Sex, Ecstasy and The Psychedelic Drugs

History records few human quests as unremitting or as widespread as the search for a harmless, effective sex stimulant. Recent claims--such as those made by Timothy Leary--that LSD is the greatest aphrodisiac known to man have excited much interest in the sexual potential of psychedelic drugs. Sober discussion of psychedelic substances was difficult enough before sex entered the picture; now it is close to impossible. But bearing in mind that there is a great deal more to psychedelics than sex, it might clear the air to examine the effects of lysergic acid diethylamide--and several other psychedelic drugs--on human sexual behavior.

Along with the comparatively new synthetic psychedelics, including LSD and psilocybin, there are similar mind-altering substances present in many forms of plant life. Some of these have been used for hundreds and even thousands of years. Examples are the peyote cactus, the Cannabis hemp plant, the opium poppy and several varieties of mushrooms and morning-glory plants. Most have been linked in one way or another with sex.

Whether opium--probably Homer's nepenthe--should be considered a psychedelic drug is largely a matter of semantics. Some would-be authorities exclude all addictive drugs, including opium, from the class of psychedelics. However, opium does produce effects similar to those produced by nonaddictive psychedelics, and among these are sexual effects that merit consideration.

Prolonged use of opium results in mental and physical deterioration, including impotence. However, before it takes its toll, the drug can powerfully and pleasurably enhance sexual experience. No one has described the specific sexual effects of opium as well as the 19th Century French Army surgeon and anthropologist Jacobus Sutor, who authored numerous sexological studies under the pseudonym Jacobus X. "According to my personal experience," wrote Jacobus, "and from avowals made to me by many women, both Europeans and Asiatics, the effects produced by opium in moderate doses, say from 10 to 20 pipes, are as follows: Under the influence of erotic excitement, either direct or merely mental, an erection is quickly produced, if you want to copulate. But--and this has never been remarked by any other author--although the penis is in a stiff erection, its nerves, and more particularly those of the glans, are anesthetized by the effects of opium, and though the erection is strong, the emission, on the contrary, is much retarded and takes place only after prolonged copulation. This anesthetic effect is also produced in the nerves of the vulva, the vagina and the rectum of the woman, and the 'physiological moment' arrives slowly. The constrictor muscles of the vagina, and especially those of the rectum, undergo a kind of relaxation." He goes on to say that, with larger doses, more than 15 or 20 pipes, erection becomes incomplete; and with 30 or 40 pipes, it is absent altogether.

Jacobus' remarks also apply to peyote, to the LSD-type synthetics and, to a lesser degree, to marijuana. Those under the influence of these drugs describe the mild surface anesthesia, if that is what it is, as a feeling of "rubberiness" that affects the penis, the female genitals and also sometimes the mouth, the breasts, the fingers and other body areas. It is by no means an unpleasant sensation; often it is described as heightening feelings of voluptuousness. Along with this rubbery sensation, the genitals, if excited, are felt to be engorged to an unusual degree.

At least as ancient as opium is the hemp plant (Cannabis sativa or Cannabis indica). When used as a drug, it is called marijuana, hashish and a great many other names. Scientific reports on the sexual effects of marijuana are conflicting. For example, the toxicologist Erich Hesse (Narcotics and Drug Addiction) tells us that marijuana and hashish produce no sexual stimulation whatever; but another physician-author, Bernard Finch (Passport to Paradise), declares that "After several inhalations, a feeling of sexual excitement develops and the smoker is able to improve his sexual performance, in that erection is stronger and more persistent, but orgasm is depressed and usually does not take place."

I could provide a great many more conflicting "authoritative" statements on this matter, although Finch is the only writer I know who suggests that marijuana by itself produces a condition of sexual excitation. He also is the only one to say that orgasm "usually" does not take place.

From many other times and places, we also have claims that hemp is an aphrodisiac--and other claims that it is an anaphrodisiac, an inhibitor of desire or of potency. But whichever way they lean, the authors of these claims are relying on personal predilection, on very limited interview data or on the verdict of some favorite "authority" who has already made similar errors. We find the same conflicting evidence from "experts" writing about the sexual effects of peyote or LSD.

