create a vacuum and this if you're playing with a toy that doesn't have a flared end if you're using lubricant things can get pulled inside um and this is something that we actually do talk

people through on the phone sometimes so uh hint coffee have a cigarette and bear down for a while before you go to the ER so this is the other system that we're talking about today and you're probably familiar with this system as well again this is not this doesn't have everything in it um and also again at rest the anus is not a big cavern that you can toss things into the um the bulb of the penis actually goes quite far back and sometimes goes behind the prostate um and all of that at um the bulb of the penis and all the way down to the tip of the penis the glands um is erectile

tissue as well well so again it's analogous and this fills with blood a healthy cardiovascular system is needed for this thing to function properly same thing goes with the anus it's smooth muscle it's not under control um and a lot of the we can is required in order to use this thing pleasurably um and what else did I want to say oh smooth muscle yes so also smooth muscle is uh parts of penis are smooth muscle and so what this means also is why you can as many presses with your di as you want to you will never be able to bulk this thing up so that tell you you can enlarge a penis are actually

[ __ ] drugs can have side effects and that's what we're going to talk about I'm going to talk about I have them in nice little categories for you actually um and the thing about drugs is that what before I start getting into some of the descriptions I'm going to talk about some of these things may be maybe jarring for people maybe exciting for some people so I want to put this out there now if you want to take a break from the talk feel free to um if you feel uncomfortable at any time definitely feel free to take a walk um it's totally okay to disagree with me it's totally okay to disagree with the

practices that people do um what it's not okay to do during my talks is blame or shame anyone or blame or shame yourselves um also the thing is that people are going to be I'm going to be talking about people using drugs and practicing sex acts that may be at odds with who you are how you feel is right and we're just going to we're just going to talk about it we're going to have questions afterward which by the way is not going to be a personal share time so yes check your judgments is all I'm trying to tell you so check your judgments about drugs check your judgments about what's good sex what's bad sex what are good drugs and what are

bad drugs and um I think that you know you'll find that you'll learn some interesting stuff that's for sure so um not everyone responds to drugs in the same way um people respond in a variety of different ways which is why I'm going to be talking about a lot of these things on a scale um going to start with stimulants which as many of you know shut off shyness and turn up your nervous system um stopping the use of stimulants can cause depression and it can also cause a drop in liido um we're going to talk about these

drugs so let's talk about meth what's great about meth um why do people like it why do people do meth well um it makes you alert um it is a euphoric it is an appetite suppressant um it contributes to weight loss but it also gives you a feeling of invincibility so again it's really good at shutting off shyness what's bad about me well ptosis crack bugs um hallucinations compulsive Behavior paranoia paranoia and suicidal ideation these are all side effects of meth but what does what happens with sex and meth people are going to do meth and people are going to have sex um some people are going to use meth to attempt to heighten sex um the thing is about

meth is that erections can be very difficult to get when you're on meth um and then once you get them they're very difficult to make go away it is very very very difficult to have an orgasm on that so what that's called is orgasmic inhibition and what it does is it it makes it very impossible to reach the summit um however once you do reach the summit it can intensify orgasm which is why some people want to do this um it can delay orgasm which for some people is is a helpful thing um the problem with that however as well is that it can make sex last too long and by too long I mean you can get dry or you can be

having sex and not realiz that you're actually damaging yourself or damaging your skin or needing to use more Lube or hurting your partner or other things so that's what I mean by too long um the condition of getting an erection that won't go away is Cally called Crystal dick um it also calls us something called [ __ ] ejaculation which is easy which is when an a male goes to have an orgasm and instead of the ejaculate coming out the ejaculate is retained and often goes into blad which it is then reabsorbed into the body um but that is that can be very frustrating for some people um it's highly impacted in s and STI transmission and that's

because there's a lot of risk taking associated with math and that risk taking also has to do with having sex um it's it's a it's a good poor impulse control drug Coke is very similar Coke blocks the reup of dine and so this explains a lot of why Coke addicts are crazy Moody um what's great about Coke well Euphoria alertness energy and what some of my colleagues like to call the illusion of Competency so true um what's bad about Coke um besides hanging out with cokeheads most of the time um anxiety paranoia and restlessness are the main main bad things about it um besides the all the other things that go doing amphetamine style powder drugs um before

