Sexual intercourse may decrease during the next few weeks, but other forms of expressing eroticism, such as sexting, video-calls, reading erotica and masturbation will continue to be options.
As people continue to ask about the risks associated with intimacy in the time of coronavirus? with countries on lock-down and millions being made to stay at home, it’s unsurprising many couples and single people are wondering what coronavirus means for their sex lives.
Experts are saying they are not seeing patterns that indicate sexual transmission. It’s primarily spread through respiratory droplets. And touching contaminated surfaces is thought to be the secondary mode of transmission.
There is no evidence that the Covid-19 can be transmitted via either vaginal or anal intercourse. However, kissing is a very common practice during sexual intercourse, and the virus can be transmitted via saliva. Therefore, the virus can be transmitted by kissing. There is also evidence of oral-fecal transmission of the Covid-19 and that implies that analingus may represent a risk for infection.
If you or your partner is a Covid-19 case, the advice is to steer clear of each other as much as possible.
But for people who don’t have symptoms and don’t have any recent likely exposure and have been staying close to home, I think that, if it’s within your own household, it’s a different story. If you live with a regular sexual partner and you don’t have any symptoms, or likely exposure, sex might actually be a really great way to have fun, stay connected and relieve anxiety during this potentially stressful time.
We don’t know how long this pandemic will last. What do you say to someone who’s single now and doesn’t want to wait months before they can be intimate with someone? For new partners, the recommendation right now is that we try to stay home as much as we can and really only interact with people for things that are essential, like groceries. And even when we do that, try to keep some physical distance of about 6ft from other people. That would definitely make sex a challenge.
Use these couple of weeks to channel your energy, explore yourself, maybe think about what it is that you’re looking for. And you can do that by yourself. It can be a great opportunity to explore other ways of engaging with new sexual partners that you can meet online by sexting or using video calls.
