Remembering the Lizard: Reconstructing Sexuality in the Rooms of Narcotics Anonymous‪.‬

Addiction is associated with the development of a set of behaviors and thought patterns that enable the addicted person to acquire drugs without regard to the harm such acquisition might cause to self or others. The preoccupation with using drugs can lead to neglect of family and friends, the drive for money to pay for drugs is often associated with stealing from loved ones, and the social nature of getting high privileges relationships with people who are getting high. Commercial sex work and sex outside of marital relationships are likely to accompany addiction to many substances, partly related to obtaining money for drugs and partly due to a freeing of inhibitions that follows the general erosion of concern for others (Kandall, 1998). The crack cocaine epidemic was accompanied by distinct new patterns of sexual behavior related to the binge nature of crack use (Fullilove et. al, 1993: Fullilove, Lown, & Fullilove, 1992; Inciardi, Lockwood, & Pottieger, 1993: Lown, Winkler, Fullilove, & Fullilove, 1993: Ratner, 1993). Crack binges could be sustained for days at a time, limited more by the money available to the user than by any intrinsic limit set by the drug. Bartering sex for drugs enabled the user to continue drug consumption alter cash had been dissipated. In the peculiar evolution of this barter economy, sexual services were sold for quite low prices, undercutting the much higher fees of those engaged in more traditional forms of commercial sex work. Ethnographic descriptions of these sexual activities often identified practices that were at odds with cultural norms, often influenced by the extreme power imbalance that was created between user and dealer by the user's insatiable desire for the drug (Bowser, 1989: Fullilove et al., 1992; Rather, 1993).