Sex, drugs, and rock 'n’ roll are the ultimate hedonistic three-way, a celebratory “fuck you” to the world of conformity and control. Not with meth, though. Rather than freedom or even rebellion, meth is submission, a desperate plea to “fuck me.” You submit to meth, and you’d better like it. As for the music, meth is opera, but all the players are skinny. Most people think meth is something like a fast-paced music video with vertigo-inducing hand-held camerawork and thumping techno or driving drum and bass. These may well be—and often are—on the soundtrack for meth, but if you listen, really listen, to the original cast recording, you will hear the overwrought lament of the aria and the occasional roaring crescendo of the lovers’ confrontation. All of it, however, will be tone-deaf and off-tempo and sung over and over and over. As for that vertigo, well, that’s just the peculiar and involuntary choreography of meth’s opera, which, by the way, is a traveling company of one. The fact that tweakers tend to congregate only adds to the operatic nature of meth: intense, melodramatic, and interminable. I am not a fan of opera, though I did have a dazzling run on the stage.
Sex is the theater where meth plays out its opera. Meth induces an intense, obsessive desire; sex becomes both its motive and ultimate means of expression. I suppose that sex is somehow bound up with every drug, except maybe heroin. For the junkies I know, sex couldn’t happen even if they wanted it to. They could care less. So if meth is opera, then heroin would have to be film. Heroin, like film, doesn’t care if you talk during the show, if you get up and walk out, or even if you throw things at it. Both heroin and film are completely self-involved and indifferent to the world around them. Meth aspires to be film, specifically porn, but, of course, it needs its theater, feeding off the attention and the drama. The audience is a necessary, if hated, component of this opera: “Stop looking at me!” But as soon as you turn away, the singing and dancing will only get more grandiose: it wants you back. Ahhh, the paradoxes of paranoia.
So let’s get back to the sex—the dirty, nasty, raunchy, piggish sex. But don’t get too excited yet. With meth, you always want to get back to the sex, but there are just so many distractions. Meth is all drama and no climax. That goes especially for the sex. When you arrive at a typical meth sex party for a little PnP fun, you generally find anywhere from three to five guys already there. Everybody is naked, but nobody is going at it. Your host is probably cleaning the kitchen or still in the shower, where’s he’s been for at least the last hour. Someone is endlessly texting someone, either trying to get him to come over or get invited elsewhere. The others are transfixed by their computers. They’re online ostensibly trying to lure others to the orgy, but they’re really just gossiping: “No, not him; he steals.” “Yeah, he might have looked like that ten years ago…” There might also be someone stationed by the window, staring out at nothing in particular. That was usually me. I’d like to say I was looking for something better or wishing I were elsewhere, but I was more than likely just stuck. This is the setting you encounter upon entering the stage. After your eyes adjust to the fetid semi-darkness, you’ll want to leave, but then you think about the effort it took to make it here at all and that you’re really horny and… Someone hands you a pipe, so you guess you’ll stay. Everybody’s waiting for the dealer to come with more. He’ll be here in twenty minutes. Somebody offers to re-install Windows on your laptop.
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Since so many people hate tweak
At the risk of fomenting ire I want to stand up for the positive side of meth. There IS such a thing. I'm not going to claim to be ignorant of the downside, but everyone's heard about that over and over again. What you don't hear much about is the opposite: which obviously has to exist or else no one would bother with this stuff. Maybe I'm a bit idiosyncratic, but I never had trouble with paranoia, careless sex and not keeping it together.
I have interesting sexual experiences when high. I don't like to be touched physically, or at least not touched in the same way I would enjoy when not tweaked. I'd have to say I get more into the mental aspects of sex, particularly power exchange and interesting verbalisation. I like to hear the sound of a partner's voice and feel his confidence and energy. Sometimes jamming with musical instruments or sitting around drawing with someone I'm close to is every bit as sexual as rolling around naked. This isn't as obvious when not on drugs.
The most damaging aspect of using this drug is the financial cost. If users would just wise up to the fact that you can't expect the sort of high you have initially to be maintainable for 3 or 4 days after, there'd be far less wasted money, and wasted time. It took me a while to learn that lesson, but I finally did. Oh, and I NEVER smoke it. In fact it rather makes me ill to even think of smoking it, it reminds me too much of crack. I only snort, never use needles or the glass pipe. I think that's why I'm still fairly healthy even in my latter years. LESS IS MORE when it comes to this drug.
Thank you!
Thank you for your comment. I really appreciate it. You bring up several good points, and I completely agree with you for the most part. I am going to take this opportunity to map out my stance on drugs in general and meth in particular. First, I want to name and shame the elephant in the room: drug addiction. I am a firm believer that no two addictions are alike. To a certain extent, I am even hesitant to say that I had a problem with meth. I believe that I had a problem with certain aspects of myself and that meth was a convenient and short-lived fix for those problems. I do not believe that any drug is inherently evil, bad, or whatever other values people would like to heap on its doorstep. I guess if I had to summarize this stance, it would sound something like rejecting the old saw "love the sinner and hate the sin" for "guns don't kill people; people kill people." Does that make any sense?
Anyway, I have had some amazing experiences, sexual and otherwise, while high. I have also had some terrible experiences (as, it seems, has the commenter above). I don't blame the drug. I had expectations that were not lived up to. Do you know the term "chasing the dragon?" I will not and did not mean in this installment of my column to denigrate meth in and of itself per se. Rather, I wanted to write about what became my experience of it with regard to my interactions with other people. Despite the mess I became (and I was a big one), I still believe that using meth with the "right" people could conceivably be a fulfilling experience. That said, as the commenter points out, there's something about the drug that seems to draw its users inward, into themselves. Based on my experience with it, I believe that meth amplifies our own personal feelings and issues, which makes connecting with others difficult if not impossible. I was looking for human connection, self confidence, and physical intimacy while I was using it. I found these things (in varying degrees) at first, but less so as I became more and more immersed in a certain "meth culture." BTW, I agree with you about the mode of using. Meth is the only drug that I've found to be different based on the means of using it (and I've used them all).
In my opinion, you seem to have a healthy respect for the power of drugs. They can be a wonderful thing, but they can also exact a terrible price. As I alluded to in the conclusion of my column, I still think about those days: sometimes with fondness or nostalgia; sometimes with regret; sometimes with anger; and sometimes with passion. Despite my problems and my messiness with it, I have to credit meth with making me who I am today, and for the first time in a long while (if ever), I can say that's not such a bad thing after all.