sex Coke can be fun this is what they say um users feel sexier they feel powerful they feel confident their shyness is decreased again the illusion of Competency um and then there is the global term which is very similar to the other one called cck which is very very similar to Crystal dip where if you can get an erection women if you can get aroused with women it goes away it contributes to dryness in women but with men you can get an erection and it doesn't go away and you can't have or and that's very very frustrating um a sexual use for cocaine is as a topical anesthetic this is not a good idea the

reason it's not a good idea is because it is a numbing agent and so some people have the idea that using it as a numbing agent will help make them last longer will decrease their sensitivity and this may be true however what it does is it it makes it so you are actually numb so you can't feel the skin your own skin therefore you can damage the skin but it also numbs your partner and that means that you and your partner may not know that you need more lubrication for safety you may need to stop or slow down and without enough lubrication when things are going in and out of each other there can be tears um there can be

abrasions and this can increase the likelihood of transmission of viruses and infections as well so you can kind of see the the chain of effect here as it goes nicotine nicotine is on the stimulant list and it does have effects on sexuality the Great thing well nicotine people smoke for all the reasons that people smoke um it it releases adrenaline upon ingestion um it can be a stimulant or a relaxer depending on how much you consume um what's good about cigarette smoking well it's relaxing it's a social drug um it can make you feel like you're coping with anxiety but the funny thing is that actually one of the effects of nicotin is that it

actually increases anxiety so it's kind of a strange circular thing um what's bad about nicotin smells um it speeds up your general intestinal tract a lot like coffee um the long-term use is super problematic to pretty much everything in your body um as you probably know highly highly linked with cancer um and the effects that it has on sex well in terms of smell and taste it can strongly affect the way that a person smells and tastes so if you're the kind of person who's like oh I want to smell good I want to taste good for my partner um nicotine isn't something that will help you do that it will actually you quite bitter um and I mean well you may

already be bitter but you know what I mean so if you want to smell and taste better cut back on the smoking or stop the smoking another thing that smoking does is that um it affects the cardiovascular system in a really interesting way corlar to sex in that um it leads to the hardening of blood muscles and so over time what this can do and this is specifically related to talking about all of that erectile tissue that I mentioned earlier um it specifically affects the erectile tissues so it does lead or is linked to inen men so keep that in mind MDMA um Molly it's a psychoactive amphetamine as a lot of you know what's

great about it what why do people like to do it well it's it's a highly tactile drug it's a very pleasurable drug it gives you an intense desire for contact with other people and it makes you hyp sensitive in a positive way it increases your your hyper sensitive um what's what's negative about it well or partner choices your your skills for assessing Partners kind of goes out the window in a lot of ways um upon stopping a lot of users report depression and a drop in liido and that's a wide widely reported set of responses after stopping especially for heavy users um on on on Molly sex can feel very melty and very floaty uh a lot of people like this um

it can be very delightful actually but orgasm is often difficult if not impossible to reach for a lot of um it can be used in that way to delay orgasm but a significant number of people also find it very frustrating that they can't quite reach the summit um so it can uh yes it can also produce [ __ ] ejaculation that's definitely something you to know um and for some people it intensifies organism ADHD drugs um such as adal and ralin so these drugs specifically um address alertness feeling focused um they may permit the taker to participate in sex for longer periods of time um a side effect is inhibited orgasm so again it can be difficult if not impossible to

reach the summit um longer sex again promotes the risk of decreased lubrication um and micro tears in skin um and again um quite a bit like methamphetamine and a bit like Coke um people may take risks in order to achieve orgasm caffeine F caffeine um decongestants I want to mention decongestants as well um decongestants people obviously take decongestants to decongest themselves um but the one of the acts of decongestant is working on mucous membranes and what it does is it shrinks them and dries them out um and this has the same effect on the sexual membranes so people who take decongestion especially regularly will find that they will want to keep a bottle of loot around a bottle of loop

by the bed for a variety of reasons um it decreases lubrication in general um also decongestion can make you also smell and taste bitter as well so if again something you're thinking about is smelling and tasting better for your partner decongestant could be a culprate um in trying to make yourself smer um caffeine it's an ergonomic Aid um it makes work feel less like work which is why a lot of people really like it um it's also highly addictive uh caffeine's tolerance and dependence increase in tandem just like heroin um it's true um what's great about it is that it makes you alert um it also May uh increase your ability to do athletic tasks what's

