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Dear Sasha, I’m a 38-year-old bisexual married man. I’ve always been involved in sexual encounters with both sexes and am pretty comfortable about this situation. However, two years ago, I started using poppers on a regular basis when I have sex with men in saunas or on casual encounters. This has created a certain kind of dependence. While I love the sensation and the vibe it gives, I started to get worried about the consequences of hard popper usage and the need to smell some while being with my unaware wife. I actually feel less effects and I need to smell more and more to feel the same sensation. I tried to get information on the web but I feel that poppers usage is still neglected. I don’t expect you to tell me that it’s difficult to get a mortal dose in one sniff and I shouldn’t be worried about it. I expect you to inform me about the mid- and long-term consequences.
—The Popped
Dear Popped,,
If you want help understanding the long-term side effects of poppers use, I suggest you contact organizations like Canadian AIDS Treatment Information Exchange (catie.ca/eng/Home.shtml) or TRIP Project (tripproject.ca/trip). See if they can’t offer you unbiased information because I’m kind of with comedian Steve Wrigley when he says, “Maybe they call it leather cleaner because it’s for cleaning leather.”
I’m also not so keen on assisting you in continuing to huff upholstery solvents both during trysts and during sex with your unwitting wife. As Lyba Spring from Toronto Public Health put it when I shared your letter, “Bi guy seems more interested in continuing in his substance dependence rather than the possibility of reprogramming his sensual/sexual functioning to enjoy activity without enhancement.”
“In the meantime,” Lyba said, “although he is not asking about this, I feel obliged to put in the following two cents. The more partners one has, the more one is exposed to HSV and HPV, even when using condoms consistently and well (which would surprise me, but pleasantly, in his situation). If he isn’t using condoms for oral sex, that puts him at high risk for syphilis, which in turns substantially increases his risk for HIV. Any untreated infection, like herpes (of which most people are unaware and which is easily contracted through unprotected oral sex) also increases one’s risk for contracting HIV. So, I hate to be a popper pooper, but I hope he is aware of the risk to himself—and his wife.”
Dear Sasha, I’ve been put in the (dis)honourable position of organizing the entertainment for a friend’s stag party. Many of those involved are interested in engaging the services of some ladies of the evening, and the man of the hour doesn’t seem against the idea himself.
I’m on the fence about this. While I believe the night should involve some indecent tomfoolery, I wonder if hookers are taking it a little far. This guy has to get married not two weeks later, and I don’t know if I can stand in his line of grooms and with good conscience look at his wife and keep quiet when the priest asks, “If anyone here has any reason why these two should not be joined in holy matrimony, speak now or forever hold your peace.” I would like your thoughts on this (in)delicate matter.
—Stag Drag
Dear Stag,
I can’t say I don’t have mixed feelings about this shit myself. On the one hand, I support hookers working without criminalization, and moral quandaries should not limit their right to do so.
On the other hand, infidelity? Not a fan. But your friend is a grown man who’ll conduct himself however he sees fit, and if that includes banging hookers two weeks before he’s going to get hitched, well, that’s his decision to make.
Are you going to keep your eye on his intimate behaviour throughout his entire marriage? Probably not, and I’d guess that if a person has no compunction about pre-nuptial hooker banging, he’s not going to have much of a problem with it in the years following the big day.
This doesn’t mean you have to facilitate the transaction. If all the other fellows are so anxious to employ the services of sex professionals for the event, let them do it.
Got any questions for Sasha? E-MAIL: POULEDELUXE@YAHOO.COM
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