Tag: sex and relationship advice

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Quarantine Horniness

It’s still a bad idea to sleep with someone new, even if both of you have been social distancing.  

A person walks past a mural of a mask-wearing couple kissing on March 21 in Glasgow, Scotland

By Alex Abad-Santos

In 2012, the immortal chanteuse Britney Spears sang about the erotic thrill of the apocalypse.

“I can’t take it, take it, take no more. Never felt like, felt like this before,” she sang, voicing a deep, roiling desire to dance with someone she’d just met. “C’mon get me, get me on the floor. DJ, what you, what you waitin’ for?”

Spears suggested her lust was so enthralling that not even global annihilation could get in her way.

“See the sunlight, we ain’t stopping. Keep on dancin’ ’til the world ends,” Spears continued. “If you feel it, let it happen. Keep on dancin’ ’til the world ends.”

The reality of our current apocalyptic scenario — the coronavirus pandemic — is a lot less sexy than the sweaty, bare-skin-pressing-on-bare-skin circumstances Spears envisioned. Quite the opposite. People living in 42 states (and counting) have been told to stay home, following the leads of countries like Italy and Spain that have gone on full lockdowns. Government officials have begged people to not just remain indoors but also to cut off any physical contact with others.

The aim of this restrictive measure is to reduce the spread of the virus, not letting it jump from person to person. And sacrificing physical contact for the global good means that interactions with people you don’t share a home with now exist primarily online over texts, Zoom calls, direct messages, and social media.

Through social distancing, we’re cut off from most physical contact with our friends and family. We’re also meant to keep away from people we were having sex with or want to have sex with, unless we already live with those people. And all the people who were having or were interested in having sex with us can’t pursue those aims, either

In Spears-speak, everyone you want to dance with ’til the world ends is now off-limits. But that has neither stopped people from irresponsibly hooking up (or claiming to be), nor kept some from pursuing and being pursued

While there are directives from health officials — New York City has a widely circulated memo about how its horny residents should refrain from hooking up and send nudes or video chat instead — I wanted to ask experts about why some people’s sex drives are even more stimulated than normal during a time where we can’t tap into those desires with other people. I also wanted to know: How risky is it to act on those sexual desires with someone, even if they’re also self-quarantining?

Being hornier than usual right now is perfectly normal. So is not wanting to have sex at all.

In the first week of social distancing, I noticed a few more green circles popping up on my Instagram feed than usual. Green circles are the platform’s way of indicating that you’re on someone’s “Close Friends” list, seeing a post made for a specific set of eyes decided on by the user. On my Instagram feed, these Close Friends posts usually come from gay men sharing thirst traps, a particularly randy brand of photo or video — usually shirtless, sometimes featuring underwear — that’s designed to get attention. The goal is to get the viewer to slide into your DMs, usually sending a reply involving the fire or eyeballs emoji

The question became clear: Was the lockdown on physical intimacy driving up the frequency, and thirstiness, of these private posts?

Instagram told me on March 23 that although there have been upticks in use of the platform’s “live” feature since March 16 (when the first US quarantine measures went into effect), it didn’t have specific data on whether there has been a dramatic change in frequency of “Close Friends” posts on the platform during the past month or so of worldwide quarantine measures.

Without a solid answer and nothing more than anecdotal evidence, I asked the Kinsey Institute at Indiana University, which studies human sexuality and relationships, for its take. Kinsey is in the middle of conducting a study on how the pandemic has affected people’s sexual relationships, and its researchers have found that the number of people engaging in sexual behavior online has increased, as well as the number of people who have completely disengaged.

“When you look at the data, you actually see movement at both ends,” social psychologist Justin Lehmiller, a research fellow at Kinsey and author of Tell Me What You Want: The Science of Sexual Desire, told me. “You have a higher percentage of people now who are saying [that] they’re masturbating and having more sex. But you also have a higher percentage of people saying they’re not engaging in any sexual behavior at all. And the people at the low end and not having any behavior — that increase is much bigger than the increase at the other end of the spectrum.”

Lehmiller says experiencing a lack of sex drive is tied to the distress of the situation. The death tolls ratchet up constantly, horrific stories come out of hospitals each day, projections talk about hundreds of thousands of deaths, and it seems inevitable that by the end of the pandemic, each one of us will know someone that’s been affected by the disease. Not being in the mood is completely understandable.

But that same apocalyptic scenario can trigger arousal too.

“There’s a whole body of research and the theory is called Terror Management Theory,” or TMT, Lehmiller said. “The idea behind it is that when we face the prospect of our own mortality, it leads us to cope, or it leads us to change our attitudes and behaviors in a way that it’s designed to cope with that existential threat.”

And for some people, TMT manifests itself in sexual interest and desire, or adopting new ways to express themselves sexually. Those expressions could be sexting, sending nudes, or initiating video chats — all of which can spin off from a single thirsty Close Friends post.

“Something we’re seeing in our data is that people are incorporating more online sexual activities that maybe they’ve never done before into their sex life as a way of getting some sexual fulfillment and also connection with other people,” Lehmiller told Vox. “So it definitely does seem to be the case that there is more sexting, for example, going on right now. And more sending of nudes and other things like that.”

Our social etiquette and norms have also changed.

Many people may now have much more privacy to send a sext or DM at any time of day. Nights and weekends — times when Lehmiller says we’re most likely to engage in sex-seeking behavior — are now almost indistinguishable from afternoons and weekdays, blurring the lines of when it’s appropriate for us to start flirting and thirst-trapping. And there are now a lot of people home during the day to receive and reciprocate these messages.

These different factors can really do a number on the way our sex drives respond.

I asked Lehmiller why my circle of gay friends and several gay men I spoke to in particular seemed to notice more thirst traps on Instagram and DMs than they did before. The research that Lehmiller is doing at Kinsey, which surveys more than 1,000 participants, found that gender or sexual orientation wasn’t a determining factor in whether someone was expressing themselves more during the pandemic, he said.

“The people that are most likely to experience that increased in sexual desire are people who already are very comfortable with their bodies and have a positive body image,” Lehmiller told me. “If you’re somebody who was embedded in a network of people that had a level of interest in sex to begin with, you’re probably seeing even higher levels of sexual interest coming out right now.”

Why it’s so risky to sleep with someone right now, even if they’re social distancing

I spoke to a number of people for this article, and found that, although Lehmiller said gender and sexual orientation wasn’t really a factor in sexual behavior, the gay men I interviewed seemed to be the most frank, candid, and innovative when it comes to their online sex lives. A 31-year-old New Yorker whom we’ll call Andrew told me about a 32-person Instagram group DM he participates in where nudes are exchanged.

“It started as a, ‘Can I send you nudes during these trying times?’” he told me, explaining how the massive DM chain began as a poll. “And a ‘yes’ vote was basically consent for receipt and I got a lot of yeses, so I thought, wouldn’t it be fun?”

The group is so popular, Andrew said, that there’s apparently a waitlist to get into the DM chain.

Hunter (whose name has been changed to protect his privacy), a 24-year-old from New York, explained that he too has been sending out more nudes and posting flirty Close Friends Instagram stories because physical intimacy is off the table.

“I started doing it naturally just because of the circumstances, but it’s reinforced by seeing so many of my peers doing the same thing,” Hunter said. “I think we’d all rather spend our time flirting and complimenting each other instead of thinking about sickness and death.”

Hunter and Andrew are actually following the New York City’s public health directive, which encourages “video dates, sexting or chat rooms” as opposed to meeting people online.

And they, like their fellow New Yorkers, have been asked to socially distance themselves for more than three weeks now. Theoretically speaking, that’s longer than the reported incubation period for the disease. But it’s important to keep in mind that just because people have dutifully followed self-quarantine measures and think they might be okay to go out to see someone once in a while, it doesn’t mean that they no longer pose a risk to each other

It’s simple: Sleeping with someone who doesn’t live in your home is still a risk, because at this point, anyone outside of your own home could stand as a health risk to you right now.

“Social distancing reduces your risk greatly, and it reduces the risk that you pose to others greatly, but it’s no guarantee that you didn’t get it when you went to the grocery store three days ago,” Anna Muldoon, a former science policy adviser at the US Department of Health and Human Services and PhD candidate researching infectious disease and social crises at Arizona State University, told me. “Every time you leave your house, there’s some level of risk. When people say they’ve been self-quarantining for two weeks, very few of them actually mean they’ve had zero risk of exposure in two weeks. And the other thing is, on your way to that [sex] date, you’ve got to get there somehow, and that’s another exposure risk.”

Muldoon said perhaps someone living in your neighborhood or even your building could be the least worst choice to sleep with for someone who absolutely can’t hold off. (Muldoon does not recommend sleeping with a neighbor, emotionally speaking.) She said that people who go to the same places that you’re going to are generally exposed to the same level of risk as you.

Humans are going to do human things, and sex is a very human thing,” Muldoon said. “I think that if you’re in a situation where it’s like you’ve talked to the person long enough that you really believe that they’re following all the precautions, and you’re in the same neighborhood having to walk the same streets, or go to the same grocery store anyway, your risk is relatively similar. I don’t love the idea, because you are increasing both of your risk, but you’re probably being exposed to the same things.”

The thing to keep in mind if you do decide to have sex during these troubling times, experts say, is that it’s not just your health you’re going to worry about. You’re making yourself responsible for someone’s health and vice versa. It’s a personal call as to whether that’s a decision you want to make. It’s absolutely fine and even a better decision that’s backed by doctors and health officials, if you don’t want to expose yourself to other people right now — or if you just want to fire up Instagram, send some consensual nudes over DMs. Or even if you just want to keep your love life to text-only for now.

