Health

Here's What Marijuana Does to Your Erection

October 6th 2015

For obvious reasons, a lot of stoners want to know how marijuana affects sex. Though people have used pot to boost their libidos for thousands of years, the jury is still out on its effectiveness as an aphrodisiac. But research is ongoing, and new studies have found compelling support for the theory that marijuana is good for your sex drive.

Except for this 2011 study, published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine, which found that marijuana use can have an inhibitory effect on erectile function. Basically, smoking pot doesn't seem to be the best thing for your penis. Even though many users report having enhanced sexual relations after getting high, science shows that men put themselves at risk of "weed dick."

Like "whiskey dick," weed dick refers to the experience of getting to the bedroom only to find that your "joint" won't get an erection. But there are caveats, as Dr. Justin Lehmiller recently wrote in Playboy. Not everyone gets weed dick, and that's probably because it depends upon dosage, strain, and user sensitivity.

RELATED: What Does Marijuana Do To Your Sex Drive?

"If you consume marijuana or alcohol in small quantities, the inhibitory effects on sexual performance tend to be pretty minimal," Lehmiller explained. "In fact, you may actually experience an overall performance boost with low doses due to these drugs lowering inhibitions and stimulating desire."

As far as strains are concerned, there isn't any specific research that indicates whether one kind of pot is better than another for sex. However, since indicas have a relaxing, "body high" effect and sativas have generally stimulating effects, it stands to reason that the latter would be better in bed. Frequent marijuana users might not find this advice helpful though; compared to people who don't smoke at all, daily marijuana users were three times more likely to report having erectile dysfunction, according to one study.

"The accumulated research exploring the effects of marijuana on male sexual functioning is pretty limited," Lehmiller concluded. "While this research suggests that marijuana is likely to be an erection inhibitor, the answer is probably a bit more complicated than this, and we need a lot more hard data (pun fully intended) to understand why different guys report experiencing different sexual effects."

RELATED: What Marijuana Does to Your Metabolism

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