bad about caffeine caffeine is insomnia anxiety headaches High likelihood for physical physical dependence as we know um withdrawal can last about a week and that can be massively headachy terrible and make you very cranky um and again like I said tolerance and Independence build in Tandem and that tolerance buils really quickly with c um what does it do with sex well aside from coffee dates coffee dates are kind of an awesome side effect um but the effect is pretty minimal unless you're consuming really really high doses of coffee and by high doses I mean eight or more cups a day and if you're consuming eight or more cups a day of coffee what it does to

your sexuality is that it really makes you smell and taste like coffee and yeah that's true um and also um heavy users uh heavy ma users like eight or more cups a day it can actually uh begin to produce what is called clotted ejaculate I think you know what that

me depressants depressants shut off shyness um they increase muscle relaxation and they turn down your nervous system so opposite High correlations here to sexual dysfunction and these are the guys I'm going to talk about we're going to start with our B alcohol um usually ingested orally can be taken anally this is not a good idea it's not a good idea do you know why it's not a good idea the liver it goes yes it goes it's a much more direct route into the bloodstream so any anything that someone this we're talking about people doing enus with alcohol in them um or enal like things and what that does is it it just it pushes the alcohol directly into

the bloodstream without all of the usual filters that it's supposed to go through or the way that it would go through it's very very harmful on your liver it can increase the toxicity of alcohol and can increase your chances of alcohol poisoning so not a good idea um incidentally um the act of putting alcohol and drugs in enus is called booody buffing U what's good about alcohol well it lowers inhibitions it's a very social drug um um it's a it's something that just relaxes people in general in small quantities um in large quantities or and also bad side effects um it lowers inhibitions which again can be good but can also be bad um mood changes loss of

coordination and muscle control including those needed for sexual functioning so drunk sex is not always good sex it's not always going to be productive sex um in fact alcohol is highly correlated with sexual dysfunction in so so going out and getting drunk and getting laid not going to be so great sometimes most of the time um especially if you get really really drunk you won't be able to get aroused the way that you normally get aroused you won't be able to get aroused the way that you want to be aroused um you may not be able to reach orgasm there's a lot of different things along with the loss of muscle control and sloppiness that comes with it um light

use can make sex fun um because it is an inhibition lower and it is a relaxment um like I said it interfer directions because tissue engorgement um it decreases sensitivity it in inhibits orgasm um and as we all know it leads to poor impulse control when drunk um and so it it may lead to things that you regret doing one of the actions of alcohol is that it also blurs consent and what do I mean by blur's consent what I mean by blur's consent is that consent is unclear or consent becomes unclear or people may say yes when they mean no or people may not may want to say no but they may not know how to at

the time because everything is fuzzy um and that's I think probably part of why it's one of the biggest quote unquote date Ray of drugs is because consent becomes something that is confused and informed consent is something that completely goes out the window with things like drugs and sex and and with alcohol and inform consent in case you guys don't know is essentially letting it's it's when you understand what you're consenting to and you have the ability to say yes or no so if you're dealing with someone who doesn't know what they're saying yes or no to and they may not have the ability to say yes or no consent is blurred consent is questionable um and the way

that you can get around this around it the way that you can deal with this is by obviously checking in with them and you can check in with them in some fairly sexy ways like saying um I would like to do this with you what would you like to do what would you like me to do what would you like to do with me asking them what they want to do because if you say do you want to do this they'll say yes or no they won't say I actually don't think I might want to do something else that's when people are pressured and it's a sexual situation and they're interested in Opportunities and they're

drunk and consent is blurred it can be really really easy to not say what you want so another side effect of alcohol in males is decreased sperm count and also lowers testosterone testosterone is the uh is what makes you want to go f and marijuana pot um what's great about it well it's an analgesic it's an anti-inflammatory it's sedative it's an anti-com it's a laxative and it's an appetite stimulant which is why a number of people who use who are prescribed to drugs for things like HIV AIDS um those drugs tend to really really kill your appetite and po can really help people um in in these instances um what's bad about it well it can increase your heart

rate um it can actually increase anxiety in some cases uh it creates cognitive impairment um and sensory distortions what about with sex well a little similar to Molly it gives you melty floaty sex um it can be highly tactile the sex with pot can be somewhat childlike in some instances it lowers your inhibitions which can be really great for some people um it does give you cotton mouth which also means you have orasis again the usual cautions and dangers around not having enough lubrication are in place here long-term use leads to decreasing testosterone especially in males um decreased testosterone production is a big contributor to moves in case you don't know that those um and it seriously interferes

