“Is this about pleasure or psychosis?”

Last night I attended the ACT Community Forum: Sex Pigs at the 519. Sometimes my face went completely red. Other times I giggled like a little kid. All of the time though was spent engaged and curious. Just what turn this conversation would take next.

“Pig sex has NO connection.”

Sex pigs like to fuck. They also like to talk. Picking up on a trend in the community, ACT put this event together, creating a space, safe for dialogue. They simply provided an open floor while recognizing it’s not up to any of us to figure out the WHY, there is value in discussing the WHAT.

“You do the things you do because you ARE so emotionally engaged.”

One of the panelists – a self-defined sex pig -  can remember hearing the term SEX PIG for the first time at the Mineshaft in NYC for the crowning of Mr. Pig 1980. 30 years later there is a group of men over 30 embracing identity and defining a happening sexual movement in our culture. The diversity in opinion was staggering as was the judgmental slant revealed on all sides. People want to own/understand/define their slice of a series of margins.

“You CAN have a meaningful intimate pig relationship.”

Eloquently and passionately described by the panel of pigs, raunch covers smells, fluids and their exchange, engaging in a shared fetishism of things that come out of the body. Pig sex would include these things but also provide the action and opportunity for someone who wanted MORE (or less?).

“Why do we call it PIG SEX?”

What is more? A greater commitment to intensified energy shared and expended, literal and theoretical intimacy, role play, condom-less sex (inferred by the use of words like uninhibited, open minded and abandon etc.)

“Pig sex to me CAN be suck and fuck.”

Wrapping it up (tongue firmly planted in cheek), of course this rap session did raise questions and commentary on safety and sex addiction, kink, clean/dirty, stigma et al. One inevitably is left asking: is this sex piggery healthy?

Health is self-determined and based on varied circumstance and belief in connection to how you feel, what you see, what you know and what you have been told.

So, IS pig sex healthy?

You be the judge of that.

InterACTion: A partnership between the AIDS Committee of Toronto and GayGuideToronto.Com to promote frank discussion about topical issues relevant to the queer community between people who wouldn’t normally talk about it. Adult content.

Sex. Drugs.
Love, lust and everything in between.
HIV and STIs.
Bars, baths and beyond.
Tell us what you think as we discuss a wide range of issues relevant to the health of gay men.
Don’t just sit there – InterACT!

There’s a worm in my cocaine?

Hey party people. A public health warning has gone out that levamisole has been showing up in cocaine increasingly in the last few years, since at least 2002. It’s being found in “most” cocaine in North America (some reports are saying 90% of all cocaine and crack).

Among other hard-to-pronounce things, Levamisole is an immunomodulator. That means it reduces the white blood cells in your body. It is used to de-worm livestock and fish. Yum.

So what the heck is it doing in my powder?

The fact that there’s junk in your drugs isn’t anything new. There’s always been stuff cut with drugs. Cocaine has been cut with everything from acetaminophen (Aspirin) to methylphenidate (Ritalin). We are living in an era where E and MDMA no longer mean the same thing.  You could even say it’s normal for cocaine to have some adverse side-effects from the adulterants themselves, or the interaction between them and cocaine, ranging from stomach upset to having to run to the bathroom. Bump dump anyone? There is no clear answer as to why levamisole is the adulterant-of-choice at present.

However, many of the symptoms from Levamisole are very specific and kind of freaky: high fever; chills; lung infections; sores inside your butt and mouth (that won’t go away); and mystery bruises that appear on hands, feet and ears.

Because it’s an illegal drug and there is stigma around cocaine use, folks aren’t telling their doctors. Some people have been misdiagnosed. The correct diagnosis is called agranulocytosis, a blood disorder that kills off white blood cells needed for proper immune system function. It can be treated if diagnosed properly. If left untreated, it can worsen and even cause death. It’s critical that folks are honest with their health care providers for it to be treated properly.

Can you tell if your powder has Levamisole in it? Not unless you show symptoms – and not everyone does. There isn’t enough data on why this is. The lab procedures and standards needed to study a sample are inaccessible to the general public and the fact that it’s illegal make this sort of research study very hard to conduct even in a lab setting.

Within the research community there are different numbers coming out of different reports as to just how much levamisole is in what percentage of coke and how many people present symptoms. Some of it is exaggerated, some of it more accurate. Not everyone who is using coke is getting sick. Some people are.

Without consistent findings, we must turn to you, dear readers. Community knowledge is the cornerstone of harm reduction, after all.

• What are YOU experiencing?
• What side-affects have your or your friends experienced?
• What could this mean for guys who are POZ if levamisole attacks the body’s immune system?
• If it is in as much cocaine as some are saying, what can we do to reduce the harm from this wormy de-worming agent?

For more information, you can check out Levamicoke – a new campaign started by the Toronto Research Group on Drug Use. You can check it out at mobilerevolutions.org/Levamicoke/.

Blow it out your ass or up your nose, and don’t share your straws, bitches!

Chill.

InterACTion:

Sex. Drugs.
Love, lust and everything in between.
HIV and STIs.
Bars, baths and beyond.
Tell us what you think as we discuss a wide range of issues relevant to the health of gay men.
Don’t just sit there – InterACT!

InterACTion: A partnership between the AIDS Committee of Toronto and GayGuideToronto.Com to promote frank discussion about topical issues relevant to the queer community between people who wouldn’t normally talk about it. Adult content.

I always thought sex pigs were guys who liked to have sex.  Lots of it.  Guys like me who really enjoyed their sex, and embraced it with gusto and passion.  Turns out I was wrong!  According to a recent article in XTRA! sex pigs are gay men who engage in risky behaviors like drug use, bare backing and even (gasp) fetishizing body fluids.

Lets get real.

Not using protection is a no brainer.  Of course, that’s risky.  In fact, it’s high risk for anyone when it comes to fucking. Drug use?  Using drugs is not a risk factor for HIV.  It’s activities that are risky, not the mere fact of taking drugs or alcohol.  Lots of guys use responsibly.  And then fetishizing body fluids.   Are they kidding?  So it turns me on to imagine receiving cum up my ass, but I don’t engage in that activity, because I know it’s risky.  I fetishize it, but I don’t actually do it.

How is that a “risky behavior?”  It isn’t.

It is a creative way of acknowledging and integrating that it’s hot to think about.I’m tired of all the pathologizing that goes on around our sex.  I’m tired of the judgments.

Are you?

Maybe we just know how to enhance pleasure?

Do you consider yourself to be a sex pig?

What’s your take on sex pigs anyway?

Are we all irresponsible risk-taking fiends?