Anyone who has carefully studied psychoactive drugs should know that many different effects are possible, depending on personal, cultural or immediate situational factors--which are often crucial in determining drug-state behavior. With marijuana and other psychedelics, people who are sexually stimulated may find that their stimulation is greater than usual and that their capacity to respond has been heightened. Others find themselves totally indifferent, such as the writer Théophile Gautier, who took some hashish and generalized that "a hashish user would not lift a finger for the most beautiful maiden in Verona." The same individual may find that he is greatly aroused on one occasion and unexcited on the next. Or his mind may experience desire while his body is unable to act in concert with it.

Some cultures place great faith in the aphrodisiacal effects of hemp; and in those cultures, the drug often does function as an aphrodisiac--producing sexual excitation, enhancing potency and pleasure and prolonging sexual intercourse. Among Arabs, for example, there is a vast lore of the effectiveness of hemp in maintaining an erection--the prolongation of the sex act being almost an obsession with some Moslems. A famous poem on this subject begins:

The member of Abu'l-Haylukh remained

In erection for 30 days, sustained

By smoking hashish.

Abu'l-Hayjeh deflowered in one night

Eighty virgins in a rigid rite

After smoking hashish.

The poem goes on to describe still more impressive feats of sexual athleticism; but underlying its characteristic Arab hyperbole is some solid fact--hemp can, indeed, prolong an erection. Besides the mild anesthesia described by Jacobus, the male, with marijuana, may feel that his erect organ is bigger and more rigid than ordinarily. Sometimes, as happens with LSD and peyote, too, orgasm does not occur at all, which causes him no great distress, since he feels that this is a small price to pay for the pleasure he has enjoyed and the impression he has made on his partner. She is similarly affected by the drug and may be especially aware of the engorgement of her clitoris. When copulation does not lead to orgasm, both partners still may achieve it by vigorous masturbation.

My own data regarding the contemporary use of marijuana in this country--in terms of its sexual effects--reflect the conflict in the literature. Individual testimonials describe both sexual successes and sexual failures. Overall, it appears that up to now, marijuana has been about as likely to impair as to improve sexual performance. However, growing acceptance of the drug may be making the latter effect the more common. Much can depend on the user's intention. Some prostitutes smoke marijuana to eliminate genital sensation--while at the same time they give the weed to a customer to help him become more stimulated. In this case, it probably works for the male because it makes him more responsive to the suggestion that he will be potent--and simultaneously it may reduce his inhibitions or anxieties.

It should also be noted, however, that sexual effects may relate to the potency of the drug. The strength of hemp products can depend on many things--where the hemp is grown, how it is harvested and prepared and how it is consumed. From one country to the next, or among regions of a country, there are great differences in the potency of the plants. As to consumption, it is believed that smoking gives the strongest effect, by altering the chemical composition of the drug. Research in these areas is now under way, but results are still inconclusive. The eventual findings may explain to some extent the different responses among marijuana smokers. But individual psychology will still be a major factor.

At its best, most marijuana consumed in the U. S. is a mild psychedelic drug, affording what is rarely more than a pallid approximation of the experiences possible with LSD and peyote. The effects of these two on sexual intercourse are virtually identical, and a statement about LSD may be understood to apply just as well to peyote--and probably to other LSD-type psychochemicals, such as mescaline and psilocybin.

I compiled my data on the sexual effects of psychedelic drugs in a series of interviews, mostly "in depth," beginning in 1954 and continuing today. My information is based on more than 300 drug-state sexual experiences on the part of 94 (continued on page 148)Psycheoelic Drugs(continued from page 96) persons, about two thirds of them males. Nineteen homosexual experiences are included. The interview subjects were almost all college graduates from middle-class white Protestant backgrounds. Most of them took the psychedelic drugs outside any formal research or therapeutic context and then reported their experiences to me.

In other words, I did not study the effects of psychedelics on sex in the laboratory, as sexual intercourse has been so fruitfully studied by William Masters and Virginia Johnson in St. Louis. My firsthand research with psychedelic drugs--which was largely concerned with matters other than sex--has now been abruptly ended by laws prohibiting almost all research in this area. But I did obtain, in the sessions I guided personally, some material significant to understanding psychosexual disorders. It was surprising how often these disorders seemed grounded in problems of values or, specifically, in low self-esteem. Nowhere can values be so quickly and drastically changed as in LSD sessions. In several instances, discussed below, persons with sexual problems showed noticeable improvement after their LSD sessions--quite a remarkable occurrence, inasmuch as the sessions were intended as research and therapeutic results were not expected.