“This is a moment that we’re all learning to develop deeper relationships again. It’s a kind of weird experience,” Muldoon said. “We had all adjusted to sort of a really fast trajectory into sleeping with people and really sped-up forms of dating, and this thing is forcing us to go back to old-school getting-to-know-you things.”

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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A Common Factor Among Couples Not Having Sex

According to a Psychologist

By Margaret Paul, Ph.D.

“I don’t care if I never have sex again.”

I hear this often from my married women clients, especially those who have children or are in their late 40s. The women who say this have one thing in common: They don’t feel emotionally connected with their husbands.

How lack of connection can affect your sex drive.

Not everyone needs emotional connection for sex to be great, but in long-term relationships, the lack of connection can be a huge factor in a person’s desire to have sex with their partner. In relationships between men and women, there can also sometimes be a chicken-or-egg problem when it comes to sex and connection: Many men say that they feel emotionally connected after sex, while many women need to feel emotionally connected in order to want to have sex. This isn’t a hard-and-fast rule, of course—everyone’s different—but I do regularly notice this conundrum among my clients.

Here’s the interesting thing: Many of my women clients say that when they visit their husband at work and see him in his power, they do feel turned on by him. But when he comes home, he becomes an anxious, complaining, needy little boy—and they are not turned on by that whatsoever.

What’s going is that their husband is powerful in the work arena but self-abandoning—and thus needy—in the emotional arena. He wants sex to relax and feel good about himself rather than to connect with his wife. Rather than taking responsibility for his own feelings of stress and anxiety, he’s coming to his wife expecting for her to make him feel better (or worse, to use her for his own comfort). This dynamic invariably leads to his wife feeling used by him rather than loved.

There is nothing erotic about a needy person.

The situation is also often reversed, where a man wants more emotional connection with a female partner whereas she is disconnected, self-abandoning, and needy. When someone is coming to you for sex that’s all about making them feel validated and soothed, it’s not much of a turn-on.

Having sex to connect—not out of neediness.

Sex in a long-term relationship thrives when both partners are loving and taking care of themselves and then sharing their love with each other. This means that each partner needs to do whatever inner work is necessary to come to their partner full of love for their partner rather than coming from emptiness and neediness. We cannot be loving and emotionally connected when we are rejecting and abandoning our own feelings and then expecting our partner to make us feel OK about ourselves.

This might be a hard pill to swallow—yes, you’ll need to do the inner work before you’re going to see your sex life really come back to life. The good news is, sexuality in general thrives when both partners are open to learning about themselves and about each other, which is what creates growth and newness in long-term relationships. Sex doesn’t become boring when the relationship isn’t boring, and it isn’t boring when learning and emotional growth are an integral part of a relationship. 

Partners also need to make time alone together a high priority—time to share their day, to support each other, to share a meal, to do something fun, and to laugh together. This is how to emotionally connect with your partner. Emotional connection occurs when both people are open and loving with themselves and each other, with no agenda other than to share their love with each other. If one partner has a sexual agenda, the interaction won’t feel loving and genuine. Sexuality will often emerge naturally from their authentic emotional intimacy.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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What Is a Sex Therapist?

And How Can One Help Me?

Whether you’re dealing with sexual function issues or intimacy concerns, a sex therapist can help.

By Catherine Pearson

Talking about sex can be difficult for many people, and talking about sexual health problems can be even harder. Bedroom issues like sexual performance and low libido may go beyond the scope of what you would normally discuss with your primary care physician, ob-gyn, or usual therapist.

This is where sex therapists enter the picture — trained professionals who focus specifically on human sexuality and healthy sexual behavior, and who can offer compassionate, research-backed help while addressing the full range of pertinent psychological, physiological, and cultural factors in play. Think sex therapy could be helpful for you and your partner? Learn more about what sex therapists do and what a typical session may look like.

What Is Sex Therapy and What Do Sex Therapists Do?

“A sex therapist is a licensed mental health professional who has extensive education and training in sex therapy in addition to mental health,” says Neil Cannon, PhD, a Colorado-based sex therapist who serves as bylaws chair for the American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors, and Therapists (AASECT).

There are many different paths people can take to becoming a sex therapist. A sex therapist might be a psychologist or psychiatrist, a clinical social worker, a family therapist, or maybe a doctor or nurse who has psychotherapy training and who has gone on to get specialized training in sexuality and sexual functioning, intimacy, and relationships.

Those are big, broad buckets, of course. But a qualified sex therapist should be adept at addressing a wide range of concerns including (but by no means limited to): issues about sexual desire, ejaculation-related problems, trouble orgasming, painful sex, and more.

What a Session With a Sex Therapist May Look Like

Sex therapy varies significantly depending on what is being addressed and who the therapist and patient — or patients — are. So there is no standard answer for what a particular therapy session might entail or how often you will go. One thing that will not be a part of any sessions is sexual contact. Sex therapy is talk therapy.

Most sex therapists will start by getting a thorough picture of your sexual history, whether they ask for that information before you attend a session, in person, or both.

“You’re really getting a sense of what, historically, has shaped a [patient’s] sexual map or preferences,” explains Megan Fleming, PhD, a clinical psychologist and sex therapist in New York City. “And then, most importantly, what is their presenting challenge or complaint that they want to be working on.”

A sex therapist will consider what Dr. Fleming calls the “bio-psycho-social” determinants contributing to a client’s concern — meaning any potential biological, psychological, and social factors — and will work with you to create a specific treatment plan. Sex therapists may see individuals, couples, or both. Some may be comfortable starting with an individual who eventually brings in his or her partner, though Fleming says that whether a therapist does this will depend on the specific circumstances.

What a Sex Therapist May Commonly Recommend

Again, the recommendations a sex therapist gives vary dramatically from patient to patient and the issues they are addressing.

“It depends on the therapist you’re working with as well as what it is you’re looking for,” says Fleming. Sometimes you’ll see the therapist for just a handful of sessions, maybe with a tune-up down the road; other times long-term, in-depth therapy might be called for.

Expect homework, which can be a common element of sex therapy. Your sex therapist will ask you to complete specific tasks in between sessions, and then ask you or you and your partner to report back. Those homework assignments could range from communication exercises to specific sexual experimentation activities.

What Type of Training Does a Sex Therapist Receive?

Unfortunately, no regulations govern who can call themselves a sex therapist, which is why it is important to pay close attention to credentials.

“In most states, anybody can say that they’re a sex therapist — or that they do sex therapy — and the consumer has no idea whether this person has ever taken a single class, has ever gone through any training, or has been supervised around sex therapy by qualified supervisors,” warns Dr. Cannon. “So if you don’t go to a certified sex therapist, it’s buyer beware.”

AASECT requires sex therapists to have an advanced degree that includes psychotherapy training and a certain amount of clinical experience — plus 90 hours of human sexuality education, 60 hours of sex therapy training, and then extensive supervision by a qualified supervisor.

How Can I Find a Sex Therapist Near Me?

AASECT keeps a list of licensed sex therapists on its site, which Cannon recommends as a good starting point. If you live in an area where sex therapists aren’t plentiful, he says teletherapy, or virtual therapy, may be an option.

Other healthcare providers may also be able to help, like your primary care physician or a more generalized therapist who may refer you to a sexual health specialist.

If you are in a position to, you should feel empowered to shop around for a good fit.

“This is not an easy topic for people to talk about,” says Fleming. “You need to feel that the person is open-minded, they’re not judgmental, they’re going to help you explore, and they’re really trying to help you ask the right questions — but they’re not jumping in to diagnose and pathologize.”

Remember: Your sex therapist must be a good fit for you. “Therapy is really about a relationship,” she adds. “So feeling a sense of security and safety — those are really important pieces.”

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Can acupuncture increase your sex drive?

Experts weigh in

By Tracey Anne Duncan

Acupuncture is, of all the alternative approaches to health care, one of the best known and most studied. A lot of people have used it to help with things like chronic pain and smoking cessation, but now there’s a trend of using acupuncture to increase your sex drive. While interest in sex can be wildly varied, loss of interest in sex can be more than a sexual problem. Low libido doesn’t just kill your boner, it can indicate emotional or physical issues or exacerbate depression. I asked an acupuncturist and a doctor whether acupuncture can help folks get their mojo back.

“Acupuncture can naturally boost libido for both men and women,” says Shari Auth, an NYC-based acupuncturist and Co-Founder of WTHN, an acupuncture and wellness clinic in Manhattan. “It works in several ways. There are acu-points all over the body that help increase sex drive, improve sexual function, and help get you out of your head and into your body, and finding that balance heightens your senses and helps you connect deeper sexually,” she says.

Sounds great, if a little woo. But most acupuncturists think that it’s healthy to be skeptical and to combine acupuncture with other treatments. “As with all medicine — acupuncture isn’t a one stop shop, nor should it be considered that,” says Kim Peirano, a San Francisco-based acupuncturist. “Efficacy of the treatment aside — the lack of significant side effects is one of the things that makes acupuncture a great treatment,” she explains. Acupuncture may not be a cure all, then, but it probably won’t hurt you.

What do medical doctors think of using acupuncture for libido? “Acupuncture may improve some of the factors that cause low libido, but others may benefit from additional western treatments,” says Joseph B. Davis, an obstetrician-gynecologist in NYC. He referred me to studies that indicate that women, in particular, might gain sexual health benefits from regular acupuncture treatments. According to a study conducted in 2018 and published in Sexual Medicine, women who received acupuncture treatments for five weeks reported an increase in sex drive. The study focused on acupuncture’s impact on symptoms rather than the why behind the results, so it’s not clear exactly what acupuncture did, in this study, to improve low libido.

