Sex, Drugs And Emotional Intimacy?
One man claims hallucinogens brought him closer to love.
Journalist Jesse Kornbluth recently penned a somewhat sappy love letter to hallucinogens on the blog The Good Men Project. In it, Kornbluth thanks marijuana, LSD, peyote, and mescaline for stamping out his early twenties horniness just enough so he could actually focus on the women in bed next to him. Sex is Good for You! Ten Passion Truths
Kornbluth begins the essay (very boldly) by writing: "Everything I know about being a man I learned from women, and especially when we were stoned and in bed, f*****g and/or talking."
Kornbluth's tale is actually pretty normal. A self-described "short, intense, Jewish and not very interested in outdoor sports" type of a guy, who kicks ass in school, goes to Harvard and finds his witticisms and vast knowledge of anti-Vietnam War sentiments score him girls. Oh, and he always knew where the good stuff was, too. That helps. Short Man in Love
But like most college guys, his "needs were too urgent, too desperate" for any kind of emotional intimacy. Until he met peyote, LSD and mescaline, that is.
During these trips, Kornbluth (although admitting he "can’t remember" much of what happened) says he broke down the barriers of his emotionally stunted mind and began to view the pretty young things next to him as "hopeful" "damaged" and just as "scared as I was."
While one could argue that vodka does the same thing in bars across the country, Kornbluth will counter that after dropping acid you can't have sex and "collapse like a drunk into heavy sleep." No. You have to talk.
He outlines one night in 1969 when he visits one of his casual dalliances (a long-legged girl named Janet), and the two eat some mescaline.
I’d never been more present, more responsive, more in synch with every move and emotion. Everything that happened seemed predestined and yet utterly surprising. And the biggest surprise was the love I felt.
While we're touched that Kornbluth hit some sort of drug-induced inner Zen, and yes, everyone knows drugs and their role in talk therapy's history—isn't an arsenal of whacked out chemically (organic or not) experiences just a tad empty?
Isn't there a moment where you shoot a slant-eyed glance at the person next to you and wonder if any of it was real?
What do you think? Can drugs help a relationship?
Discussion
Hind sight tends to be 20-20, but we all know that sometimes (quite often) even that can get skewed and be turned into something more than it really was.
Maybe the drugs helped him curb is young male lust to be more in tune with what the ladies needed, or maybe he already was and he was using the drugs as a crutch because, like most people, he was just too scared to make himself vulnerable in any way.
I don't buy into it. For one, sometimes a person just needs to go through those wild and hard to understand years so that they can have a better grasp on themselves and what they want later on in life. For the second, I really can't believe that any of his feelings or emotions were "true" being that they were coming from a chemically induced state of mind.
But I find it hilarious when people try to rationalize their substance use (or abuse) as having an immediate positive affect on who they are.
ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.
Sometimes people think they've discovered the meaning of life while they're on drugs or alcohol. The only problem is they can't remember it later and whatever they wrote down is gibberish.
I imagine if you could have been there watching, his words and actions weren't quite so impressive. And who wants love that's drug-induced?