• • •

To determine whether psychedelic drugs are, indeed, aphrodisiacs, we must first determine what we mean by an aphrodisiac. If we mean that the drugs specifically excite the sexual organs, then psychedelics are not aphrodisiacs. If we mean that they produce or encourage sexual desire, again they are not aphrodisiacs. But if we mean that the drugs can profoundly enhance the quality of sexual acts that occur between people who would, in any case, have had intercourse, then the drugs are aphrodisiacs, and my only objection to the term in this context is that it will continue to be misused by psychedelic or sexual extremists.

Drug-state phenomena that occur during a sex act occur in other drug-state contexts, too. The most common are changes in sensory perception, in awareness of time, in the state of the ego, in one's relations to others and in the emotions generally. In fact, these changes affect whatever one does, whether it be listening to music, walking through a forest--or making love.

The positive effects of LSD in love-making can best be appreciated by describing a hypothetical sexual act between husband-and-wife lovers--or between single lovers, should that seem more adventurous. I will not, however, hypothesize a casual erotic encounter between two near strangers, because such an encounter would be less likely to produce so favorable an experience. A strong emotional bond, or at least very positive feelings for the partner, is much more likely to yield the richest, most intense and most ecstatic experience.

People rarely have sexual intercourse at the very start of a psychedelic trip. First, as the perceptual changes occur and as consciousness is altered in other ways, they need to orient themselves in this new world. In my sample, this was true no matter how many previous LSD experiences they might have shared. Typically, when there is sexual intercourse, it occurs at least one hour and usually several hours after the onset of the psychedelic effects.

When the two people are longtime lovers, they may feel, in the drug state, an emotional closeness as intense as they felt in the early, most emotion-charged stages of being in love. Since visual perception is highly responsive to the emotions, each partner may take on an appearance of extraordinary radiance and beauty. Communication may seem multileveled, with a greatly heightened sensitivity to nuances of meaning--in gestures, caresses and words as well. If this couple decides to make love, they will bring this heightened sensitivity to their union, and their desire and the act itself may be suffused with the same powerful positive emotion--and with the same beauty--that has been present in their perceptions.

As foreplay and intercourse increase their excitement, the couple will become aware of the genital sensations described by Jacobus. The man may feel that his erection is larger and more firm and his potency greater than it has ever been before, heightening his confidence, producing a greater sense of total genital arousal and increasing his capacity to respond. Anxiety about the duration of the act will very quickly disappear. The couple will feel that their lovemaking will last just as long as they want it to last, so that time no longer matters. In the more profound experiences, there may be a sense of timelessness--of the eternal.

Several elements combine to produce these novel and extremely pleasurable awarenesses of time. For one thing, intercourse almost always does last much longer in terms of the clock. This is probably because of the mildly anesthetized state of the sexual organs--although the term "anesthesia" seems strikingly inappropriate in describing these very intense sensations. Moreover, diminished inhibitions soon produce a self-confidence and spontaneity that help reduce concern about the duration of the act. Finally, there is the distortion--or "slowing down"--of time that is a usual and important aspect of the psychedelic state. This distortion (a term that is technically correct but fails to convey its positive qualities) of subjective time is experienced because the mental processes have been enormously accelerated. So much may be experienced in a few minutes of clock-measured time that the person typically declares that "hours" or sometimes "eons" seem to have passed. A sexual union that in fact lasts 30 minutes or an hour may seem "endless" or to have "the flavor of eternity." Love-making that lasts for several hours is not too infrequent.

The sexual union gathers ever more meaning and beauty as it progresses. It may even take on symbolic and archetypal overtones. The couple may feel that they are mythic, legendary or more-than-human figures as they act out in a timeless and beneficent space the eternally recurring drama of love and creation. The feeling of being more than human does not indicate grandiosity but, rather, that one has transcended the ordinary boundaries of self, the limits of time and space, so that something more, some infusion of the divine or supernatural, must have occurred. This awareness is accompanied by profound feelings of security, tenderness, humility and gratitude. Sometimes only one partner will enjoy this transcendental experience, but with surprising frequency the feelings are shared.