Davis stresses that low libido can be a symptom of many things, and that while acupuncture may work for some causes, it may not for others. “It depends on the underlying cause. Libido may be low due to physical or psychological stress, low hormones, fatigue and low self image among other causes. Treatments should address the underlying causes,” he says. But he does seem to think that, overall, acupuncture can be beneficial for sexual health. The theory is that acupuncture can help balance out the hormones that make you feel happy – and horny.

Auth echoes that reduced interest in sex can happen for many reasons, some of which are mental and some of which are sexual. How can acupuncture possibly address everything at once? “Acupuncture balances both mental and sexual hormones. When your hormones are out of balance, stimulating and sexual experiences can be less desirable,” she asserts. “Acupuncture increases your ‘happy’ hormone, serotonin, as well as balancing sex hormones testosterone and estrogen.”

The theory is that acupuncture can help balance out the hormones that make you feel happy – and horny.

Research indeed suggests that acupuncture can boost hormone production in women, and Davis finds it worthy of exploration. “I think it’s plausible,” he says. “Some serotonin receptors increase desire and some inhibit. Testosterone increase would increase desire,” he explains. Still, studies which suggest that acupuncture can increase serotonin release have been conducted on humans, but the only studies that show that acupuncture can aid in the release of testosterone have been performed on mice. That’s important to keep in mind since while the little guys are important indicators of human health, our bodies are very different that rodents’.

If the only testosterone studies have been done on mice, can acupuncture help human men with libido-related issues? Maybe.

According to the Mayo Clinic, acupuncture can boost sperm count and help men relax. Erectile dysfunction, however, is another matter, so acupuncture may not be effective for all penis-related dilemmas. “Acupuncture may have some benefit for ED caused by psychological stress but not for ED due to physical causes,” Davis says. Research from 2019 published in World Men’s Health Journal suggested that men who experience psychological stress that caused ED showed major mojo improvement with very few side effects. That’s a lot more than can be said for pharmaceutical treatments for ED, which have some pretty unsexy side effects, like diarrhea and headache.

Davis says that he has seen acupuncture significantly improve health outcomes when used as in conjunct with medical treatments, but the woo factor is a definite barrier. “The greatest challenge facing acupuncturists is western medical providers not fully understanding the way acupuncture works within the western medicine system,” he said.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Why you’re probably having less (or more) sex right now

By Alexandra Ossola & Natasha Frost

Most people in lockdown, as 75% of Americans are at the moment, are probably experiencing big changes to their usual routine. There’s no office commute, no school bus shuttle; there are no parties to attend, no group dinners to plan. It’s unsurprising, then, that for a lot of people, those changes may also be affecting their sex life.

For some, less sex during the pandemic is a given—for those who are self-isolating while single, making their usual sex lives too risky, or those whose partners are away or sickened by the virus. Meanwhile, those with the option of having more sex might well be taking it: Condoms may become the next item to be in short supply worldwide, while some have speculated that maternity wards will see an uptick in mothers giving birth nine months after the lockdowns began.

But if you’re not feeling in the mood, well, you’re not alone. On Twitter, users lamented that “general panic and despair” had led to the sudden disappearance of their libido, as one put it. Others described feeling “unappealing” or wanting to cuddle and eat snacks instead. In a poll of just over 9,000 people from NBC News, only 24% said the coronavirus outbreak had positively affected their sex lives (28% were neutral and 47% said it had affected them negatively).

Online, sex researchers and therapists acknowledge that people could really go either way. “After all, we know from a mountain of psychological research that two people can respond to the same situation in very different ways and that the factors that increase sexual desire in some can drive it down in others,” Justin Lehmiller, a sex researcher at the Kinsey Institute, wrote in a blog post.

Wondering what’s going on? There might be a few reasons why you’re feeling different about getting busy.

Fighting off the blues

“For plenty of people, when they get stressed out, sex is the farthest thing from their mind,” says Heather McPherson, a sex therapist based in Austin, Texas. Between worrying about elderly parents, figuring out how to exercise at home, and managing a new routine, “a lot of things can point toward not doing it, because you’re so focused on surviving,” she says. Meanwhile, “stress and anxiety and potentially losing your job will potentially take a toll on all relationships.”

Still, in such unusual circumstances, it’s hard to know which behaviors are most common, McPherson says. “We don’t really have good measures to go off.”

Some people may see the opposite effect altogether: “For some people, when anxiety and stress goes up, their libido kicks up,” with sex serving as a coping mechanism. This is the phenomenon dubbed the “apocalyptic hornies” by Men’s Health, perhaps contributing to a 17.8% increase in US site traffic to PornHub on March 24, compared to an average day.

Writing in Psychology Today, sex therapist Diane Gleim suggests that it all comes down to a delicate balancing act: “A person’s sex drive needs just enough anxiety/tension/uncertainty to get activated but not too much anxiety/tension/uncertainty or else the person can get overwhelmed, flooded, and then sex drive goes underground,” she writes. “Think of it like the Goldilocks principle: not too much (anxiety), not too little (anxiety), but just (the) right (amount of anxiety).”

One of the few studies into the relationship between trauma and the libido, published in the International Journal of Gynecology and Obstetrics, looked at the effect of the massive 2008 earthquake in Wenchuan, China, on the reproductive health of 170 local women. Researchers found a marked decrease in women’s satisfaction with their sex life: Before the quake, 55% of women surveyed said they were satisfied, falling to 21% afterwards. They had less sex, too: Before the quake, every woman surveyed said they were having sex at least once a week, and in the week immediately after, 89% said they had not had sex at all. Even a month later, 32% said they were still not having sex.

The economy sucks

If US history is anything to go by, a downturn in economic prospects is similarly bad news for the nation’s sex life. That’s according to studies on the nation’s birth rate: During years of prosperity, such as the 1950s, the US birth rate soared. Its greatest nadirs, meanwhile, coincided with times of economic hardship: the Great Depression of 1929, the 1973 oil crisis, and the 2008 recession.

Between 2008 and 2013, for instance, nearly 2.3 million fewer babies were born in the US than would have been expected if pre-recession fertility rates had persisted, according to one study from the University of New Hampshire’s Carsey School of Public Policy.

Some of this may be pragmatic, of course—who wants to have another child when they can barely afford the ones they have? Still, while birth rate isn’t a perfect measure for how much sex people are having (especially after 1960, when the pill went on sale as a contraceptive), it’s one of the better indicators widely available.

Too much togetherness

In long-term relationships, it can be hard to keep the mystery alive at the best of times. That goes double when you’re stuck together in the confined space of your own home, with few opportunities for independent activities or time apart.

Too much closeness, in fact, can actually hinder the kind of intimacy we look for in sex, sex therapist and relationship guru Esther Perel writes in her book Mating in Captivity:

It is too easily assumed that problems with sex are the result of a lack of closeness. But … perhaps the way we construct closeness reduces the sense of freedom and autonomy needed for sexual pleasure. When intimacy collapses into fusion, it is not a lack of closeness but too much closeness that impedes desire.

Love rests on two pillars: surrender and autonomy. Our need for togetherness exists alongside our need for separateness. One does not exist without the other. With too much distance, there can be no connection. But too much merging eradicates the separateness of two distinct individuals. Then there is nothing more to transcend, no bridge to walk on, no one to visit on the other side, no other internal world to enter. When people become fused—when two become one—connection can no longer happen. There is no one to connect with. Thus separateness is a precondition for connection: this is the essential paradox of intimacy and sex.

During this interminable period of intense stress and anxiety, it’s hardly surprising if you find your libido vacillating from one extreme to the other. Sex therapist McPherson said many of her clients had found themselves settling gradually into a new routine after a few weeks in lockdown. As human beings, “generally, we’re pretty resilient,” she says. And when it comes to sex in quarantine, there’s one undeniable upside: “You certainly have enough time to do it.”

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Coronavirus and Sex: Questions and Answers

Some of us are mating in actual captivity. Some of us not at all. The pandemic raises lots of issues around safe intimate physical contact, and what it may look like in the future.

By Jen Gunter

These are not sexy times.

As an obstetrician and gynecologist in the Bay Area, I’ve been caring for my patients via telemedicine for the past three weeks because of the new coronavirus pandemic. When I ask patients about new sex partners — a standard question for me — the answer is a universal “no.” They are taking California’s shelter-in-place very seriously.

In fact, many of my patients are more interested in updates about the virus than the medical (and often sexual) problem for which they were referred.

The pandemic has most of the world practicing exceptional hand hygiene and social distancing. This coronavirus is so new that we don’t know what we don’t know, and while fresh information is coming at an incredible pace, one medical recommendation has remained constant: the need for social distancing.

This time has been an exercise in prioritizing needs from wants. So where does sex fall on that spectrum?

Are we even wanting sex these days?

It’s hard to know yet. While some people may turn to sex for comfort or as a temporary distraction, these are unprecedented times and we don’t have much data.

Depression and anxiety have a negative effect on libido. Some people are out of work, too, and unemployment can affect sexual desire. The kind of worry people are experiencing crosses so many domains: job security, health, friends’ and family’s health, retirement and the ability to have access to medical care, to name a few.

One study that looked at the effect of the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake in China on the reproductive health of married women found sexual activity decreased significantly, and not just in the week after the earthquake.

Before the earthquake, 67 percent of married women reported they were having sex two or more times a week. One week after the earthquake, that number fell to 4 percent. By four weeks, only 24 percent reported they were having sex two or more times a week, well below the baseline.

While this study is retrospective data — women were asked to recall their sexual activity eight weeks after the earthquake — and an earthquake isn’t the same thing as a pandemic, it seems unlikely that sexual activity overall will increase.

