Research suggests many potentially positive therapeutic and recreational uses

A new study was recently conducted by University at Buffalo researchers who found that, among their many discoveries, a significant number of participants reported an expanded openness to same-sex experiences.

Daniel J. Kruger of the university’s Department of Community Health and Health Behavior, School of Public Health and Health Professions, led the research, which was published in the Journal of Sex Research. The online survey questioned nearly six hundred individuals on their use of ecstasy, ketamine, LSD, psilocybin-containing mushrooms, and other psychedelics.

Magic carpet ride

Specifically, the participants were queried whether their psychedelic use positively or negatively affected their gender identity, sexuality, or intimate feelings toward others.

In a University of Buffalo interview, Professor Kruger, a research associate professor who studies medical uses of cannabinoids and psychedelics, referred to international clinical trials and anecdotal acocunts of people who report all sorts of emotional benefits from consuming mind-altering drugs, such as “greater self-insight and feeling more connected to other people.”  

A major research question was, “could there be benefits for intimate relationships in the long-term?” 

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The survey explored many other aspects of human sexual behavior and found that 70% of those surveyed said their psychedelic experiences impacted their sexual feelings and behavior. 65% of those respondents reported short-term effects while under the influence and 53% reported extended effects.

“I think the biggest surprise for me was the increase in same-sex attraction,” Professor Kruger continued, “reported by a quarter of women and about one in eight men.”

As Kruger further explained, “A third of those with other gender identities also reported changes.”  He added, “Most people did not experience this, but the fact that so many people did is striking.”

Interstellar Overdrive

Psychedelics may hold promise for treating a host of different sexual conditions or be used to enhance sexual self-awareness, but Kruger reminds us his and his team’s work is just the beginning: 

Psychedelic use may be at an all-time high among young adults, and many older adults are trying psychedelics for the therapeutic benefits. There are huge implications for public health when so many people are using psychedelics. We need to reduce risks and protect people from harm and educate people so they know what they are getting into.

Meanwhile, those interested in furthering the University of Buffalo’s research can participate in a new, wholly anonymous, updated version of their initial survey on sex and psychedelics.

Are you experienced?

Though it looks like magical, mystical aphrodisiacs will likely remain a cliched sexual fantasy—as our reporting on the current more-miss-than-hit state of its development seems to show—perhaps Professor Kruger and his team’s preliminary investigations could get us a smidge closer to one pill that’ll make us not larger but more aroused?

If psychedelics can indeed alter our sexual identities, why shouldn’t it be possible to refine and focus their effects, eventually helping us explore new sexualities, attractions, and gender expressions?  

With, of course, safeguards put firmly in place to prevent their nonconsensual use, as we also covered a short time ago.  While we didn’t mention it at the time, a security solution might lie in biochemistry; like today’s gene-matching medications, tomorrow’s sexually-expanding psychotropics might not do anything at all—unless they were created especially for you.

Likewise, mind and sexuality-expanding drugs could be uniquely formulated to increase what turns us on while decreasing anxiety—or whatever mental applications we might want or need.

Strawberry Fields Forever

Even if love drugs remain frustratingly out of reach, the University at Buffalo team’s work remains amazingly exciting, showing that there are substances that could actually provide us with the keys to unlocking our sexualities: to change what we think of our bodies, our genders, our orientations, or ourselves—not to mention other people’s bodies, genders, sexualities and the limitless ways we’ll be able to intimately, and erotically connect with one another.

After all, psychedelics basically means manifesting a person’s mind or soul, and what better way to remind us that sex isn’t what’s between our legs but what lies between our ears—and like the universe is almost infinite with sensual and emotional possibilities.

Image Sources: Depositphotos

The post Love Is the Drug: Scientists Trip Over Psychedelics and Arousal appeared first on Future of Sex.