When sexual union includes altered states of consciousness such as these, it is properly described as ecstatic. It may progress to include one or even several instances of apparent physical and psychic melting into and becoming one with the partner. Whether this occurs in a sexual union or in a mystical context, or in a combination of the two, it is almost always regarded as one of the most profound and fulfilling experiences human life has to offer. The one that the two become is a unity much greater than its components. Religiously devout or mystically inclined people may have the sense of a unity that is also a trinity, with God present in the oneness. In any case, an experience of this order can hardly be dismissed as "sexual mysticism"--a term sneeringly used by some of the more rabid opponents of psychedelic experimentation. Nor can it be tossed away with some labels from psychopathology, such as "ego dissolution" and "depersonalization." It can be one of the most beautiful and important experiences in life.

In view of all that has gone before, the orgasm--when it arrives--may seem something of an anticlimactic climax. Some people, in this orgasm-happy society, learn for the first time how much more there can be to sex than the brief intensity of the climax--and how much their past sexual experience has been (continued on page 223)Psycheoelic Drugs(continued from page 148) impoverished by the urgent and infantile drive toward orgasm that is so prevalent in Western societies.

However, the orgasm, too, is "psychedelic"--that is, magnified or intensified. Time distortion can greatly prolong it, and there is an awareness of the whole process from beginning to end, in far greater detail. Men very often report sensations of gathering tension, concentration of energy and then an extremely acute awareness of the spasmodic propulsion of the ejaculate, which is plainly and very pleasurably felt as it travels along the urethra and is ejected into the vagina of the partner. At the same time, there is a greatly intensified awareness of the genital organs of the partner: their texture, temperature and movement. Some women for the first time become keenly aware of the pulsations of the male organ as climax begins--and of the ejaculate as they receive it.

Orgasm is often experienced on two levels. It is the most intensely erotic aspect of the act, as consciousness seems totally absorbed in the orgasmic sensations. And yet there seems also to be another consciousness, which does not dilute but rather reinforces the genital consciousness. This is the sense of attaining the beautiful climax of a beautiful experience.

Remarkably, in view of the richness of the experience, throughout these unions there is an undiminished and sometimes greatly intensified awareness of the partner. One does not lapse into a selfish and exclusive preoccupation with the components of ecstasy.

In almost 25 percent of the sexual acts I recorded, one or both partners did not reach orgasm. This was nothing new for most of the women: but for some of the men, it was a novel experience. Typically, however, the absence of orgasm was not a disappointment. The act itself was so fulfilling that the attitude was: Who cares whether there was an orgasm? This, too, can be a valuable experience for those women who seldom climax in their ordinary lovemaking. It teaches them that even without orgasm, sex can provide remarkable fulfillment.

Under the influence of psychedelics, the anorgasmic woman can experience great joy in intercourse and derive gratification from conferring just as much joy on her partner. If this lesson were learned and applied to all intercourse, many people--both male and female-- would be better off for it. It is worth noting that at least some have learned it through psychedelic experimentation.

The foregoing description was of a maximal drug-state sexual experience. Slightly more than half of my heterosexual subjects reported extraordinary unions resembling or approaching this at least once. The frequency probably would have been lower with younger or with less intelligent individuals, because richness of personality is a key factor in determining the richness of the psychedelic experience. An earned capacity for appreciating the complex and profound must already exist.

My intention here is not to promote the haphazard and now illegal use of psychedelic drugs--with or without sexual intercourse. But it is only realistic to admit that many thousands of people are taking psychochemicals without screening or adequate guidance. Of these, a good many are also experimenting with sex. It seems best that they be informed about possibilities beyond "kicks" and trivia, so that they can explore the many valuable aspects of an experience that might otherwise be wasted.

