Will pot affect my sexual performance?

— C.J., Revelle College

After taking a few hits, people might not have any qualms about having sex. Since smoking pot makes many people very happy and relaxed, some people believe that using it will enable them to have better sex with fewer inhibitions … or will it?

“When you think about what pot does, you can classify it as a type of central nervous system depressant,” Dr. Brad Buchman, director of clinical services at Student Health Services, said. “Since its initial effects for most people are feelings of calmness, sedation and euphoria, you might feel that a small amount of marijuana might be good for sex, or getting in the mood for sex, but you should realize that it’s effect on sex will be pretty serious — it will actually start to dampen sexual response and function.”

If you’re trying to have sex while stoned, you might be in for some surprises (some of which are pretty embarrassing). Since pot is a depressant, it can drastically diminish your ability to perform in bed.

“It is harder for both men and women to get excited physically while under the influence of pot,” Buchman said. “If a guy gets stoned enough, he might not even be able to get an erection. Or, he might be able to get an erection, have intercourse, but not have an orgasm. The parallel has to be true for females. If you really crank up the dose of pot, you might not even have any sex at all. It is a real possibility that you might just pass out during intercourse. It is hard for you to even feel what is happening to your body. In many cases, you probably won’t even clearly remember what happened the next day.”

So much for “doing it” while high. The upside is that if one partner is stoned enough, hopefully they won’t remember that the other fell asleep midway through intercourse last night anyway. And a guy can only pray that the girl is too stoned to remember the next morning that he couldn’t “get it up.”

Maybe we should learn something from our South American neighbors.

“When I was in college, I went to Brazil with a friend of mine,” Buchman said. “People there rarely smoke pot or drink alcohol. That culture really pushes drug use down; they are really into sex, and they don’t want any suppression of their libido, performance or orgasms. Of course, many people here in the [United] States use pot to relax them and not make them so nervous. It is a cultural part of dating since it does drop people’s inhibitions to a certain extent. True, they might not be as tense, but they should realize that it will have a very negative effect on their sexual performance.”

In a nutshell, that is the reality. All the other added frills like feeling loose are a part of one’s perception, which is also altered by marijuana. Clearly, it is going to impair one’s physiological response to sex at even low doses. It might be wiser to not light up before sex.