Quarantine Sex
Love in the time of Corona
If you have a partner living with you in these times of social distancing, then congratulations! 🥳
Don’t take them for granted — there are millions of horny single people out there who won’t be getting any action for months, so consider yourself lucky!
But even if you’re grateful to have a quarantine cuddle-buddy, you might be starting to notice some differences when it comes to your sex life.
Your sleep schedules have probably changed, you may find yourselves working from home, and you likely have a lot more time on your hands now that you’re not going out as much.
You’re constantly together, and with omnipresence comes a feeling of ambivalence. After all, if you can have sex any time, then why do it at all?
A friend of mine living with her boyfriend put it this way: “Yeah, since he’s home, it feels like we’re on top of each other all the time, so like, there’s no pressure to do it, ya know?”
This isn’t uncommon — when something that is usually scarce (like the privacy and time together to have sex) becomes abundant, it can affect our mindset. What was formerly rare can start to seem mundane.
After this is all over, I’m excited to see the data of how COVID-19 affected our sex lives. I could be wrong, but I imagine most people aren’t spending the increase of alone time together by having more sex, since eroticism between lovers can wane when boundaries are removed.
There’s another mindset you can adopt, though.
You’re in the same home together with nowhere to go and all the time in the world. That may sound like a curse, but it could be a blessing!
Consider this an opportunity to try sex without time constraints. Explore what it’s like to feel no rush or pressure.
Sex without time constraints can seem daunting, but it can actually be extremely liberating. If it’s already midnight and your partner has to wake up at 8am, sex can feel like it’s cutting into valuable sleeping time, so as enjoyable as it may be, sex comes at a cost (pun intended). Similarly, if you wake up and there’s something pulling you out of bed immediately, you forfeit the opportunity to gently rouse your partner and share some pre-breakfast nibbles. Being time-bound infuses things with urgency, and sex shouldn’t feel urgent.
When there’s no need to be mindful of the clock, we can let our bodies sink into the feeling of togetherness more easily. We can leisurely enter into a communion of desires, with no pressing reason to surrender that relaxed sensation of timelessness.
This concept of slow, unhurried sex is most closely associated with the ancient and semi-mystical practice of tantra: a “weaving together” of bodily sensations with mindfulness and intention. Most practitioners of tantra recommend setting no time limits on your love-making, and they urge lovers to conceive of sex as something that can last upwards of 4 hours.
Now, you may read that and think, “What?! 4 hours?! How is that even possible? Don’t they get tired or bored?”
Maybe you don’t have to have sex for 4 hours, but at least look to your inner tantra yogi and ask yourself why not!
Back to my friend’s comment about constantly being on top of each other, maybe she mentioned that in a good way! 😘
So here’s what you do: tell your partner you just read an interesting article on Medium and you want to try something out. Lead them into the bedroom, lay them down, and (making sure there are no distractions or technological disturbances of any kind) try your hand at timeless sex.
Stare into each other’s eyes, don’t rush to make any contact just yet, savor the feeling of being unstrained, and enjoy the mere presence of your lover. After a few minutes of nothing but eye contact, you’ll be desperate to connect and melt into one another. You can take all the time you want, with no pressure or expectation, and you can relax into the unfurling coil of sexual desire within.
You can return to your laptop and clap this article 4 hours later. 😉
