A Man Does Not Make Poppers

Uh... knowledge dump on nitrites?

The line about this drug and smooth muscle relaxation and anal sex gets repeated a lot. The article to its credit doesn't just give us that old canard and run, but it still brings it up. It's quasi-mythical, in my opinion, and probably gets repeated mostly for its mild shock value. Actual muscle relaxants would work much better. And learning to relax mentally and just not trying to force something that hurts would be even better yet.

Still, why are they so popular for sex then? Because drugs are popular for sex, I figure. I am pretty sure it's from the psychoactive effects of nitrites as a drug. It is a potent, short-acting mild dissociative, with calming effects along with mild sensory changes, along with a strong body euphoria. So the user relaxes mentally, and then physically. (Quite a few of my friends use this drug regularly, mostly along with sex -- but including sex that isn't anal sex. And I've never once heard of someone who uses them as a sexual aid unless they like the "rush". But one gets the vasodilation whether they get, and enjoy, the mental "rush" or not.)

I'm not sure why this is almost never mentioned when poppers come up, but in my opinion from experience, in terms of subjective effect, by far the closest thing is nitrous oxide, laughing gas.

Poppers have also suffered the perverse incentives created by black market economies when a substance is prohibited. Isoamyl nitrite, the original vasodilator sometimes used in medicine, was banned for general sale long ago. There is a whole class of analogues with similar effect, though. Isobutyl nitrite works much the same and doesn't (appear) to be any worse for the user. So people used that for a while. But then, in the EU, that was more aggressively banned as well. No worries, isopropyl nitrite is yet another substitute. Except it seems that it may cause blindness more frequently.

I doubt these half-hearted bans restricted consumption at all. But the bans have probably resulted in cases of otherwise preventable blindness. It's honestly not so different from the problem with fentanyl in the street heroin. In response to the spate of blindness incidents, Australia is going to let doctors prescribe them as a "sexual aid" and France has decriminalized, both for harm reduction reasons.

If we actually do want people to be huffing fewer poppers -- and we should because they're not entirely harmless healthwise -- we should probably do a mix of education (how many people even think of them as a psychoactive drug?) and maybe go after the porn that introduces men and boys to this as a practically normalized part of gay sexuality, often in their teens.

Speaking of education, while nitrites might otherwise be only a moderately dangerous drug as drugs go, they are horribly dangerous in interaction with many other drugs that affect the heart and blood pressure. Probably most importantly considering the context, that includes the likes of Viagra and Cialis, the erection aid drugs. It is not a major public health worry in its own right yet, but there have been too many strokes and heart attacks in healthy middle-aged and even younger men lately from this.