Quite a few queers are attracted to chemsex because of how the different drugs contribute to removing anxiety and inhibitions, and how the drugs prolong endurance, intensify the different forms of pleasures, as well as reduce the experience of pain.

For those of us enjoying combining chemsex and BDSM, the motivation can be just that the drugs help the user with pushing their limits, and that they endure more pain. In addition, the drugs can turn experiences that in a sober condition is experienced as painful or not positive, to be experienced as something pleasurable.

The qualities that are experienced as an added bonus can at the same time entail risks. The drugs effect making you able to endure more pain can at the same time entail that you do not recognize your body`s signals that it is time to stop. Conscious use of drugs to lessen your inhibitions, can heighten the risk that you uncritically explore some things you were not ready to explore.

The different drug’s ability to enhance positive emotions and experiences, such as pleasure and joy, can also enhance negative emotions. Such as fair, anxiety and panic.

Balance

Drugs and alcohol can cause issues with your balance. This is especially important to be aware of when doing BDSM activities where falling is already a risk factor.

When we fall forwards, we instinctively use our hands to catch ourselves. If you fall forward without being able to catch yourself, you can experience severe injury to your face and head. When someone’s hands are tied, they lose that ability, which is especially problematic if they are intoxicated.

In addition to the ropes, or similar, the drugs effect in themselves can slow down your reflexes ability to make you catch yourself if you fall.

If the submissive participant is intoxicated and the dominant demands that they stand in a challenging position over time, it is important to be aware of challenges connected to balance.

If the dominant drags or pushes the submissive be aware of the risks of falling, especially if the submissive is intoxicated.

Also, be careful when combining BDSM and chemsex if you are standing on slippery surfaces, like in the shower or bathtub.

When someone is high or drunk it can be hard to maintain the same coordination and bodily control that one normally has. Things might seem farther away than they really are, it can be hard to control the strength or speed one uses and eye to hand coordination may lessen as well.

When doing impact play - like spanking or whipping someone - it is extremely important to ask yourself questions like: Do you know how hard you are hitting? Are you sure that you are hitting only the places that are safe? Are you sure that you are able to control the tool that you are using?

If you or your partner is high or drunk, try to be mindful of these things:

• Avoid any impact play in vulnerable areas. That includes hitting someone close to their joints, like elbows or knees, as well as avoiding the face and unprotected softer areas of the body like the stomach or genitals.
• Generally, the safest area to hit is the ass. Keep your spanking to someone’s butt, and you have a large area where it is hard to hit in ways that can cause serious harm.
• Avoid using implements that are hard to manage when you are intoxicated. Sticks and canes that are long are harder to use than ones that are shorter. If you want to use tools, the safer options are hairbrushes, small paddles or short and easily manageable canes.
• There is no safer implement than simply using your hands. Hands are safe, painful, and yet easy to control.
• Choose a position where hitting is easy, such as over the lap, with the submissive lying face down on a bed or bent over.

Just because something feels fine at the beginning of a session does not mean it will continue to be experienced as fine. The different drug’s ability to enhance positive emotions and experiences, such as pleasure and joy, can also enhance negative emotions. Such as fair, anxiety and panic.

• Avoid complicated knots that are hard to untie if the submissive gets scared or gets panics. If the submissive panics this can also make the dominant part stress, making it harder for them to untie the knots.
• An alternative to complicated knots can be to use handcuffs or carabins. Be careful to always have control over where the keys are and have them readily available.
• Always have a medical scissor available to cut your partner loose.

One of the bonuses with taking certain drugs is that they can make you to feel less pain than usual. But this can also make you ignore your body’s natural signals that something is wrong!

• As a dominant, don’t assume that a bottom will be able to tell when you are hitting too hard.
• Taking downers, like GHB/GBL, can make the user drift in and out of consciousness. This drowsiness can be a part of what the user enjoy, but can also give obvious challenges when it comes to being able to consent.
• As the dominant you must therefore use common sense and do regular check-ins. That’s means asking your partner how they are doing. Don`t ask simple “yes” and “no” questions but ask questions that forces the submissive to think before they answer.

This is a way for you to evaluate the submissive ability actually to make a consent.

• Make it a habit to do a mental check in on your own body: “Can I still feel my fingers okay?”, “Can I bend my joints/does it hurt when I do?”, “Is the knots too tight?”.
• If you are the dominant and have tied the hands of your submissive, and they are at the same time intoxicated, make them squeeze your finger! If they can’t do that it means the knots are tied too tight, no matter what they say.

