“Magical”: Using Substances During Sex Among Substance-Involved Sexual Assault Survivors

People often engage in substance use during sexual activity, and substance-involved sexual assault survivors are also likely to engage in this behavior in their lifetimes and post-assault. However, most literature frames this behavior as a "sexual risk" behavior when attributed to sexual assault survivors and has not asked survivors directly about their substance-involved sex. Using a sex positive framework, the current study used qualitative interviews (N = 34) to investigate a diverse, community sample of survivors' sex while using drugs and/or alcohol. Through thematic analysis, four themes were found: 1) facilitating physical and emotional pleasure; 2) control and agency during substance-involved sex; 3) communication and boundaries during substance-involved sex; and 4) shame/stigma of enjoying substance-involved sex. Implications for research that moves away from a pathologizing framework of substance-involved sex and adding more nuance to sexual consent education are discussed.