However, trauma — and these are certainly traumatic times for some — can also lead to sexual risk taking, like unprotected sex or sex under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

What is considered ‘safe sex’ right now?

Your risk for infection with the new coronavirus starts as soon as someone gets within six feet of you. (And of course, if you do have sex, your risk for pregnancy and S.T.I.s remains the same, and the previous definition of “safe sex” still applies.)

You’ve read this elsewhere: Covid-19 is transmitted by droplet nuclei, tiny specks of infectious material far too small to see. They are sprayed from the nose and mouth by breathing, talking, coughing and sneezing.

A person contracts the virus sharing the same airspace — a six-foot radius, the distance droplet nuclei are believed to travel (although with coughing they may travel farther) — and inhaling the infectious particles. Or the droplet nuclei land on an object or surface, making it infectious. Touch that surface and then your face and the chain of transmission is complete.

If you do have sex with someone who is infected with the new coronavirus, there is nothing we can recommend, be it showering head to toe with soap before and immediately after sex, or using condoms, to reduce your risk of infection. (The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene issued these guidelines.)

We don’t know if the new coronavirus is present in vaginal secretions or ejaculate, but it has been identified in stool. Based on what we currently know about transmission of coronavirus, penetrative vaginal or anal sex or oral sex seem unlikely to pose a significant risk of transmission.

Who are the safest partners?

It’s best to limit sex to your household sex partner (HSP), who should also be following recommendations for hand hygiene and social distancing. The World Health Organization currently lists the risk of household transmission as 3 to 10 percent, but this is based on preliminary data. We don’t know what role kissing or sexual activity plays in transmission.

The idea of limiting sexual contact to your household partner and social distancing in general is about ending the chain of transmission to your household should one person become infected.

If your HSP is sick with symptoms of Covid-19, or has been exposed, definitely don’t have sex. They may be too fatigued anyway, but your risk of being infected will likely go up in close, intimate contact. Sleep in separate bedrooms if possible.

If you have more than one bathroom, designate one for the sick or exposed person. Try to stay six feet apart and be fastidious about cleaning surfaces. If they were exposed, living as separate as possible in your home for 14 days is recommended.

What if I’m in a new relationship and had planned to get other S.T.I. testing done?

Many labs are overwhelmed with coronavirus testing, so you may not get results for some S.T.I.s — like gonorrhea, chlamydia and herpes — as fast as before. Given the short supply of test kits for Covid-19, many medical centers and labs are taking swabs and liquid from other test kits to jury-rig testing kits for the new coronavirus, so sampling kits for genital infections may be in short supply.

Ask your health provider because work flows may vary locally and may change day to day. But if you are at risk of an S.T.I., you should still seek out a test as soon as possible.

Sign up to receive our daily Coronavirus Briefing, an informed guide with the latest developments and expert advice.

What if I don’t have an HSP? Am I now celibate?

Yes, I’m sorry to say, those are the recommendations. For now.

But this doesn’t mean you can’t meet people online — start talking on the phone, have video chats, sext or have phone sex if that’s your thing.

And if someone you meet online is encouraging you to meet in person? That not only tells you how they view their own safety, but, even more important, how they view yours.

What about a ‘Covid sex buddy’?

I’ve heard people talk about this: a sexual partner who agrees to socially distance with everyone else, but the two of you will hook up for mutual release.

I really discourage this (for now): Social distancing means limiting contact with people outside of your household. Each additional person added to the household increases risk. And of course, you are depending on this person to be as vigilant with social distancing as you are — not to mention the risk during transportation between your home and your partner’s. At the moment, the risk is too high.

Might we see people in close proximity hooking up who both tested positive for Covid-19 and are now 14 days post-positive test? It would not surprise me. However, we don’t know much about immunity (protection from reinfection) against Covid-19 after an infection. And because tests are in short supply, many people have presumptive infections but can’t be tested.

With seasonal coronaviruses that cause a common cold, immunity lasts about a year, but with the more serious coronaviruses like SARS or MERS, immunity seems to last longer. But we still don’t know enough to make concrete recommendations in terms of post-illness behavior.

What about sex toys?

Sex toys aren’t likely to be a method of coronavirus transmission if you have been using them alone. However, if you shared your toys within the past 72 hours, make sure they are appropriately cleaned and wash your hands afterward as the virus may stay active of some surfaces for up to three days.

And do not clean sex toys with hand sanitizer or use hand sanitizer immediately before masturbating, because it can be very irritating to the vagina or rectum. Ouch.

Is it safe to buy new sex toys?

Judging from the state of my inbox, it appears that a lot of vibrators are on sale. Is this a good time to take advantage of a deal and the extra time on your hands?

Paying electronically is safer than an in-store purchase: Paying online means no one is physically handling a credit card or cash.

As for the delivery itself, there is lab data suggesting the new coronavirus is viable up to 24 hours on cardboard. Washing your hands after opening and throwing away the delivery box seems like an appropriate mitigation strategy. Letting that box sit for a day (if possible) before opening may be a good idea, although we don’t know how the lab data of the virus survival on surfaces translates to the real world.

Does your online purchase of a nonessential (as much as it pains me to say this, a vibrator is a “want,” not a “need”) put someone else at increased risk? Workers at large warehouses where social distancing isn’t possible may be at increased risk, especially if they don’t have sick pay, so taking time off if exposed isn’t possible.

One option is to consider a local small business that can take your payment over the phone or online and arrange a curbside pickup.

What will safe sex look like in the future?

Right now the only safe sex is no sex with partners outside your household.

If you or your HSP are at high risk, should you take extra precautions to further reduce the risk of transmission — giving up sex and kissing, sleeping in separate bedrooms — in case one of you has an asymptomatic infection? Asking your doctor for guidance here is probably wise.

But what about when we emerge from our homes again — which may be some months away — and start thinking about in-person dating, and even mating?

No one knows if we are all going to have the urge to have sex after this quasi-hibernation. One concern is a potential surge in risk-taking and S.T.I.s. in the immediate aftermath of the pandemic. (After all, you can’t assume that if someone was celibate during the pandemic they don’t have an S.T.I.; most S.T.I.s don’t cause symptoms and could have predated the new coronavirus.)

If that all sounds fairly bleak, well, it is. For now, the new coronavirus probably means less partner sex overall, whether that’s because of the lack of a household sex partner for some or a drop in desire for others. Or both.

Hopefully, though, this is just for now.

Because the more everyone commits to social distancing, the faster we can all get back — and down — to business.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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The awkward intimacy of video dates, when they’re in your bedroom but you can’t touch

By Lisa Bonos

Priscilla McGregor-Kerr is about to have a first date while dressed in pajamas. On a Thursday night, the 25-year-old Londoner dabs a bit of concealer under her eyes, fills in her eyebrows and runs a mascara brush through her lashes. She’ll put on just a bit of makeup, not a full face, she decides, because her date knows she’s “not going or coming from anywhere.”

She strives for a quarantine look that says: I’m trying, but not too hard. She adjusts her bedside lamp so that there’s a nice glow and pours herself a glass of gin-infused rosé.

When her date arrives, he’s drinking the same brand of wine. They spend three hours talking about their personality types (she’s an extrovert, he’s an introvert), playing a drinking game and sharing their love of the U.S. version of “The Office.” It goes so well they decide to meet again the following week, in the same place, where they can’t touch or inadvertently spread the coronavirus: FaceTime.

Before the pandemic, online dating sites and apps were pushing for video meetups, but the medium hadn’t taken off. Now, out of necessity, video apps are becoming the hot spots for first dates, forcing daters to reinvent norms and endure an entirely new form of awkwardness and miscommunication. Is their WiFi really that spotty, or are they just not that into you?

The virtual first date keeps people distant, but it also can enable more intimacy. You can talk until your battery dies or someone falls asleep. You can see if your date keeps their room messy or makes their bed. It’s also a good match for this moment of economic uncertainty: It’s cheap and easy. You don’t need to impress your date by snagging a reservation to the trendiest restaurant in town. You don’t even need to be in the same town. You need only half an outfit.

Dating from a distance also removes the question, “Am I going home with this person?,” notes sexuality and relationship educator Logan Levkoff. “I’m hoping that this really is an opportunity for people to think [beyond] the superficial qualities we think are so important.”

Dating apps are trying to help the FaceTime-reluctant get comfortable with virtual meetups. When Hinge users open the app, a pop-up notes that 70 percent of members are “down for a digital date.” Plenty of Fish lets daters broadcast themselves to a bunch of prospects and then break off into one-on-one video chats. Match has a Dating While Distancing hotline that offers free advice. And since any new relationship would likely be “long-distance” regardless of where people are based, Tinder is making its premium Passport feature free, so users can swipe through singles anywhere in the world.

Dating from home is even being packaged as entertainment. Fans of the Netflix hit reality show “Love Is Blind” have started their own low-budget spinoffs, trying to match more Camerons with Laurens by pairing up singles and broadcasting snippets of their phone dates on social media. “Love Is Quarantine,” created by two Brooklyn roommates, is in its second go-round, which features senior daters. “DC Is Blind,” a Washington version, launched on Wednesday.

A video chat allows two people to pay attention to one another without the usual distractions at a bar or restaurant: a television blaring overhead, or a bartender who’s cuter than your date. But you’ll need some privacy. A 21-year-old man in Florida learned this the embarrassing way when his mom walked in on his R-rated Skype date Tuesday night. His digital dating tip: Put on headphones and make sure you’re in a room with a door that locks.

Even a virtual date requires some planning. Matchmaker Tammy Shaklee suggests cleaning up the corner where you’re going to Zoom or FaceTime and choosing a backdrop that represents your personality. It’s a bit like creating a good dating profile. A writer might sit in front of his bookshelf, or a musician might set up with her record collection right behind her.

