#Drinkingtoo, #Drugstoo, #Huggingtoo and #Chickentoo

“What did you put in this anyway?” Bruce said with a smile. “Acid.” I winked and nonchalantly picked up my guitar. He picked up his trumpet and started to play our song but about ten minutes later he asked me again, “You didn’t put acid in my drink did you?” I laughed. “Dude, I would never do that.” A few weeks later he brought me some noodles from a Chinese restaurant and I was really excited but then after I started eating it, I realized there was chicken meat in it. “Dang,” I said,”We go out together all the time and you know I’m not a carnivore.” he laughed. “Just take out the meat!” he chided. I frowned. I know that inadvertently spiking a non meat eater's food with chicken isn’t the same as giving someone drugs without their consent but the theme here is trust and safety. If I was a Muslim or Hindu and eating chicken was against my religious beliefs then I probably would feel more violated or maybe not. We are in an era where non consensual hugging is considered sexual harassment for some, and surely most of us can remember a non consensual hug from someone in our life or could at least imagine how violating it might feel I hope. Consent has been the hot topic since the #metoo and Aziz Ansari scandal of late, so i started to think about all the friends I knew who had been forced to drink or drug when they clearly didn’t want to. The phenomenon of non consensual drugging of drinks at bars which would lead to sexual or other petty theft crimes is a thing but what if it didn’t lead to these things? Is drugging itself assault? Apparently, it is. One of my sister’s friends was drugged to the point that he was vomiting and throwing up on himself for hours but for what gain did that give the perpetrator? We really couldn’t figure it out as my friends asshole and wallet were not touched by anyone while he was ill. Ansari was doing the classic,”Let me just pour you another drink…(to get the panties off)” move during his sexual coercion date (and I'm going to call it that because at the very least it was coercion if not violence). This had a selfish intention towards fucking Grace even when she said she did not want to have sex or feel forced. Boundaries are boundaries and if you have strong vices you hopefully learn that strong boundaries save lives. Things like clean needles, things like respecting sobriety or hard limits, having a caretaker or a shooting buddy to get high with you or someone more experienced who can guide you through your trip when it goes bad. Most of the drug users I know still using have hard lines because they’ve crossed them close to death and have learned from their mistakes or their friend’s deaths. This is why the idea of putting acid in my friend’s drink was probably not even a funny joke, but perhaps it was a funny joke to me because I knew it was something I wouldn’t do, and this particular friend was pretty naive so i chose to fuck with him. I think that we are in a climate where we need to assume that everyone has boundaries that we do not understand until we ask, so we need to check in with them and often so that we can proceed with confidence. Hopefully, you wouldn’t be like Ansari and not respecting a certain safe zone for only a few moments until going for the claw down the throat and panties in the next few moments. But I guess it is naive to think that everyone is going to follow these rules for the sake of your safety. People lie and they don’t even think that they’re being malicious for it! Dealers often cut their drugs with other shit and don’t tell you simply because of profit or ignorance of the consequences as we have seen with the Fentanyl opioid crisis. How many people do you know have accidentally snorted meth when they wanted to do coke (and nowadays, they can accidentally snort Fentanyl and DIE)? And yeah, the consequences are on you if you are awake and pacing for hours beyond the high you wanted or if ends up being a worse gateway to a habit that you kicked years ago. But really, just like Grace and Ansari, both are responsible and hopefully will make lots of corrective behavior adjustments so that they make better choices in the future. But this was a huge media blowup and most of these kinds of bad dates are quiet and unseen and often swept out of memory because of shame, never spoken because of self blame. How many of us were bought a bunch of drinks we didn’t want to drink in hopes that we’d be so drunk we’d fuck? We drank them and had to deal with him grabbing and slobbering all night til we ran away or slammed a door. Sometimes it doesn’t even leave the bar, just shot after shot after until you are throwing up in the parking lot and someone “rescues” you with a ride home in pseudo safety. Alcohol, drugs, hugging and chicken all seem wildly different, but when served non consensually all feel like a gross violation and some lead to major trauma and worse. But what seems like minor should not be ignored because the more you are able to see boundaries as boundaries that should be respected in all aspects of your life, the safer you will be for yourself and for those that are around you. Don’t wait for someone to jump out of the closet holding their dick in their hand, it can be as simple as a coercive drink bought when you are already drunk and we all can use this media momentum to reality check in with ourselves.

I am a Professional Drug User.

“I’m a professional drug user.” I said on the microphone proudly in front of a small crowd of Harm Reduction conference attendees. “No, seriously. I GET PAID to do drugs.” The crowd didn't balk, it was the kind of conference where half of the attendees were high or on a contact high from the energy of the others in the room. Safe injection rooms were par of the course and most of us were high functioning attendees doing our community work on our substance of choice. The drugs I was referring to however was not marijuana or cannabis, my daily dependence for 20 years. It was primarily cocaine. The other drug that i was paid to hold space for was crystal meth which I didn't like to do myself but many of my late night clients at the time were always on. I got paid to keep the company of drug users and addicts who were caught up in a cycle of spending money on impulses which signal comfort if not actually helping or genuine, it still is aimed to soothe the consumer of sex workers and drugs. And both sides are helping each other survive so they love each other for that even if there are obvious negative repercussions, consequences, lies they tell themselves to continue a behavior or job tolerance. To date the MOST money I have collected in one day of work is still the $10,000 i got for doing massive amounts of cocaine with an escort client. $1000 for every line I could put down. I never knew i was so capable but like most things in my life, i am always surprising myself with how resilient and strong i can be without even predicting it. This man could have been the gateway to a life of hell and addiction but despite the fact that there would be years of all nighters paid to do less drugs with less pay i still never got sucked into anything i couldn't walk away from or that was too irreversibly damaging. The difference between being a professional drug user and an addict is that the professional makes a profit. The addict not only doesn't make a profit but often does more and riskier work. But both are usually doing pretty risky work. My known job title is sex worker or escort however, the majority of my clients are either not capable or not interested in having much intercourse with me. These clients pay me to keep them company or watch them do strange things without judgment. Of course there ARE SOME sex acts involved but much of the time spent is in companionship and camaraderie around drug use. Many of these guys call me often so they have my trust and i can take a Xanax and fall asleep while they stay awake until the afternoon when i am ready to leave the motel and drive back to my house. However, there is of course sometimes a definite exciting party atmosphere as part of some nights and I am indulging in some quintessential studio 54 type rock star experience. This IS of course extremely fun and hot. I learned how to share a cock just like a porn star with a real porn star and a famous DJ who ended up trying to not pay me! And despite the amounts of drugs induced, I remember the blow job just like it was YESTERDAY! And of course, there are nights and days like these for me to enjoy. In the last 5 years of me deciding to take on this sect of the sex work clientele I’ve gotten my share of excitement, adventure, repulsive and traumatic stories to share or to try to forget forever. This is what minimal screening gets you in the late night market. IF they could get through a few sentences of intuition screening on the phone and didn't sound like they were smoking a crack pipe while talking to me on the call I would feel safe to jump in my car and head over alone. The only thing i had to protect me was my stun gun and martial arts but what i convinced myself for YEARS at this time of my life, was that anything I saw or did ONCE, was never so bad.