Sex and Psychedelics Converge in Downtown Denver Convention

"Reclaiming our pleasure is an act of decolonization," Charlotte James, founder of Liberation Training, declared at a panel discussion about sex and psychedelics in downtown Denver. "This is about radical love and finding more of that within ourselves, and finding the way that we extend that out through our communities."

The discussion, hosted at the MAPS Psychedelic Science conference last week, touched on sexual consent during psychedelic experiences and which substances usually work better than others. It drew hundreds of observers as speakers tackled the intersection of two often taboo subjects, psychedelics and sex.

"There's a lot of shame on how we work with these medicines," James said. "There's a lot of shame in what our kinks are. So, how do psychedelics support us in letting go of the shame and exploring our kinks is a beautiful question, and it falls within the spectrum of decolonization and liberation work, because so much of our perception of what is socially and sexually appropriate is conditioned through the white gaze."

Let's Talk About Sex & Psychedelics: Lessons from Kink, BDSM & Healing also featured Monica Cadena, founder of the Sex & Psychedelics Conference as well as law professor Alex Dymock, psychologist Shveta Mittal and psychotherapist Sura Hertzberg, who founded Sex & Psychedelics magazine.

The talk focused on sex and psychedelic drugs and the healing power of each element, but also the dangers and opportunities of bringing those together.

"BDSM [bondage, discipline, sadism, and masochism] can be medicine, right?" Mittal asked the crowd, which audibly agreed. "The embodied liberation that comes in psychedelic spaces and BDSM spaces is really powerful, where we can claim our own pleasure, our own bodies, our own connection with others."
In the psychedelic ecosystem, educators and regulators emphasize the watchwords "go low and go slow," but the panelists said that needs to be re-emphasized. Not only that, but those instructions apply equally to new areas of sex and sensuality one may explore, especially as more people bring psychedelics and sex together, they added.

According to Cadena, the psychedelic space could learn from the BDSM and kink world's conversations about consent and agreements. The panelists talked about different models of consent, like risk-aware consensual kink (RACK), trauma-informed consensual kink (TICK) and personal-responsibility informed consensual kink (PRICK).

Frameworks around consent are even more important when psychedelics are involved.

"You want to leave your partner wanting rather than have crossed the line, and then you're dealing with consent violations," Mittal said. "One of the other big things we talk about in the BDSM community is you don't negotiate in-scene. So if there was something you wanted to do all of a sudden that would be really amazing, but you didn't get to do it, it's okay, you can do it next time."

Mittal noted that it's okay to withdraw consent during the experience — whatever comes off the table stays off, and nothing's added once you're in the experience.

When it comes to the substances themselves, all agreed that while MDMA may sound enticing before sex, it's not the ideal chemical for a sexual experience. "Then you find yourself on the edge of your bed for six hours, talking about how you love each other," Cadena laughed.

Cannabis and low doses of ketamine or LSD were mentioned as introductory suggestions for combining sex with psychedelics. According to Dymock, a combination of 2C-B, GHB and nitrous oxide is currently popular in London, where she is based.

Panelists agreed that if you do mix psychedelics with sex, then you should already have experience with the drug you're taking, and refrain from taking a maximal dose. They also used an expansive definition of sex, noting that you could have a psychedelic sexual experience with yourself, too.

"I define sex as embodied intimacy with ourselves, with our bodies, with other bodies, and with other non-human matter as well," Dymock explained. "There are the expansive versions of having sex with the universe, of having sex with yourself."

Talk about self-love.