Whatever you do, don’t show up in sweats, which makes you look lazy, Shaklee says. And resist the urge to Skype from bed, which feels like a hookup situation. Drink out of a nice glass, not the chipped mug from your university, Shaklee suggests. Add a spritz of perfume or cologne, even though your date can’t smell you. “You’re hosting your future partner in your space,” Shaklee says. “Light a candle, have a fragrance. If you feel it, they will be able to sense it.”

When McGregor-Kerr tweeted about how her date had sent her 15 British pounds (about $18) to buy a bottle of wine for their virtual meetup (socially distant chivalry!), 15,000 people retweeted it. For their next meetup, McGregor-Kerr says they might send each other UberEats.

But for some daters, the idea of hosting a near-stranger in their home is not pleasant — even if it’s virtual.

“I don’t live by myself. I don’t want them to see my roommates or even my room,” says Isis Parada, a 25-year-old woman in the Washington area. “It strips a level of privacy down.”

She might be okay doing a Zoom call with a fake background (you can swap in any image from your camera roll). But for now, Parada is telling her dating-app matches that they can meet up after social distancing is over.

The pandemic and its attending isolation are obvious conversation starters for a video chat, notes Logan Ury, a dating coach in San Francisco, but daters should be careful about falling back on what’s easy. She suggests transitioning from covid-19 talk into more personal topics, such as: “What are you passionate about? What’s your relationship like with your family?” That’ll also help your date feel different from your work Zoom call.

A 26-year-old woman in Washington, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for professional privacy reasons, went on two good video dates recently but wondered: Do we have anything in common, or is it just the quarantine? After a six-feet-apart second-date walk with one of those men, she determined they didn’t share much more than being two young people craving connection while cooped up in their apartments. She texted later to say she didn’t think they were a match.

Ury likens this phenomenon to traveling abroad, meeting someone from your home country — and falling for them immediately. That connection might feel strong, until you realize it was based more on circumstances than a genuine bond.

Even when a spark seems real, it’s hard to know how these budding relationships could possibly grow. Lull Mengesha, a 36-year-old man in Oakland, Calif., says he’s been getting more Tinder matches than usual, perhaps because people are stuck inside with little to do but swipe. He had a FaceTime date, which went well, but the next day she texted to say, “I think we may be in different headspaces.”

The woman was looking for a relationship, but California is a shelter-in-place state, and Mengesha doesn’t know how that would work logistically.

“Maybe before corona, I’d be looking for a relationship, but we have to understand that a lot of things are changing,” he says. “I don’t know what’s happening, and this is the time you want to attach the responsibility of another person?”

So Mengesha is looking for digital companionship only. Still, that text stung a bit. Getting rejected, he says, “hits double when it happens in the apocalypse.”

For some couples, a video screen is not enough. In February, Tracy Smith, a 40-year-old woman in Oklahoma, met a Bumble match she really liked. Once social distancing set in, they watched “Portlandia” and “Modern Love” at the same time from their separate apartments while texting each other. Eventually, Smith invited him over to her place, where she got out her tape measure and jokingly asked that he hold one end as she gave him a tour.

A few nights later, he arrived at her door again. No tape measure.

“I felt like I had to take a risk and let him into my personal space during isolation in order to see if this could work,” Smith says.

He walked over and kissed her.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Kink Is More Popular Than You Think

Your kink might be more common than you think.

“It’s incredible to see how people open up to me,” says Stavroula Toska. She loves the look of relief on their faces when they realize they can talk to her and she won’t judge them. About their fetishes.

Toska’s a writer, director and actor who began working as a dominatrix while researching her 2018 TV series Switch. She’s trained couples and individuals, letting them talk about their fantasies and try what was on their minds. Couples who wanted the same things but didn’t know where to start or how to get past their own inhibitions could turn to her for guidance, learning how to submit when they wanted to and call the shots when they wanted to.

That kind of help might be made to order for a larger proportion of the population than you think. According to a study published in The Journal of Sexual Medicine …

The 2017 survey drew data from more than 8,000 Belgians asked about their level of interest in hitting or being hit with a whip, sexual uses of hot candle wax, controlling their partner’s breathing and playacting rape, among other things. Though only 7.6 percent said they considered themselves to be “BDSM practitioners,” 12.5 percent said they performed such activities on a regular basis, 46.8 percent had engaged in BDSM at some point and an additional 22 percent had fantasized about it. To put it another way: Fewer than 1 in 3 people aren’t into this.

“Many of the things that we’ve long considered to be paraphilic are actually pretty common sexual interests,” says Dr. Justin Lehmiller, author of Tell Me What You Want: The Science of Sexual Desire and How It Can Help You Improve Your Sex Life. One reason such activities have been classified as rare or strange, he theorizes, is that psychologists and psychiatrists just thought they sounded unusual. “Once we started to really systematically explore them, we found that a lot of these are quite common,” he says.  

Paraphilic sexual interests are defined as unusual or anomalous and include not just sadism and masochism but voyeurism and fetishes. While kink has been increasingly normalized — Fifty Shades of Grey, of course, but also more recent cultural artifacts like Netflix’s 2019 show Bonding — it’s only been seven years since the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual used by American doctors reclassified BDSM behavior as no longer a mental illness requiring treatment. For example, according to Gabbard’s Treatments of Psychiatric Disorders, Fifth Edition, if a sadist were aroused by fantasies or acts involving nonconsensual behaviors, clinicians were advised to prescribe antiandrogens — drugs that block the hormones that regulate the development of sex. Now, those into sexual sadism and masochism can still be considered as requiring treatment, but only if the practice causes distress to the person or others around them.

But engaging in kink can actually have a positive effect on health. A 2013 evaluation of psychological characteristics of people practicing BDSM found that they were less neurotic, more open and extroverted and less rejection-sensitive than the general population.

Still, the culture by and large remains underground in the form of secret societies, invite-only parties and online chats. Perhaps that secrecy just makes it more titillating, though. Mainstream guides like Time Out have even featured recommendations of best sex dungeons in some cities.

For first timers, though, that may not be the best option. Toska advises those who are interested in exploring their kinky side to find another consenting adult who will understand what it is they’re looking for and who agrees to explore responsibly. For those in a relationship, she says, it’s a good idea to speak with their partner about maintaining an open mind. “I’d also inform them that they are not alone,” she says. “There are thousands, possibly millions, of people around the world who share the same interest.”

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Goal-Oriented Sex Could Be Ruining Your Intimate Life

By Vanessa Powell

While many women understand that overall pleasure, exploration, intimacy, and play should all be at center stage in a sexual experience, and not simply an orgasm (although, let’s be clear, it is still an important component), the latter often eclipses all else — which is why and how things can often go south. In fact, sex experts agree that goal-oriented sex can actually take the fun out of it for women altogether.

Thanks to social movements like The Cliteracy Project, an art series with the mission of educating a largely “il-cliterate” culture, women are more open to talking about their sexual experiences, preferences, and struggles than ever before. One of the major focal points of female sexuality to emerge in recent years involves the very real orgasm gap between men and women and the root of its existence. According to a 2016 study from the Archives of Sexual Behavior that looked at more than 52,500 adults in the U.S. — including those who are lesbian, gay, and bisexual — 95 percent of heterosexual men reported they usually or always orgasmed during sex, compared to just 65 percent of heterosexual women.

So, why are people creating a goal around something that should just have to do with mutual pleasure? Well, much of it can be traced back to a more archaic view of male and female sexuality — and orgasms in general. “Because the male orgasm is crucial to procreate, our society has built this idea that the male orgasm is crucial for sex; that sex begins with a hard penis and ends with a flaccid penis. Since women don’t have to orgasm to create life, it took a different level of societal importance,” says Shan Boodram, certified intimacy educator to The Zoe Report. “With that said, the majority of sex today has nothing to do with the desire to procreate. In fact, the orgasm numbers for women skyrocket in same-sex partnerships compared to heterosexual relationships. When you are with a same-sex partner, there is nothing to prove — it’s just about what feels good, and that is when naturally more orgasms and more pleasure occurs.”

Moral of the story here? Sex should be about being in the moment, true intimacy, and enjoying one another. It’s not a race to the finish line. “If you look at sex like, how good can I feel for as long as I want to feel it and for as long as my partner wants to feel it, great,” says Boodram. “And if an orgasm is the final result, even better. But if it’s just that you got more play time and felt great and relaxed, it’s still a successful sexual experience.”

Why Goal-Oriented Sex Is Sabotaging Your Intimate Life

Ashley Manta, sex and relationship coach and creator of lifestyle brand CannaSexual, seconds this notion. “Goal-oriented sex often robs the participants of the pleasure and joy of the experience,” says Manta. “Often the pressure to be demonstrative while receiving pleasure and to reach an arbitrary goal, in this case the orgasm… keeps them fixated on a point in the future.” Like anything in life, if you take yourself out of the present moment, it becomes difficult to enjoy.

Again, to be clear, orgasms are absolutely important and should be enjoyed by all, however, according to Sensual Embodiment Coach and Priestess of Passion, Ani Ferlise, “our attachment to the orgasm is ignoring all the amazing, healing, and nourishing pleasurable experiences in our bodies! We as a society are addicted to this very specific kind of pleasure based off of a male-bodied orgasm — a buildup of sensation, then a release. It’s the false promises that movies and porn portray. It’s two minutes of extreme penetration and there are fireworks… probably not going to happen.”

When one can detach themselves from the notion that climaxing makes the overall sexual experience a success, one can then truly become sexually free. Redefining what the orgasm is for you can actually help you relax more easily into one.

