By Adhara Star
When discussing cannabis and sexuality we find some contradictions that may lead us to think that the aphrodisiac effect that many people, especially women, associate with cannabis, is merely a subjective notion.
Prohibitionism doesn’t help either, with its tendency for misinformation, in order to erase any historic trace of the use of cannabis, specifically any “indecent” use. The regular user, who’s not a doctor or a sexologist, is forced to approach the use of a substance ignoring its specific effects, in a situation that is not necessarily under control to begin with. Many may argue that they know what to expect, but very often marijuana, its varieties and our own body can surprise us.
Science has plenty to say about this, and even though the debate on masculine fertility includes mention of erectile dysfunction, this is not a problem related in any way to the aphrodisiac effect we’re discussing. The feared erectile dysfunction is something individual. While some men might consider cannabis can help them, others think the exact opposite. But the effect on women seems to be far more generalized, in a demographic and anatomic level. This has a physiological explanation, related to the disposition of adipose tissues and the muscular mass in bodies of one sex or the other. Women have, therefore, more cannabinoid receivers, and maybe in places more related to sexual stimulaton, because these are placed in the fat tissues that they have got in higher proportion.
On top of that, THC is related to progesterone, both activating the same receptors. While THC resembles progesterone, CBD, more abundant in the indica strains, inhibits the enzyme that metabolizes it. Cannabis could be causing the aphrodisiac effect by preventing the reception of progesterone, and saturating the non inhibited receptors with THC, since progesterone regulates women’s libido by reducing it.
It’s not difficult, though, to sense the aphrodisiac wave that cannabis can unleash. If we look at history we find many tales, the ones that survived the attack of dogmatism that this continent has suffered, in which cannabis and sex go hand in hand.
Cannabis has been used in Hindu tradition as an invigorating medicine for millennia. The famous bhang, the psychoactive drink traditionally used, made out of cannabis flowers and leaves, is mentioned in vedic scriptures as a powerful aphrodisiac and libido enhancer. Cannabis was thought to be, according to this tradition, capable of summoning some of those vital energies that eastern wisdom has explored so thoroughly. The use of this plant was respected, in contrast to the case of other psychoactives, for yogi and tantric practices that allow and enhance sexual activity. The flowers and leaves were burned during the practices to prolong the sexual experience and the meditation trance, which were intimately linked.
These practices spread all over the East, while Semitism arrived in the West, with its several dogmatic religions and bringing the fear of those gods that don’t seem to like sex very much. This is the reason why the Eastern and also the Celtic wisdom and their conception of individual liberation, also concerning the body, had to be hidden, reduced to paganism and marginality. And hence witches appeared, making their potions which were supposed to incite love, submission and ecstasy. In that atmosphere of repression, sexuality became an irrefutable reality for those women, who transmitted the recipes for the most libidinous ointments to one another. They made them with cannabis, but also with dangerous datura plants, the amounts of which they controlled with master skills that would have turned an alchemist green with envy. These ointments, applied on feet, armpits and of course, genitals, were able to make them fly, mentally, to the frenzy of witches sabbaths, in which they thought they met Lucifer or unknown men to have sex. The stimulus of the impregnated broom handle against feminine genitalia created the icon image of the witch riding a flying broom.
Even if this doesn’t seem to be an especially sexual practice, but a demon invocation, there’s historical confirmation of the expansion of the ointments use amongst women of all classes and social status, motivated by the search for sexual pleasure that they were being denied and knew they’d find in the coven.
Sex and cannabis have been banned time and time again throughout humanity’s history in such an absurd way that they have been prohibited one because of the other. That’s what happened in the beginning of prohibition in the USA, where the main argument against terrible “marijuana”, apart from absurd racism, was the ability of weed to attract youngsters to sex, especially girls. They had the notion that girls would be, under “reefer madness”, selling their bodies in exchange for weed, and so doing it with undesirable people such as musicians or black men.
For the indoctrinated American, marijuana turned any good family woman into an insatiable sex addict. And now, in the century of sex and pornography, nobody seems to remember this. Or do they?
We could make a pause here to see how in the midst of prohibitionism madness and reactionary thought marijuana has been attacked with arguments as eloquent as that it causes homosexuality. And there actually are statistic studies linking marijuana consumption and sexual orientation. Nevertheless I think that there are too many ambiguous conceptions in these spheres that it’s better to just ignore them. Some of them, because they are clearly stuck inside their cultural context, and others just because they’re plainly stupid (look for evangelical pastors talking about marijuana and you’ll see my point).
Luckily, love became free. And everyday marijuana is a bit freer. Because of its consumption, the possibility of giving it that use again, and because we, women, realize what cannabis can do to us, its aphrodisiacal power is present in our minds and in the market again. In a much more concentrated way, but in a very traditional format. Now you can be a witch too with the cannabis based lubricant, sold in California and Colorado, called Foria. A gel above all suited to women, but with some effect on men as well. It promises to raise the power and duration of women’s orgasms (specifically up to 15 minutes!) and help you enjoy a great session in company or on your own. If you’re sad because you don’t live in one of those wonderful states (where recreational weed, in all its formats, is protected by law), I can only advise you to get yourself some coconut oil and follow the procedure of making cannabis butter but with the coconut as a base. No thanks needed.
And to men: do not be disappointed. Cannabis is linked to the development of more than one woman’s sexuality, but as many of you have experienced, you also have those systems, although not affected to the same level. Also, cannabis is a perfect tool for synchronizing with your partner, for stimulus and approach, and it will turn out to be a great ally to attract them to you regardless of their sex.
Cannabis is no Viagra, nor an instant orgasm. It addresses more subtle sexuality and helps guide it, and sometimes can take us in arms (specially us women) and carry us to a rapture. As a whole generation learned, it helps us make love and not war, and it seems we never forgot that.