with sperm mobility and this can last for months so people who are interested in working on fertility are going to want to cut back or stop smoking pop for a couple of months um I I was trying to find for the talk I I haven't been able to find them for a while but on YouTube you used to be able to to find you could just Google Stone sperm and you would find a u microscope slides of comparisons between uh heavy pot smokers sperm and people who don't smoke pot and the sperm were like it's like when you smoke a lot of pot and you go into Safeway and you like can't remember why you went in there and you're like Wonder

around the aisle you're like I think I want a snack this they're like that they're just like and they kind of they go over here and they like oh yeah I want go over here kind so that that kind of explains a lot actually about the decreased fertility part um so yeah heroin heroin heroin uh it's a central nervous system and autonomic nervous system uh suppressant it's depressant uh it affects the endocrine system uh respiratory depression is a side effect um it's a general intestinal tract antispastic um and it is ridiculously addictive as a lot of us probably have heard um what's good about heroin or why do people do heroin because everything stops hurting that is really the best

way to describe the perspective of the heroin user and why they do it and why it's good for them everything stops hurting the world stops hurting what's bad about it um tolerance and dependence happen in tandem um withdrawal is pretty much as bad as imaginable also addicts are horrible to hang around um it's people who get highly addicted to heroin as you probably know we'll do pretty much anything to continue the Habit um everything will be sacrificed as a result in general um there are such things as functional junkies um but they're still dealing with sort of the same uh data set when trying to deal with life um with sex it can start out

as a sex enhancement drug but very very quickly all desire for sex is gone um it is said to produce sleepy but highly tactile sex uh in the short period that sex is good during heroin uh use and addiction um but it quickly becomes an anti-sex drug and then sex is really just only seen as desirable it is a pathway to getting high quicker um also uh with loss of Bido there's inhibited diminished orgasm [ __ ] ejaculation um and like said uh if it's not a quick Pathway to getting high users aren't interested most users see sex as a distraction from getting high um and it can also cause unpleasant spontaneous ejaculation tranquilizers TRS sedatives

analytics hypnotics uh these include benzo dipres verbit sedatives anticonvulsants hypnotics and drugs that induce sleep uh note certain benzos classify as dat rap drugs like rupes and GHB what's good about these well no anxiety um especially great for people who are high anxiety and have bodas Pines prescribed to them or analytics or hypnotics Um this can make life much more functional for people um so yes no more anxiety um they can decrease functional activity in general though uh it does diminish these do diminish irritability um and they elay excitement so this can be as you can imagine very helpful for some people um also people who are too anxious to have sex this may get them in a space are less anxious

about having sex um what's bad is that they may not put you to sleep that's what we taking them for um dependence intolerance go in tandem withdrawal is bad um the loss of inhibitions can be extreme with these drugs uh there's cardiac and respiratory depression uh and combining tranquilizers can be deadly so again yeah anxious people may be more interested in pursuing sex with these drugs and that can be a positive side effect long-term use these drugs drugs can really [ __ ] up your life um it can they can reduce your libido either quickly or gradually um and reduces your physical sexual response in general large doses can lead to sleep inhibited orgasm um and combined with other

depressants create a DAT Rin setting um and I think that GHB is a good one to talk about in that context but also other contexts GHB is a close relative of Gaba that's GMA imun nutric acid your body inhibitory transmitter it can be used as a sleep aid or a recreational intoxicant it is usually consumed as a liquid um what's good about GHB or why do people have an interest in taking GHB it's brief it lasts for about 3 or 4 hours um it's typically considered a pleasant pie that is similar to alcohol but without the hangover um so people can do the whole let's get drunk and rage and then 3 or 4 hours later it's

gone and there's no hangover um there's a lack of anxiety high doses can to sleep uh again it produces the intoxication without the hangover which is what makes this attractive to some people what's bad well it can be a DAT R drug uh when combined with alcohol you will almost certainly almost certainly lose memory of the event um one of the side effects also of GHB is that it increases uh libido it makes you horny so when you combine the increased Lio with alcohol and a drug and the lack of memory you can understand what happens um so that's that's the caution um many users report that GHB makes them horny and so this is often when people will

