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Recreational drugs
Although recreational drugs obviously are not sex acts in themselves, they still form such a major part of many people's sex lives that we've included them in the A-Z. For a more detailed look at recreational drugs, see Drug use.
There have been various attempts in the past to link HIV infection or the development of AIDS (or of Kaposi's sarcoma in particular) with the use of poppers (amyl or butyl nitrite). However, to date there has been no conclusive evidence either way.
Any drug can be bad for your general health, whether it is alcohol, ecstasy, acid, tobacco, cannabis, cocaine, poppers or heroin (and some of them of course are illegal). This is especially important if you are or think you might be HIV-positive: in general, drugs suppress your resistance to infection, especially from bacteria.
The proven risk is if you inject drugs and share needles (see HIV transmission).
The most common indirect risk from any recreational drugs is that they affect your judgement so you don't realise or care that you are doing unsafe sex. Research suggests this can easily happen.
So remember to keep control. That's often easier said than done. But there are a number of practical arrangements that some people make to help keep to safer sex when they are out of their heads. For instance, you may have decided to use condoms whenever you fuck; but you can remember times when you have ended up so pissed after a night out that you have had unsafe sex.
As one solution to this, some people have found that it is a good idea to leave plenty of condoms lying around in all sorts of obvious places back at home so that they cannot be missed, no matter what.
If you are tripping, for example on ecstasy or acid, this may severely affect your judgement, and not just about safer sex. For example, you may be fisted or violently fucked, but be unaware of any damage done because of your state of mind. It can also be difficult whilst tripping to rationalise safer sex – you might see it as getting in the way of the emotions and physical sensations you are feeling, or to just not matter.
Leave lots of condoms around so that you have fewer excuses. If you are going out to a club, take condoms with you. And if you find you have a continuing problem in practising safer sex whilst on drugs, consider waiting for the trip to die down a little before you fuck, so that you can take control again.
Injecting drugs may also become part of your sex life. Again, in the heat of the moment, or when you are off your head, the temptation can be to share works. If you are going to inject, then either clean out your works before sharing, or keep two sets of works around – one for you, one for your sex partner. Remember also that once you start fucking, you should always use a condom.