How To Be More Mindful With Your Sex Life

Ferlise holds Sex Magic coaching programs and workshops to help women cultivate their sacred sexual energy which, in turn, become a microcosm to nurturing passion, vibrancy, and connection in their overall life. One thing prevalent in her teachings is mindfulness, which is about remaining present in the moment and being aware of one’s bodily sensations. Intimacy starts with eye contact and can trickle into a conversation, a physical touch, or an energy exchange, even before any clothes are taken off. Allowing yourself to be vulnerable and to feel the desire, lust, and emotions as they come can help redefine the orgasm.

“Letting yourself sink into all the subtle sensations of pleasure, really leaning into it and feeling it in your body, and taking the same stock in that, can help you come back into your body and turn up the pleasure all over,” Ferlise says. When one is hyper focused on outside factors, they can train themselves to disassociate during sex, pushing their minds away from sensation, which ultimately decreases the amount one is able to feel.

Top Sex Tips For Ultimate Pleasure

Teach Your Partner What You Like

Manta tells her clients to “relax and breathe… and focus on what brings you the most pleasure, instead of what you think is going to get you off. Mimic the things you do when you’re masturbating and show your partner how you enjoy being touched.” Exploring self-pleasure is a great place to start in knowing what you like and dislike. Intimacy is uniquely personal — everyone’s body and interests are different, and we should communicate that to our partner or partners.

Get Out Of Your Head

One major complaint Ferlise says many women have during sex is that they think too much about how they look, how their partner feels, and how they are performing. “Adding all the body shame, the fear of being seen, and the fear of vulnerability, the fear of being broken because you think you can’t orgasm, the shame of not performing right — that so many women experience — it leads to a disconnect in your body and can cause you to check out during sex,” Ferlise says. Evidently, your partner will be much more turned on and notice the level of intimacy if you can truly unwind by letting go of these inhibitions.

Accessorize Your Sex Life

Adding tools into the mix can help build confidence in the bedroom. If you don’t feel completely comfortable being naked, try wearing sexy lingerie you feel great in. If you find yourself worried about lubrication and all that comes with it, try enlisting lube or organic coconut oil on your vulva to help ease your mind.

Get Moving

Movement is a helpful tool to be more present. “Move your body sensually in whatever way feels good,” says Ferlise. “Start to breathe into yourself deeply and focus your mind on your [vagina] and allow yourself to make some noise. As you exhale, you can moan and release sound. Your throat and your jaw are directly related to your pelvic bowl, and if they are tight and closed, so is your pelvic bowl.”

How To Embrace The Sex Life That Works For You

Women have an incredibly powerful sexual energy with great orgasmic potential. But this expands far beyond society’s picture of the “Big O.” Not only has culture suppressed the conversation and education around sex but it has put the female orgasm into a tiny box when it deserves so much more than a toe curl and high-pitched moan.

Everyone has the right to feel comfortable and unapologetic in their sexuality, whether that be via BDSM or missionary style twice a week. Closing the pleasure gap starts with experiencing and experimenting what works for you and letting go of the goal-oriented mindset. Don’t negate the importance of orgasms, but rather shift your mind to focus on how to achieve more overall pleasure. You deserve to feel safe and free in your body, as you are, at its highest potential.

Below are some products that help enhance sexual pleasure and health for people with vulvas. A happier healthier sex life should be on the top of everyone’s to-do list.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Can you have sex during the coronavirus pandemic?

We explain the risks and how to stay safe

Online searches related to the rules around sexual intercourse during Covid-19 are rising – so here’s what you need to know

By

The Prime Minister has been very clear, there are now only four acceptable reasons for leaving the house: shopping for basic necessities, taking one form of exercise per day, medical needs, or travelling to work if you’re a key worker. “A booty call with that guy you dated for three months last year” is very much not on the list. Nor is “a nightly visit to the nearby flat of the girlfriend you’re not ready to cohabitate with yet”. And don’t even think about going on a date, unless it’s virtual.

For some, it’s the element of this lockdown business which is proving the hardest to accept. In fact there are almost as many Google searches at the moment for “can I have sex during coronavirus” as there are for advice on the lockdown.

It might seem callous to be concerned for your sex life in the midst of a pandemic. But if isolation has taught us anything so far, it’s that it is entirely possible to be in a constant state of panic for your loved ones’ safety, while simultaneously feeling furious about the loss of more frivolous things like the freedom to go on a date.

If you’re not already living with your other half, the chances are you are staring down the barrel of a sexless few months (unless you’re planning on forging a new and exciting relationship with your housemate, in which case good luck to you). As for those already shacked up with someone, well, at least you can have some fun while in lockdown.

Or can you? If that Google search traffic is anything to go by, there seems to be some not inconsiderable confusion about whether or not you should be having sex during coronavirus, especially if one of you has symptoms.

To date, the government has disseminated no official guidelines about sex – but it has broached the subject of relationships more broadly. Yesterday, Dr Jenny Harries said in a Downing Street press conference that now is a good time for fledgling couples to “test” a relationship by moving in together (a risky game indeed). Government advice also stipulates that any contact with people not living in the same household should be conducted while keeping at least two metres apart, and that includes “non-cohabiting partners”, who could pass on the deadly virus if they continued to visit each other.

If you can maintain a sex life at two metres distance, then good luck to you. Maybe we’ll be buying your book when this is over.

In the meantime, here’s everything you need to know about how coronavirus is going to affect your sex life.

Can you have sex during the coronavirus outbreak?

In general, a couple living together can have sex if they both feel healthy, are not in an at-risk group, and have not come into contact with anyone with symptoms.

If you are in a group at high risk of becoming seriously unwell, the advice is different. If you live with your partner, have been self-isolating for two weeks or more, and neither of you are exhibiting symptoms or have come into contact with anyone who is, then go for it. But only under these conditions.

Professor Claudia Estcourt, an expert from the British Association for Sexual Health and HIV, says: “It is safe for people in a household which has been self-isolating for over 14 days to have sex. But remember that every time someone goes out of their household that person has the potential to acquire the virus. You will need to keep resetting the 14 day clock if one of you is in contact with someone with coronavirus or develops symptoms.”

If you are considering meeting up with someone to have sex, don’t. It’s against the stipulations of the lockdown. As Prof. Estcourt says: “To comply with the government advice to prevent transmission, it’s really important that the only people you have sex with are those who live within your household. You should not be having sex if so doing means you have to breach government guidance not to mix households.”

Can you have sex if one of you has coronavirus or has come into contact with someone who has?

If you or your partner is exhibiting symptoms, then the chances are sex is going to be the last thing on your mind. A fever and dry cough aren’t exactly aphrodisiacs.

If you, someone you live with, or someone you’ve had sex with recently has had symptoms of Covid-19 then you should self-isolate for 14 days to prevent further transmissions. This means no physical contact, which obviously includes sex.  

Prof. Estcourt says: “We know that Covid-19 is transmitted most easily between household contacts. Transmission is via droplet spread and surfaces which have been contaminated.

“The chances are that if you’re in the same household you are probably way more likely to acquire Covid-19 through usual household activities than through sex, because day-to-day contact is happening all the time.

“However, it would be fair to assume mouth kissing confers a high risk of transmission. And if someone is self-isolating because they are either exhibiting symptoms or have potentially been exposed to the virus, then they shouldn’t be having sex during the isolation period at all.”

Is Covid-19 sexually transmissible?

The virus is primarily spread through respiratory droplets. So while there is no evidence that it can be transmitted through genital secretions, it could be spread through saliva, so if either you or your partner are exhibiting symptoms or have come into contact with someone who is, then don’t have sex.

Dr Carlos E. Rodríguez-Díaz, associate professor of prevention and community health at George Washington University, told The Telegraph: “There is no evidence that Covid-19 can be transmitted via sexual intercourse; either vaginal or anal.

“However, kissing is a very common practice during sex, and the virus can be transmitted via saliva. Therefore, the virus can be transmitted by kissing.”

How can I have sex while self-isolating alone?

The short answer is no. The government has put us on lockdown to stop the spread of this deadly virus. And clearly that takes precedence over your sex life.

But all is not lost – the internet affords us plenty of ways to satisfy our needs from a safe distance. The dating app Hinge is encouraging users to enjoy its video chat mode, where you can have a virtual date rather than meeting in person. Make a connection and start exploring the possibilities of virtual sex. Sexting, erotic video calls and voice notes – a brave new world of virtual pleasure awaits.

And remember: keep your sex toys as clean as your hands and surfaces, using soap and water. Whether or not you choose to sing two rounds of happy birthday while you do so is entirely up to you.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Here’s Why Most Women Are Unhappy With Their Sex Lives

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Sex is good for longevity… right? If one of your resolutions for this year was to improve your sex life, we’d understand. While there are benefits that have been linked to healthy sex life, not everyone seems to be reaping these benefits – and not without a lack of trying.

In fact, a new Australian study has suggested that many women are quite dissatisfied with their bedroom activity (previous research has suggested that women may only orgasm 50% of the time during intercourse when compared to men’s 90% ). According to the researchers of this particular study, half of young Australian women experience sexually-related personal distress. In fact, one in five women has at least one female sexual dysfunction (FSD).

The study on sexual satisfaction

Funded by the Grollo Ruzzene Foundation, a study by the Women’s Health Research Program at Monash University recruited 6986 women aged 18-39 years, living in Victoria, New South Wales, and Queensland.

For the study, the women were each asked to complete a questionnaire that assessed their sexual wellbeing in terms of desire, arousal, responsiveness, orgasm, and self-image. The women also shared whether they had sexually-associated personal distress, and also provided extensive demographic information.