Sexual arousal may simply too complex to effectively replicate

The way many sexual technologies seem to be rapidly progressing, there’s a very good chance we’ll see—and enjoy—everything from autonomous, hyper-realistic artificial companions to fully immersive, completely interactive erotic playgrounds.  

And well and good, but it’s looking like one particular legendary sexual fantasy, a substance that’d instantly arouse anyone who consumes it, may forever remain out of reach—or will it?

Turning on the body

University of Michigan Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience Kent Berridge told Popular Science that a dream-come-true aphrodisiac would have to perform the extremely challenging task of stimulating two completely separate areas of the brain.

The first, known for governing a key pleasure-inducing hormone, was long thought to lie in the mesolimbic pathway.  “We all thought that the dopamine system was pleasure, that turning on dopamine would generate pleasure,” Berridge explained.

This is because dopamine can be triggered by external stimuli, with Berridge postulating it’s more of an instigator of sexual arousal rather than the source of it.

So, in order to make our aphrodisiac recipe complete, it would also have to pick up where dopamine leaves off by making sex feel exceptionally good.  

Researchers have determined our brain’s opioid and endocannabinoid neurotransmitters are the actual source of sexual pleasure.

So a truly reliable aphrodisiac would have to hit both cranial sweet spots at the right time, in the right order, with the right dosages to make our fantasy a reality.

Turning on the mind

Not that in the several thousand years of human history, we’ve ever stopped trying.  But the truth is, even after all that time, we’ve never come close to developing a genuine aphrodisiac.

And even while we’ve occasionally appeared to come close, the results have been problematic, to put it mildly.  

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For instance, yohimbine, supposedly derived from an unusually rare plant, might turn a person on at the cost of heart arrhythmia, sleep disruption, and—just what you want in someone whose mind is sexually overclocked—manic behavior.

On the bright side, when it comes to erection-inducing medications, we’ve reached a, excuse the joke, high point.  Not to pour cold water on our aphrodisiac dreams, but sildenafil might take care of the physical, we’ve yet to crack the emotional side of the equation.

Turning on ourselves

Pattern-seeking creatures that we are, we often tend to seek objective solutions—even if what we’ve attempted to understand or solve is purely subjective.

Sexual desire might involve the production and distribution of dopamine in conjunction with neurochemically activating the opioid and endocannabinoid centers of our brains—and, who knows, we someday may formulate a cocktail capable of hitting each in precisely the right way—but there’s no denying the far greater role emotional attraction plays in getting our libidos hot and bothered.

Besides, as we’ve discussed previously, would we truly want a consent-altering drug, medicine, or food?  

Speaking to Time, University of Texas Health Science Center Psychologist Robert Dain compared the concept of an aphrodisiac to chemical assault, saying, “Did you ever notice that typically it’s the male who wants the aphrodisiac—not for himself but his partner?”

Logic and proportion—and responsibility

Steering well clear of the far-too-common, panic-stricken camp of damning a social or technological development, particularly one that may never be possible, let’s not forget that a great deal of good may come from some sort of all-encompassing, proven-effective aphrodisiac.

This includes its possible usefulness as a therapeutic tool in helping process performance or sex-related emotional concerns.  

In the right hands, it may also do what performance-enhancing drugs can’t, that is linking the consumer’s mind with their body—demonstrating sexual fulfillment isn’t repeatedly inserting tab A into slot B but comes when a person is fully present, aware, and, more than anything else, conscious of their and their partner’s needs and desires.

As Robert Dain mentioned, in itself, our seemingly never-ending pursuit of a magical, sexual desire-indulging potion may do more than actually creating it by making us face—and hopefully move beyond—our dark, disturbing need to sexually manipulate other people. 

Image Sources: Depositphotos

The post Don’t Do Anything at All? Facts Suggest Aphrodisiacs Could Remain Just a Fantasy appeared first on Future of Sex.

What’ll happen when arousal–consensual or not–comes in a bottle?

