Cannabis can improve a couple’s sex life, says a St. Louis doctor, but it’s vitally important to keep the dosing just right, Global News is reporting.
St. Louis gynecologist Becky Kaufman Lynn says that she’s been getting patients asking her if cannabis can improve things in the bedroom for them (Missouri recently legalized medical marijuana). But Lynn didn’t have any answers for them; with cannabis for decades having been considered a Class I controlled substance (no medical benefit), there’s scant research on it at all, let alone on how it affects users sexually.
“They would ask me about it, and I would say, ‘I don’t know what to tell you.’”
Still, anecdotally, she says that her patients were reporting good results from mixing cannabis and sex. Some said that their libidos were heightened. Others let go of their inhibitions. Women who had been experiencing painful intercourse said their pain was gone when they smoked cannabis.
Lynn, who also teaches at Saint Louis University Medical School, did what any proper researcher would do: she started a study at her clinic. And the results, which you can read in Lynn’s report in the Journal of Sexual Medicine, are in.
Of the patients who admitted to using cannabis before sex, two thirds said that it made the experience more pleasurable.
“The majority of women [who said that they mixed sex and cannabis] said that the sexual experience was improved, orgasms were improved, the libido was improved, pain was improved.”
But Why Though?
Dr. Lynn isn’t exactly sure, nor is anyone else for that matter. Best she can figure, cannabis lowers anxiety and stress and gives users more confidence in their abilities. Cannabis has also been known for centuries to have pain-fighting properties. Lynn also thinks that since cannabis can affect users’ perception of time, it enhances the experience.
California-based sex educator Ashley Manta agrees, anecdotally, with Dr. Lynn’s findings.
“I’ve also found it to enhance sensory perception. Tactile sensations feel different when I’m high than they do when I’m not.”
But You Have To Get The Dosing Right
This is one thing that Dr. Lynn wants her patients and her readers to take away from her research: mixing cannabis and sex works great for some users, but the wrong dose can throw everything out the window.
That’s because if you use too much, you’re basically going to move into what she calls “couch lock” – basically, too stoned to move, let alone perform sexually. Go too much higher and you could get paranoid and have a bad reaction.
To that end, she suggests “micro dosing,” starting perhaps with an edible that delivers 2.5 mg of THC (the psychoactive ingredient in cannabis). That way, patients can start small and build up until they find a dose that works for them.
And above all else, if you’re going to use cannabis (and put yourself and your partner into an altered mental state) before sex, make absolutely sure that you have consent before and during.
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