My research indicates that homosexuals in psychedelic states enjoy profound, ecstatic sexual experiences with less frequency--and less intensity--than their heterosexual counterparts. Female homosexuals seem more likely to have profound sexual experiences than male homosexuals. The very practical matter of the positioning of the bodies appears to provide a partial explanation. The ecstatic experience seems more likely to occur when one faces the partner while the act is being performed. Social attitudes toward homosexuality, as well as the homosexual's typical guilt and low self-esteem, may also be deterrents. In the drug state, homosexual acts are usually specifically erotic and less invested with other positive meaning. However, the physical pleasure of genital. oral and anal sensations is enhanced, just as with heterosexuals.

Claims that LSD-state sexual intercourse can "cure" homosexuality and frigidity may lead to enormous disappointment--and possibly serious harm-- to psychosexually disturbed people, who have enough problems already. Under the influence of psychedelics, a failure to function as promised might cause a powerful reinforcement of existing disorders, making any cure more difficult.

Nor is it invariably, or even frequently, true that, in the words of Timothy Leary, a "neurological and cellular fidelity" develops between two persons who have had sexual relations during an LSD experience. The notion is poetic but inaccurate. Even the most beautiful drug-state sexual unions do not always guarantee change in a previous relationship. Leary's devotees sometimes tell me, with what sometimes seems more hope than conviction, that Leary speaks a "private language," the better to convey his ineffable truths. However, the fact is that he is taken literally by a great many people. He has said, for instance, that "in a carefully prepared, loving LSD session, a woman will inevitably have several hundred orgasms." I have yet to hear from anyone else a single instance remotely approximating this: and I feel rather confident that if it had been happening with any frequency, the world would not have had to wait for Leary to announce it.

While LSD can hardly be considered a panacea for sexual disorders, it does hold promise of becoming an extremely valuable tool in treating these and many other problems. And it will become even more valuable when therapists stop regarding it as just an adjunct to their old procedures and develop psychedelic therapies permitting them to make full use of the great wealth of phenomena available.

Scientific literature on psychedelics includes hundreds of reports of successful treatment, even with the old procedures, for such disturbances as homosexuality, frigidity, impotence, fetishism and even transvestism, one of the most difficult to treat of all sexual deviations. Good progress in these areas has been made in England, and it is certainly unfortunate that psychotherapists in this country are legally unable to work extensively with psychedelics.

Some homosexuals, for instance, as part of their low self-esteem, have a distorted body image. They think they are ugly or deformed when they are not, and may believe that they have an abnormally small penis--when they actually have a normal one. In LSD sessions I recorded, the body image of homosexuals sometimes became normalized, heightening self-esteem and producing definite trends toward heterosexualization. Here, homosexuality seemed based mainly on values --not on some long-past traumatic experience. In any case, heterosexualization could occur without any trauma being dealt with. However, when there was no subsequent therapy, the subjects' homosexuality returned within a few months after their LSD sessions were over.

Some men with potency problems decided in their LSD sessions that their sexual organs were not too small and afterward their potency improved, sometimes permanently. A frigid woman discovered that an "inner voice" had been calling her a "fake" and an "unworthy person." The voice ordinarily talked to her "on some level below consciousness"; but in her LSD session, she heard it clearly and she was able to refute it just as clearly. After freeing herself from this voice, she felt she no longer had to punish herself by denying herself sexual pleasure. Her frigidity soon was overcome--and had not reappeared almost four years later.

The therapeutic value of LSD is by no means limited to sexual disorders. Alcoholics intractable to all previous therapies have quit drinking or become much improved after treatment with psychedelics. Cure and improvement rates range anywhere from 25 to 75 percent, and some of the studies have been very well controlled. In other areas, previously withdrawn, schizophrenic children improved when psychedelics were administered. Given the questionable value of some approved psychotherpies, it is a wonder that public outcry has not demanded increased use of psychedelics in the areas where their promise seems so great.

Possibly such a demand is now discouraged by recent evidence linking the use of LSD to chromosomal abnormalities. This charge must be considered in proper perspective. The fact is that no one, at the present time, can say how important any LSD-caused chromosomal damage may be. We do know that rather similar chromosomal changes are produced by many products now widely used--caffeine (in coffee and cola drinks), alcohol, antibiotics and a wide range of drugs about which no such furor has been raised. Live measles vaccine, in particular, quickly produces chromosomal breaks. We know, too, that LSD has now been in use for a quarter of a century, apparently without causing cancer or deformed infants--the two main specters with which chromosomal damage of this kind seems to confront us. Moreover, the U.S. Government continues to sponsor a few LSD therapy projects, so Government scientists must not feel the risks are too great. The sensible position must be to weigh LSD's value against possible, but not demonstrated, dangers. The evidence is sufficient to warrant withholding LSD from pregnant females.