will want to use this drug or use it in a partner setting or a play setting um some users report combin use with Molly um reports moving past cuddling into [ __ ] so in in thinking in some cases U when we're dealing with clients we'll we'll encounter them combining the two quite a bit so that they can actually do the stuff and a Achi the sex the way that they want to achieve the sex um and that's again goes into all the other cautions with poor partner choices and things like that um antipsychotics antipsychotics specifically schizophrenia Ms like thorine Hil ridol and chloral what these do is they control psychotic symptoms and delusional disorders and hallucinations um

sometimes they are prescribed to remove this sex drive completely what's about these will they enable functioning in daily life for the people who need them uh what's bad is gasia which is manoos um and wak G and again they notorious Libo Killers which is the effect on sexuality although new generations of the medications um don't kill the liido but these are really really hard to get and they're very expensive at this time none of them have gone generic unfortunately so I'll get through euphorian I've got been given the 10 minutes sign but um these May combine stimulant depressant anticho and or hallucinogenic properties your mileage will definitely vary with these so first acid um what's great

about acid acid is a a a synthetic psychedelic drug that creates sensory distortions uh hallucinations mood alterations and delusions it can last 6 to 18 hours and it can be good or bad what's good about LSD hallucinations can be great uh what's bad about LSD hallucinations can be terrible for people um with LSD sex can be sex has been reported as being highly highly Tory or or very sensory um but it can be a very massive orgasmic inhibitor so for some people sex may be fun but again achieving orgasm or reaching the Summit is probably going to be something that's Out Of Reach with mushrooms it's very very similar um hallucinations orgasmic inhibition but possibly with vomiting um and with

masculine it's the same as well but usually with vomiting um ketamine also Special K it's a Veterinary tranquilizer it's a dis aodi of anesthetic like much like nitrous um that is usually injected but can be snorted or eaten what's good about K Pleasant separation of Mind and Body this is what users report um it blocks nerves but it doesn't interfere with respiration or circulatory system so it doesn't have the uh that depressants have the the respiratory system depression which can uh lead to respiratory issues respiratory problems lung infections and things like that um ketamine doesn't have that side effect uh what's bad nausea U many users become immobile or paralyzed but still awake um and this for many people can be

terrifying uh sex not much to report on sex uh in this because sex is difficult to initiate on ketamine uh as one of my colleagues said sex is difficult to initiate in a c nitrous another friend of ours it's a mild anesthetic and it creates delirium and insensibility and what's great about nitrous it lasts all about 20 seconds what's bad about nitrous it lasts all about 20 seconds um it can intensify orgasm but as you can imagine this is difficult to CL poppers not a big drug in this community but a big drug in the community that I live in in San Francisco um this these include Amal amlal nitrate and halant what these do

is they produce a mild Euphoria and smooth muscle dation we talked about smooth muscles earlier uh specifically muscles in the anal sphincter um and what this does is um some of the smooth muscles that line the sphincter and and the internal anal spincter um will relax and so what this can do is this can lead to people being able to have anal sex easier or take larger objects if that's something that they're interested in people want more fullness this is a drug that they'll take to do that um however it does increase uh or decrease your ability to be in touch with what's going on there decreas a little bit of sensation um so sex with this drug is

something that will inform a fairly sophisticated form of consent and negotiation um side effects include uh vessel dilation a drop in blood pressure and a drop in blood pressure means that these drugs can actually be deadly when combined with things like Viagra or people who are taking nitroglycerin for heart problems um also uh Rush is another name for Beal nitrate this is really really bad for you um it's sold as a VCR head cleaner or it used to be um yeah um Amal nitrate is actually used in a in in ER settings um for uh angina because the immediate drop in blood pressure will calm system um yeah combining it with vager will be dangerous and or deadly

duster uh what is duster it's pressurized air that's used to clean as you know all the stuff that we use um it's inhaled it produces sedation uh psychomotor retardation and passing out and it [ __ ] you up so badly and what I mean by that is that it it's it causes um brain damage so it's not a very sexy drug but it is it is a drug that is used nonetheless um I just wanted to include a couple of the uh a couple drugs at the end here that were kind of interesting and used um but may not necessarily apply to this community um Barbie or brotan or uh it's Mel is the the word that it was it was is is