For many people, the idea of food, prescribed medicine, or illicit drugs capable of supercharging sexual arousal remains—despite evidence to the contrary—a surprisingly persistent personal and even a cultural erotic fantasy.

But what if this dream of a genuine bone-fide aphrodisiac becomes an undeniable fact, and more importantly, are we as prepared for how it might–positively or negatively—alter human sexuality as well as society as a whole?

One makes you larger; one makes you small

Before looking forward, let’s review what we know—which isn’t much—about aphrodisiacs, including what they are and what they aren’t.

For example, while researchers have documented a variety of inhibition lowering, or, in some cases, minor sexual desire-increasing compounds like yohimbine, cannabis, testosterone, and alcohol, no one’s found or successfully produced what most would consider a true aphrodisiac.

The truth is that when they seem to work, they actually don’t. As WebMD puts it, “Research shows that when it comes to aphrodisiacs, it’s mostly in our heads—they work if we think they will.”

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But what about pheromones? You know, those chemicals our bodies supposedly secrete when sufficiently aroused and when smelled by others turn us on as well.

Though perfume manufacturers would like you to believe otherwise, the scientific community remains skeptical, as this Science article says, “Researchers have shown that human sweat, when dabbed on a woman’s upper lip, can synchronize menstrual cycles, but they have not isolated the compound responsible, and no one has chemically identified pheromones in humans.”

Besides, even if we somehow could produce sex pheromones, we still lack the biology to detect them, i.e., a vomeronasal organ, which explains why many of our fellow mammals get aroused by them, but we can’t. 

Purple pills

That said, today’s persistent myth may soon be tomorrow’s reality, compliments of genetic engineering used to formulate extremely effective, person-specific medications.

While maybe not satisfying our fantasies of a one-size-fits-all love drug, these could be ideal for those with libido-decreasing illnesses or performance-affecting emotional concerns. 

Given enough time, we might eventually know enough about how human sexuality physiologically functions to produce something akin to a universal aphrodisiac.

Want a new drug?

A potential breakthrough that would undoubtedly put many smiles on an equal number of faces begs the question: Will we—personally and as a global society—be ready for it?

Imagine the nightmarish impact date-rape drugs like Rohypnol have already caused, with the added horror of victims being unable to control their sexual responses.  

Plus, unlike Rohypnol, state-of-the-art libido enhancers would leave their memories intact.  Unless, of course, things get much worse by combining the two into one monstrous cocktail.

In the sky with diamonds

An upside to this upsetting scenario may come through the development of a counter-agent, less a libido suppressant than a preventative, that would chemically block next-gen aphrodisiacs from driving us non-consensually wild.

In a similar vein, we might give ourselves a set of physical or mental triggers, letting us activate or deactivate a host of desire-boosting drugs by thinking particularly sexy thoughts or tapping an implanted control.

Tie these technologies into virtual or augmented reality, perhaps moderated or supplemented by AI, and tomorrow’s adult entertainment wouldn’t need to be hyper-realistic to drive us wild.  

Do the same with artificial companions, like fitting them with desire-raising synthetic sweat glands or semi-organic components, and they would look, feel, taste, and smell as good if not better than a flesh-and-blood lover.

Also, consider not how but what tomorrow’s arousal-stimulating drugs may or may not affect, especially in light of how human sexuality isn’t currently or is likely to ever be easily defined.  

From a person’s orientation to their gender expression, fetishes to objectum sexuality, asexuals to allosexuals, we’ll probably never be able to create anything with the capacity to permanently or temporarily modify everything we are or will be.

Which we all should agree is a good thing, for though choosing when and how we’re aroused may reveal exciting new vistas of sexual exploration and discovery, we must always ensure the control rests in our hands and no one else’s.

Image Sources: Depositphotos

The post Taste of Honey or Bitter Pill: Bleeding Edge Aphrodisiacs Raise Serious Social, Sexual Concerns appeared first on Future of Sex.