What Marijuana Does to Your Sex Life

Updated Jun 14, 2022

There are few things more important to humans than sex. Like it or not, it's pretty much impossible to separate human sexuality from the overall experience of being a human in the first place. And when you think about it, we wouldn't be here without sex, right? So what exactly happens when you throw some cannabis into the mix regarding sex? 

Well, the long and short of it is that we're not 100 percent sure yet. Thankfully, we here at Where's Weed are here to break down the research we do have in-depth and try to provide you with a fuller, more realistic picture of how exactly weed affects your sex life! 

How Cannabis Interacts With Our Brains

Before we can dig too deeply into how cannabis interacts with our partners and us, we first need to narrow in on what cannabinoids are impacting your body and brain overall.

While cannabis has countless effects on our body depending on factors like consumption methods, dosage, tolerance, and a few other factors, we know that cannabis has a way of enhancing experiences. Crappy late-night drive-through food might taste like a four-course meal if you're baked, and we all know the impact that cannabis has on our enjoyment of music, film, and other video art forms. So let's chase that to its natural conclusion, shall we? 

With the THC and CBD molecules binding our CB1 and CB2 receptors in the brain, our sense of taste, touch, and smell overwhelm us with euphoria and relaxation. Some even report feeling aroused and relaxed once they're a little bit high. 

How Weed Affects Your Sex Life

While it's undoubtedly true that cannabis has some role to play in human sexuality, we're still not exactly sure what the part is today. However, we do have promising research to help point us in the right direction! 

One piece of research, for example, found that 59 percent of respondents who smoked one joint thought that their sexual pleasure was enhanced afterward. If those same respondents smoked another joint, however, less than half of them (39 percent) felt sexual benefits. So that seems to indicate the existence of a sweet spot for cannabis and sexual enjoyment. To little cannabis means no enhancement, while too much also cancels any extra enhancements.   

One study of exclusive women, for example, found that 34 percent of those surveyed reported increased sex drive, improved orgasms, and decreased pain associated with the act overall. Conversely, men have been shown to have performance issues when on high doses of cannabis. According to the study, nearly 70 percent of men were twice as likely to deal with erectile dysfunction than those on lower drug doses. 

The real trick with cannabis is a proper dose because the correct amount could increase euphoria and orgasm during sex for some. However, taking too much could make it too hard to focus on the moment. Most professionals can agree that more research on the subject is needed to be able to tell what the positive and negative side effects are and how each dose affects different people. 

As we've mentioned, everyone is different, so cannabis will always impact them differently depending on factors like weight, height, sex, tolerance, other medications, and a host of other factors. Simply put, we haven't done enough scientific research to determine why weed can often lead to better sex, but we have plenty of anecdotal examples!  

It is worth noting that the bulk of this research, both for and against the idea of cannabis's role in human sexuality, heavily relies on self-reported data. It's no secret that self-reported data isn't exactly the most reliable regarding hard, firm science, but it's also undoubtedly better than nothing. As cannabis becomes more and more legalized, we'll surely get comprehensive research on the topic! 

How to Introduce Cannabis into Your Sex Life

Like with most things when it applies to cannabis, low and slow is the way to go in figuring out the correct dose of cannabis to enhance the sexual experience. The best way to quickly feel the onset of the cannabis you've consumed is by breathing it in, burning cannabis flowers in blunts or joints. Edibles are too unpredictable and harsh to dose; they can take a while to kick in. Smoking, on the other hand, hits in only a few minutes before you're feeling it.

As always, we recommend the low and slow approach here. Take a few hits, wait a bit, and see how you feel. If you need more, take a few more hits, wait a bit, and see how it goes. Then just continue until you get to that sweet spot.  

Joints are also sharable and easy to take big or small hits of, allowing you to control your dosage as much as possible while working your way up to that sweet spot we mentioned before. 

If you're feeling extra adventurous, there are even some THC and CBD-infused products you can use in the bedroom to help sex the mood and enhance the overall experience. 

CBD for Increased Sex Drive

While high doses of THC-rich cannabis have been shown to have inconsistent results are boosting libido in men, CBD, on the other hand, might be just what you need to get things going again. 

Due to CBD's anxiety-reducing effects, many experienced boosts in their sex drive due to that lack of anxiety. The basic math of the whole thing is less fear equals higher sex drive overall and more positive, free interactions with partners. 

There are multiple ways to consume CBD: directly via a CBD-heavy vape pen, edible, or cannabis flower strain, or you could do it via a specifically made CBD-infused sexual lubricant. Either one will do the job effectively, but smoking or vaping with likely lead to the fastest results. 

The Bottom Line

Cannabis can play a real and meaningful role in improving your sex life. You just need to be patient, find that sweet spot for optimal pleasure, and go from there! With a bit of help from the right cannabis products, you should be able to take your and your partner's experiences to the next level with some plant-based cannabinoid power!