what it was named when it first came out um this is a this is a drug that is a silk red drug and you can get it online um its other name is Barbie um it was developed as a sexual dysfunction drug originally um and it was discontinued because it raises blood pressure so very highly um it is injected um it is purchased for Bitcoins um the interesting side effect of Barbie and the reason that it is called Barbie is that um they realized in studies that is actually some's tanning agent so when you take it you will get horny and tan it is it also contributes to weight loss um this drug is popular in um

transgender communities uh because it makes you lose weight um it makes you feel really horny and really really good because sometimes the effects of taking different hormones can decrease liido and that can be very frustrating for people in in transition um and also uh it makes you tan so and makes people feel sexy sometimes and that is that thank [Applause] you again I apologize for reading notes but I wanted to make sure I got everything questions we have five minutes don't we okay sir yeah I had a question about nicotine and nicotine and marijuana Mar like most the drugs that you mentioned they're only affecting the user because they're taking them there's really no like San to it but we of inhale second

smoke how would that affect some second smoke sexually he's asking about the effects of secondhand smoke with pot users and cigarette smokers yes okay um it's it's very very similar to um if you read anything about the effects of secondhand smoke in general it's going to be very very similar as a corollary so basically it's a it's a very very decreased effect um unless you're hanging out with a very heavy smoker and you're in rooms that are closed and you don't have any ventilation um you will start if if that is the case then you will start to see minimal side effects that are very very similar um second hand smoke with pot users can be more

intoxicating um but that's that's about it so it's the same effects but slightly decreased but there is an effect yes anti-depressants yes um actually I anti-depressants are a much larger section but anti-depressants uh very very similar uh when the first set of anti-depressants came out um they were basically libido killers and a lot of people who were taking depressants when they came out uh were coming to my colleagues and having it was making them more depressed essentially because their libidos were being killed they didn't want to have sex their Partners weren't initiating sex um and so it was this sort of bad recursive cycle a lot of the new drugs that are prescribed for depression uh have overcome this um

these are sort of the better drugs for depression um these are the ones that can be more expensive and harder to get um so that's something to keep in mind if you are going to you know if you're going to take drugs for depression and you want to keep your sex life intact um some of the effects of drugs that are taken for depression are very very similar to um ADHD drugs actually and so what this can do is this can this can need to um decreased ability to achieve orgasm um it can be harder to reach the summit um you can it can prolong sex you may engage in sex for a long time and

then not not be able to conclude sex the way that you want to um and again this may Rec contribute to the symptoms of depression um and all the all the other caveats go with sex that can last too long sometimes so that can be um you know decreased lubrication decreased sensitivity and some risk taking associated with to achieve orgasm oh there's a lot of questions I'm not sure who's next um that was MDMA and Molly okay yeah um I know you said you cut this out of your talk but um you talk a little bit about hor there's a lot actually to talk about there um she's asking about hormones and how hormones can uh correlate the sexual

function yes um so uh birth control pills uh are often what we're talking about but we're also talking about implants um and implants can be the implants that are in the arm or patch or IUD implants that can have hormones in them um it's they're they're in different chemical cocktails as you probably know and some of these chemical cocktails are going to um completely Flatline your sex drive and make sex undesirable not fun something that you don't want or it can increase um it's really something that's tricky and you kind of have to shock a little bit and what really sucks is that you end up becoming your own guinea pig and experimenting on yourself until you find

the right combination that makes you feel okay um because obviously there are other side effects as well but those with taking hormones in different ways um over over amounts or increased amounts of estrogen in general um will help decrease testosterone and so it can reduce desire in many way um it does increase your interest in being quite a bit um over amounts of testosterone will make you just want to go f everything so finding a good balance is is is helpful um you are

next I'm not going to um talk about the brands um and part of the reason I'm not going to about the brands is because I don't want to get any of the names wrong so what I would what I'll be happy to do though is is I'll take all my notes I have separate notes in here about any depressants I'll take my notes and I'll publish them online with my slides and you should be able to get some information in some leads from there I also can't specifically recommend any drugs [Music] so you can yes what are some other good resources to find out more details more factual information like the kind that you've been presenting it's very very

difficult to find information like this um this talk is generally given okay I have to stop M time this talk is generally given in a clinical setting to people who are Healthcare practitioners this information is really really valuable I believe that it should be out there and I believe that it should be shared because I believe it can reduce risk but in terms of finding more research it's very peace meal um a lot of people don't want to take the risk of talking about some drug use because they believe it may encourage people to do it so therefore the risks thank you thank you so much [Applause]