Conclusion

On a purely visceral level, many of the sensations I experienced on these substances were amazing — some of them even made me oblivious to the presence of my girl. Sex on weed was really quite mind-expanding. By far, it was the best experience and the one I'd most like to try again. It was infinitely more intense than anything else, which came as a surprise, because it seems less demonized by the media and therefore more benign than coke or ecstasy. The only problem is that doing any drug has the potential to make sex a staged experience. (This is where Erica's ex-boyfriend had the advantage over me. He was a career stoner, so when they got down, chances were he was already baked.)

This experiment made me wonder just what the fuck I was doing all those years, while the other kids were smoking everything but their socks and popping E like Tylenol. At the grand age of twenty-six, I can't help feeling a bit suburban and long-in-the-tooth. My peers are either still using drugs occasionally, or else they got over junk the same summer they got over leather jackets with an eight-ball on the back.

Point being, drugs are something almost all of us have dabbled with, used or abused at some time. In the past, I've done drugs just for the sake of being on something, and that's been enough. But using five different substances to enhance a single activity produced the same result: a heightened sense of self-awareness. When you strip away your preconceptions of a drug is "for" (i.e. weed for sex, Ecstasy for dancing), you realize that they way they affect our minds and bodies is, to a large extent, contextual. Ultimately, this experiment made me think of drugs not as a "thrill," a "habit" or an "addiction," but as a condiment. Like applesauce with pork or, say, the Captain with Tennille, sex and drugs can be ideal companions, or simply a nightmare compounded.