Sex and the virus
AT the start of our quarantines and lockdowns, a joke went around about having a baby boom nine months later, presumably because everyone would just be having sex while staying safe at home.
However, that only works if: you have a spouse, or long-term serious romantic partner; you’re both living under the same roof; and if you’re still feeling quite horny for each other.
Other than dead bed, there’s also the matter of stress and anxiety that can put sex on the back burner.
That joke also doesn’t take into consideration people who are living alone during this quarantine (we all know a few), and those who may live with others but who are single.
While there are studies being made regarding the SARS-CoV-2 virus in semen and vaginal secretions, we still can’t overlook the fact there is no social distancing with sex. It doesn’t make sense to keep six feet away and wear masks in the grocery in the morning and then hook up with someone you met online in the evening.
Sex isn’t just the release of those fluids from the nether regions — respiratory droplet sharing and the exchange of saliva from kissing is part of the whole experience.
Imagine dating and hook up culture in the immediate future — you’re going to wonder if the person you’ll crawl under bedsheets followed the guidelines, what their test results were and who they live with. When a vaccine comes out, will they get a vaccine icon on their profile? Will anti-vaxxers have to disclose their stand with an icon too?
The New York City Health Department gives it to you straight: Right now “you are your safest sex partner.”
Why am I talking about sex? Strange times call for strange viewing. I veered off my recommendations list and just finished the first season of “Too Hot To Handle” because maybe I just wanted something silly, light and easy to watch?
“Too Hot To Handle” is a reality show on Netflix that invites sexy, flirty, hookup culture savvy young singles from the US, the UK and Australia to live on a beautiful beach resort in Mexico, hangout in their shorts and bikinis, mix and mingle. There’s also a $100,000 prize, but at the end of day one, the contestants find out that amount gets deducted each time people kiss or have some form of sex.
Throughout the show, you hear the phrases “deeper connection” and “personal growth” get thrown around a lot.
The group does learn that good relationships can be formed without the mad rush for sexual gratification, that it’s better to be honest and upfront when you’re not just obsessed with conquest.
I did find it cute because two of the girls on the show became best friends and there was a bromance that developed between two men who were rivals.
While this was filmed before the pandemic, it does have a funny way of reminding us of value of good communication and self-esteem out there in the dating world.
Dating apps are including video chat features now, and people now go on zoom dates in the safety of their own homes with the prospect of finding something actually meaningful as sex is likely off the menu. Who woulda thunk?
After Too Hot To Handle, I tried moving over to “Love Is Blind” which isn’t as much fun because the contestants were all so serious. Too Hot begins by introducing contestants who just really want to have make out sessions and sex on the beach. In Love Is Blind, you have contestants from their mid 20s to mid 30s looking to get married.
In the latter, contestants would speed date with each other in private rooms aka “pods.” They’d have conversations to know each other better without ever seeing what the person actually looked like. They would only have this chance when a proposal would finally be made.
Love Is Blind is mentioned in a really good TheNewYorkTimes article, “Is Marriage a Prize?” written by Amisha Padnani. It explores the implication of having a woman being known by a new name — the title Mrs. followed by her husband’s name (in most traditional cases) — and women being taught that this is the biggest goal of life.
I guess the contestants of both genders really want to find a spouse, but I don’t think I can relate to making a huge, lifechanging commitment with someone I’ve only known for a few weeks. Yikes!
I don’t have Philippine statistics but Padnani writes, “The number of American women who had never been married was 30 percent in 2019, up from 23 percent in 1990, according to U.S. News and World Report. The Pew Research Center found in 2019 that 57 percent of women felt that marriage, while important, was not the key to living a fulfilling life; career enjoyment, on the other hand, was essential.”
We’ll just have to wait and see what the impact of the pandemic would be on sex, relationships and population on an already overburdened planet.
For now, some people are letting us take a peep at the fumbles, foibles, follies and fortune of their dating lives for the sake of entertainment vs. having us ponder too much as to whether a cultural shift is happening.