This may also be the place to mention briefly a new psychedelic substance. STP. STP is yet more potent than LSD, producing effects that may continue for days. It also produces far more bad trips and more frequent aftereffects. The chemical analysis of STP indicates similarities to mescaline and the amphetamines, but a more refined analysis is needed.

Cases brought to my attention include aftereffects such as partial amnesia, frightening perceptual changes and recurring states of panic. One man, for example, weeks later, left his head alternately growing to the size of a watermelon and shrinking to the dimensions of a pea. It is too soon too say whether these sensation will be permanent. No one I have talked with appears to have had sexual intercourse under STP. For those persons, at least, the experience was much too overwhelming. Neither does it seem likely at this point that STP will have much value for research or therapy. Pending further information, the best advice is to leave the drug alone.

With STP, we may be witnessing the unhappy result of too many unscientific medical pronouncements combined with too many scare stories about psychedelic drugs. A number of physicians have greatly exaggerated the dangers of the old psychedelics--and even of marijuana. Now, with a drug that seems to be much more dangerous, these "scientists" have forged a credibility gap that prevents many people--especially those in the psychedelic underground--from taking their claims seriously. Warnings about STP from physicians have been much less effective than those voiced by the underground press. The medical profession should consider this lesson and perhaps profit by it. More psychedelics will be created and some will almost certainly be very dangerous. Disaster could ensue unless scientists manage to regain the confidence of the public.

In the case of LSD and the "milder" psychedelics, the chances of unfortunate results can be reduced by following a few basic precautions. Since psychedelic experience can magnify tendencies in one-self, in others and in the surroundings, psychedelics should not be taken in an environment that will threaten or displease. When this precaution is ignored, there can be bad trips--whether or not intercourse is a part of the experience.

Sexologists always urge a pleasant setting for intercourse--as well as a partner one respects and relates to positively. This becomes even more important when the couple has taken psychedelics. With LSD, a drab, dirty room that might ordinarily be ignored can become a filthy, sordid pesthole, and this perception of the room can saturate the total experience. Similarly, sex with a person about whom one has negative feelings can become, with LSD, an experience of extreme revulsion--with guilt, depression or anxiety as a result. In two cases I know of, males took LSD, picked up prostitutes and had very bad trips. Both men, of course, had basically negative feelings about prostitutes and these emerged in a much heightened form during the sexual act.

Both men were initially aroused, but soon began to feel degraded and then powerfully repelled by the situation. One felt that the woman's body was coated with "a dirty, poisonous substance" that rubbed off on his own body and infected him. He managed to get her out of the room, was near panic for a long while and, after the effects of the LSD had worn off, he went into a depression that lasted for some days. In fact, his perception may not have been completely imaginative, since he contracted gonorrhea as a result of this contact. In the other case, the male found the girl becoming more and more ugly as he looked at her. Then the room became similarly ugly. He became nauseous, then was overwhelmed by feelings of guilt about his "prejudice." That the man was white and Jewish and the woman Negro made the situation especially complicated and charged with emotion.

With LSD, some people may become aware of what they feel are opposite-sex components of their personality. This they interpret as evidence that they are homosexual. Some males with effeminate tendencies, who strongly suppress their effeminacy, have felt they were undergoing a physical sex change. Their bodies seemed to have female breasts and genitalia. Understandably, this kind of experience, too, can lead to anxiety and depression. And afterward, the person may believe that his "true personality" was revealed.

One should never regard drug-state experiences as necessarily more revealing than other types of experience. With LSD-type drugs, what might be a passing and easily dismissed idea can become a prolonged and vivid mental event. But this doesn't mean that it necessarily has greater validity than the passing idea would have had ordinarily. Such phenomena are best regarded as drug-state curiosities that will not affect the normal personality and behavior.

