Why Crystal Meth is a Popular Sex Drug

Trigger Warning: Drug Use

It's no secret that for many people, sex and drug use are closely intertwined. One increasingly common and dangerously pervasive drug that is rarely discussed openly is none other than crystal meth. I was curious about what its connection was to sex and what enticed users to indulge in the first place, so I decided to interview someone who had firsthand experience. Dallas Bragg went through the complete rigors of a crystal meth discovery, addiction, and eventually, recovery. He was gracious enough to tell me everything I wanted to know. 

As a professional drug safety advocate, I consider myself to be uniquely aware of drugs and their many uses: to party, to focus, to numb physical or emotional pain, as an underhanded method of suicide, to improve one's physique, as a social lubricant, and so on. I would never recommend anyone try any of them unless prescribed by a licensed physician, but if you're going to do them anyway, I’ve come to the conclusion that education on the many varied controlled substances available to us is more helpful than outright condemnation of them all. 

Dallas’s experience might have been different or avoided altogether if he knew exactly what he was getting into. He was naive, he was longing for connection, and he had downloaded an app. “One Sunday morning, on Grindr, this guy said, ‘party boys to the front.’” Dallas spoke to me with a candor that I found to be both educational and endearing. He was glad to be able to tell this story, and it’s clear that he’s told it many times before. 

He continued painting the picture of day one of what would become an addiction. “It's Sunday morning. It's almost afternoon. So I thought, okay, we're going to day-drink. [The person on Grindr] said, ‘we're partying already.’ So I expected like, I don't know, a cookout or something.” Most readers understand “party” (often stylized as parTy) when mentioned in this manner to mean drug use, but Dallas was only three years deep into this lifestyle. As far as gay experiences go, he was still a baby.

He came out at age 36, after marriage, children, and divorce, and had never experienced drugs in any capacity until that day–at age 39. “I knocked on the door and this very handsome, very hot guy [came] to the door in his underwear and I was like, well, I'm here and he's hot, so I'm gonna go in.” Although he was oblivious to what kind of “party” he was walking into, Dallas described the unusual home as a “trap house,” replete with porn playing on TV screens and a sling hanging from the ceiling. He was first given something called GHB–a liquid commonly known as a pacifying date rape drug, before he was taught how to smoke meth itself.

Dallas attributes his compliance in these moments less to the placating effect of a date rape drug, and more to a feeling of acceptance that he felt had been denied to him for his entire life, due to what he called an effeminate nature. “I was lonely. He didn't care what I talked like. He was so into me that he loved everything about me. And this is the first time I got that response. I didn’t know this was because he was high on a sex drug.” Crystal meth is well known to cause “a rapid and large release of dopamine in the brain, which causes feelings of euphoria and pleasure” when smoked. Its prevalence on hookup apps like Grindr started to become a little more clear to me at this point, but I still needed to know specifically what was happening to make drug users associate this particular drug with sex. There had to be a reason that Grindr was where people went for meth, or to find people to use meth with.

I asked more explicitly about the relationship between meth and sex. Dallas laid it out for me. “The two fuse together completely in your brain. So that it instantly burns and etches neural pathways into your brain that if I'm having sex, I'm gonna have meth, or if I do meth, I'm gonna have sex. And it's not only just sex, it's as much sex as possible with as many people as possible.” What started to become clear to me was that crystal likely operated as the guest of honor in “parties” that could go on for days. 

People who enjoy using meth (Dallas noted they were usually very good looking, and not dirty or disheveled as some would assume) likely invite people over to participate in the drug and sex in what becomes a ritualistic weekend activity for everyone involved. This is what happened to Dallas, who at that point was a college professor and marketing executive, and it immediately rerouted his entire life. “It took me all week to recover from those two days,” he recounted. “I had to call out from work. I couldn't sleep for a week, you know, because I had never done any drugs. Meth will keep you up for days if you keep doing it.” While most drugs take time to have any significant impact on your life, it seems crystal meth has the capacity to alter your priorities rather quickly.

We had talked in depth through the beginnings, but I became curious about where that fateful weekend would lead Dallas. “In three years, my car was repossessed, my kids…had to go live with their mom. I was arrested four times for felony drug possession, and then I was finally evicted from my home. I was homeless.” After his fourth and final arrest, Dallas was faced with the difficult decision to either go to prison or submit to treatment at a rehab facility. At the same time, his children, who were teenagers and had become undeniably aware of their father’s drug habit, begged him to stop. 

He obliged, which is why he is able to tell his story today. “After a year and a half of drug court, my charges were dropped, dismissed and expunged. I had reconciled with the kids. We had moved back in. I had them actually full time at that point. And life was so good, I just didn't go back.” He was one of the lucky ones. 

While crystal meth alone doesn’t usually result in an overdose, except when laced with fentanyl, that rerouting of priorities tends to derail users for long periods of their lives. Now, Dallas operates as a sober coach, in an effort to prevent other people from going down the same path he did. His recommendation for people who use meth and want to quit? Start by blocking Grindr, then look him up at www.dallasbragg.com.