Ravers new risky love: mix of Viagra and Ecstasy
September 27th, 2007There’s hardly any male individual who doesn’t know about Viagra in the world. This drug has been successfully used by older men suffering from erectile dysfunction for quite a long time already – but now it is getting more and more popular among young club-goers who mix it with ecstasy to rev up for “the best sex in their lives”.
This mixture is usually referred to as “sextasy” – due to its effect that busts the sexual potential of the person popping it to a truly unprecedented level. However, health professionals are strongly convinced that the usage of sextasy increases the probability of severe heart attacks – and literally slams the door for sexually transmitted diseases wide open.
According to Laura Berman, a widely known sex therapist, the main danger of this mixture lies in the dis-inhibitor nature of ecstasy, which makes the person taking it conduct risky sexual behavior, totally forgetting about all means of prevention in sex. Thus, they get a higher chance of falling victim to the most serious and widespread sexually transmitted diseases, such as HIV, syphilis, herpes and many others. Laura also specified the current risk group – in most cases it will be regular male club-goers (both homo- and heterosexual). Luckily, sextasy is not as popular among teenagers yet, she said.
The Centers for Disease Control HIV Prevention first showed their concern about sextasy about a year ago – by publishing the results of the study that announced the growing popularity of the risky mixtures of Viagra and various club drugs, such as ecstasy, ketamine, amphetamines, GHB, and so-called “poppers”, among gay men and straight drug abusers.
Recent study, carried out by major San Francisco epidemiologist Andrea Kim has revealed another terrifying fact – about 30% of homosexual men observed at sexually transmitted disease clinics, admitted they were using Viagra along with this or that club drug quite often.
The appearance of relatively effective medications used to give relief to a person suffering from AIDS in today’s medical market resulted in many people stopping to use condoms. This dangerous tendency is now picking speed among sextasy users as well.
The reason why most junkie club-goers finally come down to using Viagra is pretty simple – one of the major side effects of ecstasy is its ability to trigger erectile dysfunction, which can be easily treated with Viagra. Looks like a perfect tandem, ain’t it? However, the anatomical damage brought by prolonged erections caused by Viagra is not the only thing that sextasy does to the abuser – Viagra and ecstasy have been proven to interact, triggering critical brain damage in people taking the mixture over an extended period of time.