Being intoxicated and doing intense activities such as sex, makes you loose a lot of fluids. Either through sweating or because the drugs make you piss a lot. Make it a part of the game to drink water regularly. Sports drinks or a Resorb tablet (can be bought without prescription at Norwegian pharmacies) helps you keep a balance of fluids.

• Using a straw enables you to get the bottom and submissive drinking no matter the position they are in.
• You don’t need to leave character to get your submissive to drink water. If they are comfortable with this, force them to drink. Humiliate or punish if they don’t, and reward if they do.
• Give yourself and your partner opportunities to pee. Seriously.
• Overheating: as a submissive, it is important to check in with your dominant. Especially during intense play like impact play, overheating can happen. Give the active part an opportunity to take a break and cool down.

Some users are motivated to take drugs while having sex because the drugs effect can help us put away inhibitions, we otherwise experience hold us back from exploring our sexuality. At the same time there is a risk we can be caried away by the intensity of the drugs effects. Some drugs are known for making the user less critical and prone to take more risks. It is therefore smart to involve all participants before you start playing, in discussing what your limits are, and how long you are willing to push your limits.

Also, reflect a bit on how all participants will handle it if you go further then planed.

Negotiations of where once boundaries are and using a safe word, is useful tools chemsex-participants can learn from BDSM communities. Submissive masochists can enjoy being inflicted pain upon, and crying can be a form om emotional release that is sought after. “No” can therefore be a part of the sexual play.

A safe word is when you, before you start playing, decide on a word that all participants agree on is the sign to “stop”. This way you avoid confusions. The word chosen can be far from a sexual word and that completely breaks with the sexual vibe in the room. Chemfriendly have been talking to chemsex-participants who have engaged in BDSM-sex without using a safe word. And although this can work out all right, we have been told that the dominant can leave the situation with a sense of doubt that can be hard on their mental health. Not to mention that as the dominant you may end up actually violating someone boundaries because you were not able to distinguish between a “no” meant as a part of a roleplay, and an actual “no”.

• Use Safe words. Unless the submissive part says, that “no means no”. If you have not talked about this beforehand. Always respect that no means no.

It is important to know when you took the different doses of the different drugs, to avoid overdosing. This is particularly important when using GHB, know for being hard to dose right, and where redosing always should happen according to the right time intervals. Be aware that taking drugs can change your experience of time. Set an alarm on your mobile phone. Also useful for remembering to take your medications.

Certain drugs are known for making the user mor empathic, while others are known to make the user less empathetic.

• If you as an active and dominant top knows that taking certain drugs make you less empathic, clarify this with the submissive before you start playing. Ensure that the submissive knows their boundaries and are able to communicate their boundaries.
• If in doubt, stop. Also, the most sober participants have limits. One of these can be not wanting to play with someone who is perceived as to high. Stopping right then and there does not mean you are stopping for good – normalize taking breaks.

Many chemsex-participants combine sex and drugs because they are looking for more intense experiences and because they want to explore pushing their limits. The different drug’s ability to enhance positive emotions and experiences, such as pleasure and joy, can also enhance negative emotions. Such as fair, anxiety and panic. Chems can also contribute to your brain going on overdrive producing negative thoughts and catastrophe-thoughts.

This is just as true for the dominant as for the submissive participant (s). The dominant can fear having gone too far.

• We therefore repeat the advice of doing regular check-ins. The submissive should also check in with their dominant partner. This can clear out insecurities underway.
• If the fear and anxiety get intense, talk to each other! Both during the session, but also while taking breaks or after you are done with the chemsex.

The days after you have done chems it is normal to experience a negative thought processes, anxieties and paranoia. This is due to a chemical reaction in your brain: Taking the drugs makes the brain release a whole lot of neurotransmitters, which gives the effect of intoxication/feeling high. After this release the brain needs some time to normalize its production of the neurotransmitters. During this period, it is common to feel down and that you become overly self-critical. If you go around with doubt around what happened during the chemsex, this can be mentally challenging.

• Talk to your sexual partners after the chemsex sessions. About both the good and not-so-good experiences. This helps you to constructively challenge your over-negative thought processes, anxieties and paranoia.

With overdoses, overheating, drug induced psychosis, or other situations that is not as they should be, call 113. In Norway the police does NOT automatically show up with the ambulance, and the ambulance is there to help. The ambulance people are bound by confidentiality.