When negative perceptions or emotions occur, and if they last long enough to be distressing, it is best not to analyze them. Try to get interested in something else, Psychedelic veterans have learned to do this. Similarly, it's often easy to divert the partner, should his or her distress become obvious. This might be done with an especially interesting or amusing remark or by telling the other person how much pleasure he or she is giving. If, as ought to be the case, the two people are lovers or good friends, then it is likely that they will know how to help each other, should the need arise. For this reason, too, psychedelic experience is not a desirable arena for casual sex between comparative strangers.

Spontaneous changes in visual perception may also provide very pleasant experiences. One man, for example, related that his girlfriend changed as he held her in his arms, first to Helen of Troy, then to Cleopatra, then in successive metamorphoses to yet other women, so that he quickly "made love to all the famous beauties of history." After a while, the girl resumed her own appearance, although her beauty was greatly heightened, and he "thought her no less lovely than any of the others and appreciated very much her part in providing such a great experience."

There are a host of similar erotic phenomena that sometimes occur in the psychedelic state. These might seem trivial and self-indulgent compared with the transcendence of the ecstatic union, but they are interesting, nonetheless. For many people, for instance, it is possible to "genitalize" almost any part of the body, by consciously transferring the response capacity from the sexual organs to some other part, such as a finger. Rubbing one's finger against a fabric can provide sensations akin to those experienced in masturbation. A couple might even genitalize the lips and mouth, so that kissing affords sensations very much like those usually experienced in mouth-genital contacts or in sexual intercourse.

One man, who had taken a large dose of LSD (about 500 micrograms), found himself unable to obtain an erection, despite much assistance from his partner. Abandoning the effort, they lay side by side. Suddenly, he became aware of his entire body as "one great, erect penis." "The world," he said, "was my vagina and I had a sense of moving in and out of it, with intense sexual sensations."

A few research subjects have reported similar erotic sensations from listening to music. One man reported "the sexualization of my entire body as I listened to Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony. The music washed over every inch of my body, giving sexual sensations like those of a very intense orgasm. The pleasure became so intense as to be unendurable. I had to shut off the phonograph. I wondered at every instant if I would not have a real ejaculation." In a subsequent LSD experience, he responded to the same recording in the same way. No other music produced the phenomenon, and he never learned why the Pastoral should have such an effect. With another subject, any symphonic music produced strong sexual sensations.

When males see vivid images or visions, they almost always include beautiful nudes, with Balinese dancing girls and other Orientals appearing frequently. Drug-state visions in America are shot through with this predilection for the East--in architectural and religious imagery as well as in nudes. But just as women are less interested than men in erotic art, so do they have less erotic imagery.

The aftereffects of drug-state sex can be of very great value, though often the results don't last. As an immediate aftermath of a good sexual experience under LSD, some couples report an over-all improvement in their relationship--and a specific improvement in their sex life. Frequently, a portion of the drug-state perception of the woman's greatly heightened beauty carries over, so that she continues to appear more attractive. Sometimes, with psychedelics, inhibitions fall away, allowing people to engage in sexual practices that are normal and that had been desired, but which inhibition prevented. Extensive caressing of the genitals and mouth-genital stimulation are frequent examples. Breaking through such blocks can be permanent. Especially among married couples, who had largely ceased to attract each other sexually, there can be a reactivation of old desires and emotions. Most of these beneficial aftereffects are lost in days, weeks or months, but they can be retained --or possibly reactivated by another LSD session--if they are regarded as important enough to be worth preserving.

Because ecstatic union is so rich an experience and may have very positive effects on a relationship, it is obviously desirable that it occur and be repeated. This is possible without psychedelics, but the necessary changes in consciousness occur more readily when they have first been experienced in LSD-type states. After LSD, memories and pathways in the nervous system have been strongly established and can be explored again more easily.

To take some terminology from the theologians, we have been busy for a long while "demythologizing" sexual intercourse--divesting it of a sense of sin and a necessary connection with procreation. But a totally demythologized sex can be mechanical, vapid and banal if it remains without larger significance. Ecstatic sexual experience may be the new and valuable "remythologizing" agent. With and without psychedelic drugs, we may be able to invest the sexual union with new beauty and meaning.