'Swingers' Face High STD Risk Thanks To Multiple Drug Use, Unprotected Sex
A group of decidedly un-hip researchers claim to have discovered a connection, for the first time, between swingers, drug use, and sexually transmitted diseases.
"These so-called 'swingers' need to be offered more tailored interventions," reads the press release. They found that nearly 80 percent of people who swap mates on the regular are engaging in so-called recreational drug use, which, according to them, is a predictor of risky sexual behavior, like not using a condom. Among the 289 Dutch swingers they identified, 13 percent of them had chlamydia or gonorrhea. This is not surprising, considering they found their study participants at an STD clinic.
"Drug-using populations are a target for interventions that address the practice of safer sex along with secondary prevention of drug use," the authors wrote in the British Medical Journal. "By dealing with all these items properly, more tailored prevention and enhanced STD screening are likely to produce gains for both individuals and the population (reduced STD burden)."
Among their other noteworthy findings: The average age of self-identified swingers was 49. Nearly half reported using multiple drugs at once, which could have included MDMA (ecstasy), laughing gas, marijuana, poppers, meth, cocaine, and LSD. They didn't count erectile dysfunction drugs, which were prevalent due to the "lengthy sexual acts." Half of them had six or more partners in the previous six months.
One thing stood out in their findings, and they couldn't explain it. The association between drug use during sex and risky sexual behavior was only present in women and in men who had sex with men. There wasn't any link between unsafe sex and drug use for heterosexual men.
But why the association for everyone else? What have drugs got to do with condoms and sexually transmitted diseases? Here's their theory: "Drug use leads to altered mental states or loss of muscle control, decreased sensation of pain, intense sexual desires, and loss of inhibitions." They said the higher threshold for pain makes lacerations more likely, which can offer an easy route for pathogens.
Source: Spauwen LWL, et al. Drug use, sexual risk behaviour and sexually transmitted infections among swingers: a cross-sectional study in The Netherlands. British Medical Journal. 2014.