During this French Conference of Sexology and Sexual Health in Marseille, Dr. Jean-Marc Jacquet, addictologist and hospital practitioner, warned against a practice that has literally exploded in the last ten years, and which in his eyes, is not far from becoming a public health issue.
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'ChemSex' is a practice that has grown exponentially thanks to (or rather because of) the profusion of dating applications. It consists of using psychoactive substances to boost performance and sexual sensations. According to Dr. Jacquet, relayed by RTL, this search for euphoria and excitement in sex is practised most often by a young audience, from a rather precarious background, but also in the homosexual community.
While the practice is not new, it is becoming more and more commonplace, due to the accessibility of synthetic products that are now relatively easy to find on the Internet. According to the practitioner, indulging in ChemSex can cause–besides sexually transmitted diseases–serious addiction, psychotic decompensation (meaning delusional episodes) or even lead death.
Dr. Jean-Marc Jacquet also notes that people who practice ChemSex can quickly lose interest in having sex without the help of certain substances. 'How do you go back to playing duck in the bathtub when you've surfed the best waves in the world?' is how the specialist illustrated it, to detail his analysis of people who've had sex under the influence.
What worries medical professionals the most is that ChemSex practitioners do not consider themselves junkies,' underlines Jean-Marc Jacquet. The latter concluded, advocating better information and education for the concerned populations to prevent addictive behaviour:
They see themselves rather as people who experiment extreme sexual practices
Take a look at the video above for an in-depth look at this worrying phenomenon.