The results

The results, published in the journal Fertility and Sterility, revealed that 50.2% of young Australian women experienced some form of sexually-related personal distress.

Of these women, nearly 29.6% didn’t actually have a ‘dysfunction’, per se. Instead, their distress was often a result of feelings of guilt, embarrassment, stress, or general unhappiness with regard to their sex lives.

On the other hand, 20.6% had at least one female sexual dysfunction (FSD). The most common FSD was a low sexual self-image, which caused distress for 11% of the women. Common factors associated with low sexual self-image included being overweight or obese, living with a partner, and breastfeeding.

Additionally, arousal dysfunction, desire dysfunction, and orgasm dysfunction and responsiveness dysfunction affected 9%, 8%, 7.9% and 3.4% of the study cohort respectively.

Also, the study also revealed that 20% of the surveyed women were taking psychotropic medication (such as antidepressants). This appeared to have the most widespread impact on women’s sexual function. It should be noted that the use of the combined oral contraceptive pill was not associated with any sexual dysfunction.

Lastly, women who routinely monitored their appearance, and who determined their level of physical self-worth on said appearance, reported being less sexually assertive. They also revealed that they were more self-conscious during sex. Additionally, they also experienced lower sexual satisfaction.

Addressing dissatisfaction during sex

According to senior author and Professor of Women’s Health at Monash University, Susan Davis, if left untreated, sexually-related personal distress and FSD may impact relationships. They may even affect their overall quality of life. That said, there may be a few ways to address the concerns raised by the survey findings. Granted, serious sexual disorders may require intervention from a sex therapist, but there may be other ways to address some of the issues highlighted in the findings.

Low self-image

If you’re battling with low sexual self-esteem, there are a few ways to which you can improve it. These include;

  • Build inner confidence outside the bedroom. Try limiting the amount of time you spend on social media. You should also try regularly affirming yourself.
  • Try self-pleasure. This can allow you to better tap into your sexuality, and better confirm what you like – and don’t like.
  • Don’t shy away from communicating with your partner, and feel free to share your desires, fears as well as suggestions.
  • That said, the aforementioned tips may also help to address the other issues affecting a woman’s satisfaction with her sex life, particularly the feelings of guilt, embarrassment, stress, or general unhappiness.

In fact, if you’re looking to improve your sex life, there are other ways to do so. These include taking up yoga, eating certain foods to boost your libidos and even adapting your favorite positions.

Once again, you should consult a sex therapist if you believe that you are battling a sexual disorder.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Spicing things up in the bedroom during social distancing

By Almara Abgarian

It’s going to be a quiet Friday night. The coronavirus lockdown has officially begun, pubs, restaurants, gyms and other public spaces have to close up shop for the forseeable future.

So, what can you spend the rest of the weekend doing?

You already know what we’re going to say, but let’s say it anyway: having sex.

If you’re self-isolating with someone else, this is prime opportunity to jump each other’s bones and give yourselves a nice hit of dopamine and endorphins (the ‘happy hormones’) at the same time.

But the lockdown could, unfortunately, go on for quite a while.

So, to keep your sex life from becoming stale, we ask sex experts to share their top tips for how to keep things spicy in the bedroom.

Think outside the box (bedroom)

‘Don’t restrict yourself to the bed, be creative in your space,’ says Asa Baav, sex expert and founder of Tailor Matched.

‘Think up against the wall, up against a mirror, the shower, kitchen tops and for those of you who want to be more risqué, use your balcony [with caution] or up against the window.’

Just, you know, not outside.

Mutual masturbation

Interestingly, mutual masturbation has been predicted to be one of the big sexual trends to define the next generation (and apparently, soon to beat out penetrative sex).

Asa says: ‘Masturbating with a partner helps you learn about each other’s bodies and a great way to show them exactly how they like to be stroked.’

An added bonus to mutual masturbation is that you’re effectively teasing each other, which could add to the eventual climax.

Want to take it up a notch? Masturbate in turns, and watch each other as you do.

Don’t have sex

Let us, or rather, Lelo’s sex expert Kate Moyles, explain.

‘Take the time to explore a different area of self-development, for example sex and sexuality,’ she tell us.

‘The common misunderstanding is that changing your sex life all has to happen in the bedroom or with a partner.

‘But exploring new podcasts, Ted Talks, books, online courses and workbooks can really help you to expand your thinking and open up your perspective and learning when it comes to sex.’

Indulge in sensory play

Asa says: ‘Use hot and cold play, think ice cubes and wax candles and massage oil.

‘Play with the sensation of soft and rough textures to entice your senses.’

If you didn’t happen to pick up any oils or sensory lubes during the stockpiling shop, don’t worry.

Firstly, sex toy sites still deliver – but more importantly, you can find items in your home. Think feathers (from a pillow, perhaps), the aforementioned ice cubes or just run your tongue up and down your partner’s body.

You can also blindfold them to heighten other senses and venture into BDSM, if you fancy it (spanking).

‘Indulge in a bit of light bondage (tying your partner’s hands or legs),’ says Duchess Iphie, a relationship, sex and intimacy coach, and the founder of Duchess Secrets.

‘This is about power and as long as there is consent and a safe word, you can have fun letting your partner have full control of your arousal, desires and orgasms.’

Get the toys out

Do you have a vibrator at home? Get it out during sex and crank up the heat.

‘If you have toys with apps that you can choose vibrations – get your partner to be in a separate room and try different vibrations and intensities from “afar”- give them the control,’ says Dominnique Karetsos, founder of The Intimology Institute, the school for sexual wellness.

‘Like the game Marco Polo – only you know you’re closer by the sound of moans of ecstasy.’

Try a new sex position

Duchess also shares some new positions for couples try, such as:

  • The sea turtle: One person curls their legs up and the other enters from a kneeling position (penis or strap-on required). Use a pillow to raise the recipient’s lower back, so their partner can stroke their body at the same time.
  • The upside-down cake: It’s super-easy. Just find a stable surface, like a table, where one person lies down flat on their back on something that supports their weight, while the other person, er, thrusts.
  • The ease-in: Lay on your back comfortably while the other person eases in backwards. Couples can enjoy varying the angle of penetration to stimulate different sensations, or throw in a toy for some extra vibrations.

Give your partner an intimate massage

Now that you have more time on your hands, why not use them? (The hands, that is).

Think beyond genitals to other erogenous zones such as ear lobes, the small of the back, the inner wrist, the armpits and behind the knee. Run your fingers down your partner’s body and see which touches, and which areas, make their body react.

‘Massage of feet, scratch their back and don’t forget to stroke the whole body as a way of finding each other’s erogenous zones,’ says Asa.

Don’t have any massage oil? Try olive oil – it’s great for the skin (but beware, it might stain your sheets).

Embrace the dirty talk

If you’ve always dreamed of someone putting you across their lap and spanking you, trying a new sexual position or engaging in some role play, maybe the first step would be to talk to your partner about your fantasies.

Asa says: ‘A helpful way to start a conversation about your turn-ons, fantasies, and boundaries, is making a “yes/no/maybe” list with your partner for the night event, what do feel like today?

‘Write down any sexual acts that come to mind, and then both you and your partner take turns marking each as a yes, no, or maybe.

‘This can be a sexy and fun way to get to know each other better and explore things you may not have considered before.’

Single? Keep your eye out for our sexy guide to self-isolating solo.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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It’s Time to Rediscover the Lost Art of Phone Sex

The case for revisiting an old, but not obsolete, form of long-distance sex

Contrary to popular belief, video didn’t kill the phone sex star.

By Kayla Kibbe

These are deeply unhorny times.

While a slim window of romanticized pre-quarantine panic may have briefly ignited a period of chaotic sexual energy last week, which ultimately just left some of us in quarantine with UTIs, the subsequent dread, isolation and terror that have followed haven’t exactly been a turn on.

Nevertheless, humans have been fucking since the dawn of mankind and have since managed to screw through many a global crisis. Whether out of boredom, desperation for social contact or the ultimately irrepressible powers of human horniness, perhaps the only thing safe to assume in these uncertain times is that people will go on fucking.

In such a crisis where social distancing and self-isolation are the name of the survival game, however, a behavior as physically intimate as sexual intercourse presents some obvious challenges. While many couples who aren’t lucky enough to be quarantined inside together with nothing to do but each other have turned to modern innovations like FaceTime and Skype sex in order to keep their sex lives afloat, might I suggest another alternative?

Folks, if ever there was a time to rediscover the lost art of phone sex, it’s now.

In an era of sexting, video sex and bluetooth-enabled sex toys that allow long distance partners to digitally get each other off from across the globe, phone sex may seem like a dated relic of a bygone era of sexuality. But while phone sex may be an earlier predecessor to today’s forms of technology-enabled long distance sex, it’s not an obsolete model. A longstanding art form that still possesses unique features its more modern successors can’t replicate, phone sex is the vinyl of remote sex, not the cassette tape.

In fact, a large part of the appeal of phone sex can actually be found in its classic, old-school aesthetic. Just as corset lingerie with a garter belt and stockings calls back to old-fashioned styles in women’s clothing, phone sex recalls an older era (albeit a more recent one than that of corsets and garter belts) of technology and sexuality. There is an inherent sexiness in escapism, and even subtle callbacks to an earlier time can function as a kind of roleplay that has a way of imbuing the old-fashioned and obsolete with a suddenly sexy novelty.

Beyond the sexy old-school vibes, however, phone sex actually has some benefits unmatched by its video or text-based successors. As Jess O’Reilly, PhD., host of the @SexWithDrJess Podcast, tells InsideHook, phone sex eliminates the potentially overstimulating effects of video sex, allowing partners to focus solely on auditory arousal.

