Scraping the Bank for the Promise of a Bag

From an iPhone for a gram to sex for MDMA, Massive pitched a question: What is the most down bad you’ve been for tabs, tinnies, and trips?  

Feigning on an empty student wallet makes for some creative solutions. Rent may be due, fridge empty, and an Adobe subscription needs renewing, but people want drugs.   

But while men are trading tangible objects, the women Massive spoke to were trading their bodies — from back massages, blow jobs, and relationships.  

According to the NZ Drug Foundation 2022/23 data, MDMA is most used by people aged 15 to 24. Even more so for weed, as almost a quarter of 15 to 24-year-olds (154,000 people) used cannabis. MDMA was reportedly harder to buy than it was previously.  

Ben* is proof of this MDMA hardship. On a night out, bouncing between Hamilton clubs, Ben was willing to trade his entire iPhone for a gram. He was in desperate need of a bag for kick ons, and his usual dealers were nowhere to be found. After hours of dead ends, he finally found somebody that had a gram of MD. But the guy wasn’t feeling keen to part with it.   

A skint, Ben offered the only thing of value he had on him — his iPhone. “I was with my mates, and I knew I could get home with them. In the moment, I didn't care if I would not have a phone.” 

He figured that he could survive without directions and internet banking. But he couldn't endure without a bump. The baffled dealer said the gram was not worth an entire iPhone, but Ben begged to differ and walked away with the gram.  

However, behind the absurdity of Ben’s story is a sobering reality. Particularly for women down bad for a bag, where sexual connotations come into play.  

Jasmine* was camping in Tākaka before the New Year's festival Twisted Frequency when she needed to stock up on more bud. She was moaning about it to her friends, when her prayers were answered by a man with a bag and a proposition. 

An ex-gang member said that if she gave him a 15-minute back massage, he would give her a fid. They played some beats and shared a joint on a balmy Nelson evening while her fingers carved into his back and past.  

She recounts, “I was actively stroking this large Mongrelmob patch tattoo. It was really weird just touching all the letters.”  

She says she was not grossed out by the experience, and it's a funny story, but women trading services for drugs has an exploitative nature.  

At 18, Amelia* started having sex with a 36-year-old bouncer who gave her free MDMA.   

 “I think the more I look back on it, the worse it becomes for me. But at the time, I was using him.”  

While living in a backpackers, the relationship provided her with privacy and space of her own, but it got weird when he showed her pictures of his kids.   

“It was pretty gnarly on his behalf. But it felt like I was benefiting,” she said, “he was basically like a sugar daddy for a second there.”  

In high school, Chloe* gave her ex-boyfriend's friend a blowjob, and he gifted her free weed. 

She says that while she felt that she didn’t have to exchange sexual favors, she shouldn’t have done it.    

While Amelia and Chloe don’t feel their experiences were traumatic and overly exploitative, women selling sexual acts for drugs has a shady and degrading reputations. A 2021 study by The Danish Center for Social Science Research found that the narrative of sexual exchanges for drugs is almost exclusively linked to young women’s behaviour. 

This reputation might be bestowed on women, but it doesn’t mean men aren’t just as likely to trade sexual favours for drugs. The study said this storyline creates shame for women by indicating deviant femininity. But at the same time, the narrative taboos young men experiencing sex as an economic exchange.  

Justin* said he witnessed his friend stay in a manipulative relationship that was fueled by access to free drugs. He said his friend’s ex-girlfriend would supply them with drugs to keep them with her.   

“She just kept handing out grams on grams, she just didn’t stop,” Justin said, “It was quite wild, and it definitely put us in a sketchy situation.”  

But the price people pay to obtain drugs — no matter what gender or exchange — is unsettling. 

For Denzel*, the desperation to get high revealed a deeper truth of how his drug use jeopardised his wellbeing. He recalled an early Sunday morning when he was dead broke and swapped a $100 Prezzy card for a bag of ketamine. What may have been groceries for a week went straight up his nose.   

Denzel says wealth and privilege is a key factor in why people do desperate things for drugs. “There were definitely people in my circles that were well off because of their parents. It was like Mummy and Daddy were fueling their drug addictions.”  

An inquiry by the Green Party in 2022 reported that two thirds of students do not have enough money to buy food, clothing, pay bills and other essentials. But regardless of financial situation, Denzel said that in his friend group everybody is still doing drugs.

In the grubby expectations for student living, it's easy to write these stories off as wild anecdotes. But behind the tales that get retold at kick ons, lies a larger struggle of poverty and sometimes exploitation.  

Trading phones and bodies, and dignity for a bump — it’s about the normality of seeking drugs over your welfare.  

And whilst the hustle for a bag may just be swept under the ‘uni culture’ rug, a question remains: at what point are we trading too much?  

*Names changed for anonymity