“Audio-only sex leaves more to the imagination, and many people are primarily aroused by sounds — from the sound of a lover’s voice to the sound of movement and rustling in the sheets,” she explains. “Sometimes talking on the phone will encourage you to open up in new ways, as you won’t be distracted by your partner’s body language or facial expressions.”

While it’s easy for auditory sensation to become eclipsed by other forms of stimulation during in-person or video sex, phone sex highlights the value of auditory pleasure, something O’Reilly and co-author Marla Renee Stewart explore in their forthcoming book, The Ultimate Guide to Seduction & Foreplay.

“Research suggests that the sound of a lover’s voice can be a turn-on resulting in increased electrical activity in the skin,” O’Reilly and Stewart write in the new book. “Our voices may even indicate fertility due to hormonal fluctuations that effect blood flow and water retention in the vocal chords.”

In other words, if you’re not already talking in bed, it’s definitely something to consider, and phone sex is a great place to start.

As O’Reilly tells InsideHook, phone sex can be less intimidating for beginners who are shy about being vocal in bed. Meanwhile, the distance of phone sex can also make people more comfortable opening up about their desires and fantasies.

“Some people find that they’re willing to explore fantasies over the phone that they won’t disclose in person, as there is less pressure to act on them due to the limits of a phone call,” she explains. “The distance of phone sex can attenuate feelings of undue pressure.”

And while the phone-shy may be more willing to turn to sexting, it can be difficult to focus on a sexting session, and even more difficult to maintain your partners’ full attention — which I say as someone who has casually replied to sexts at work, on the subway, while watching Netflix, eating cereal out of the box with my bare hands like an animal, etc. etc.

Speaking of hands, sexting doesn’t leave them as readily available to do the kinds of things that typically accompany phone sex — although, as O’Reilly notes, they don’t necessarily have to. “You might decide to touch yourselves while you’re on the call or you might simply get one another riled up and then hang up so that you have two hands to finish yourselves off,” she says, adding that the most important thing is not to “get hung up on one type of sex, as phone sex can take many forms.”

These diverse forms, O’Reilly suggests, may include a spontaneous phone call that turns horny, a scheduled one with specific rules that you change from session to session, bathtime phone sex, phone sex that turns into video sex, phone sex that includes exchanging sexy pictures, etc. etc.

Mix it up! For those of us in self-quarantine without our partners/fuckbuddies/roomates we definitely shouldn’t hook up with but might anyway, we may have many a sexless day ahead. Fortunately, we do have a wide range of remote-sex-enabled technology at our fingertips, and at least phone sex will never give you a UTI.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Why social distancing is making me horny

By Tracey Anne Duncan

I am social distancing. That means no bars, no clubs, no yoga classes, and three feet of distance outdoors. Most importantly, to me, it means that I have no place to flirt and no outlets for my sexual impulses. Sure, COVID is changing the way we date, but it’s not changing biology. Being self quarantined is not, in fact, straining my libido in the slightest. For me, the combination of isolation and anxiety is making me hornier than ever. I talked to my favorite sex therapist to find out why.

“Physiologically speaking, our bodies do a lot of things without our awareness,” says Dulcinea Pitagora, a New York City-based psychologist and sex researcher. “The brain wants oxytocin. This is always true, but when we are feeling vulnerable, we are more susceptible to what our body is craving. For some people that craving is expressed as horniness.”

Part of what’s happening, then, is that my body and brain are hungry for the feel good chemicals that are released during physical contact, and I am more aware of this hunger, or horniness, because I am feeling vulnerable and also because I am alone and am, generally, less distracted by external things and more focused on my internal experience.

Something else that may play into pandemic thirst is the cultural sense that maybe we shouldn’t be feeling sexy right now. Some people have the attitude that the world is on fire, how could anyone possibly want to have sex, but it’s exactly that attitude that makes some people feel horny. “Sexuality is natural and normal,” Pitagora says. “The more we try to push it down, the more it intensifies. When we see sex as a way of acting out, it doesn’t necessarily make us want it less.”

The sense that maybe we shouldn’t want sex right now combined with feelings of vulnerability is a great cocktail for creating horniness. “That’s not true for everyone,” Pitagora notes. But it might feel more intense for people who strongly identify with being sexual (it me). “When you add that identity component, that makes the experience feel more urgent because it feels like your identity is at stake,” Pitagora explains.

The sense of urgency that accompanies horniness, like so many other kinds of panic we are experiencing right now, is not that helpful. It’s also not reality-based. “Some part of our brains thinks that we’re never going to have sex again,” Pitagora tells me. “We need to slow our brains down and remember that this is temporary.” Having a horny sense of urgency may feel exciting, but Pitagora tells me it can be dangerous if we don’t second guess our impulses. “We can be very good at rationalizing risky behavior when we’re horny,” Pitagora says, and adds, “If you are a person that likes and cares about sex, you are probably going to have sex again.” Praise Beetlejuice.

So what should thirsty folks stuck home alone do? Porn and masturbation are not really cutting it. “I think it’s important to remind people that it’s okay to be horny and masturbate,” Pitagora says. “There are people out there who feel like they shouldn’t feel sexual at all right now.”

I don’t know who needs to hear this, but repressing your healthy sexual urges is not going to help us beat coronavirus. Please masturbate. Try video sex. It may not work for everyone, but if it doesn’t make you feel icky, Pitagora says, it might help.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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An expert guide to love and sex during a pandemic

We are all in long-distance relationships now.

How to catch feelings, but not coronavirus.

By Sara Kiley Watson

Self-quarantine as a single person or a person who lives far from their significant other can be pretty lonely, especially while other folks spend their work-from-home hours snuggled up with the person they love.

Still, it can be unnerving to be so close to someone who might’ve bumped into COVID-19 in the outside world. Considering it takes at least five days for the virus’s symptoms to show up, it’s tough to know if your spooning partner is infected, or if you could be putting them at risk.

Before give up on love or start wearing a hazmat suit whenever you crawl in bed, it’s good to know the basics about love in a time of coronavirus. We asked sexual health expert Carlos Rodriguez-Diaz of George Washington University for advice on how to keep your relationship alive in the middle of an epidemic.

Is COVID-19 sexually transmitted?

Nope, or at least it hasn’t proven to be during the virus’s reproductive stage, says Rodriguez-Diaz. But you can definitely carry it through another way of expressing intimacy that goes right along with having any sort of sex: kissing.

We already know that the coronavirus can be passed between people by coughing. That’s why it’s so important to cover your mouth and wipe down surfaces that might come into contact with saliva. But when it comes to kissing, there’s no avoiding spit, which means if you’re making out with an infected person, you’re putting yourself at risk.

Not to mention, COVID-19 can be spread via the fecal-oral route, so depending on what tickles your sexual fancy, you might want to be extra, extra careful.

What about snuggling?

If you spend each night cuddling your significant other, lucky you. If your partner lives with you or spends a lot of time with you, the reality is that you probably share a similar risk of catching COVID-19, Rodriguez-Diaz says. After all, no matter what you do all day, you both come home and interact closely, whether that’s making dinner together or just chilling on the same couch.

Social distancing calls for staying around six feet away from people. But just because there’s an outbreak doesn’t mean you need to walk around with a pole protecting you from your favorite person.

“It’s not the time to stop cuddling,” Rodriguez-Diaz says. Right now, people are stressed and anxious, and those feelings might only get worse if you close yourself off to interaction with your significant other. Just be conscious that you’re both being hygienic. Wash your hands regularly and keep your living space (and any sex toys) clean.

If your partner gets sick, you should stay home, too. Staying in to care for them will also protect the people you’d interact with outside your home.

What should I do if I’m in a long-distance relationship?

Though flights to most any state and country are cheap as heck right now, you shouldn’t hop on a plane and surprise your partner. Traveling implies bumping into and interacting with loads of other people, Rodriguez-Diaz says, and a lot of time that could be in close quarters.

For the safety of your loved ones, all the people around you, and yourself, you should seriously consider staying put. This is especially true if you or your significant other are older or immunocompromised. As much as it sucks to stay alone all day, it is way worse to unknowingly bring the epidemic with you to another corner of the world.

As all you long-distance-relationship folks already know, in-person sex isn’t the only way to get intimate with your partner. Sexting or video-chatting are practices that are still erotic, Rodriguez-Diaz says, but don’t involve touching at all. Nowadays, there are literally ways to send your partner a mold of your own genitals, so if anything, quarantine is an excuse to get creative.

“I would advise people who are in long-distance relationships to use technology to their advantage,” Rodriguez-Diaz says. “Soon after we have a better understanding of the virus and the epidemic is under control, take a trip together somewhere else.”

Should I stop trying to meet new people?

This one is for all you single powerhouses: you don’t necessarily have to delete all of your dating apps right away. However, it’s wise to take a moment and skip the dinner and movie plans while COVID-19 testing in the US is still a mystery.

“It’s not the ideal conditions to meet new people, or go to public spaces,” Rodriguez-Diaz says.

This doesn’t mean you should meet all your internet crushes in secluded locations (please, don’t do that for obvious reasons). But it also doesn’t mean you need to shut yourself off from the world of dating just because you’re avoiding leaving the home.

When it comes to casual dating, you could always take a page out of the long-distance-relationship book. Whether it’s someone you’ve recently met, or have been dating casually and lives a few neighborhoods away, now could be the time to test out sexting or other not-so-touchy-feely ways of getting to know a possible partner.

“With the proper safety measures in place, that can be very good for relationships,” Rodriguez-Diaz says. “Perhaps this experience is giving us the opportunity to experience other things.”

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!