No one’s exactly sure whether or not we’re hooking up right now. The New York City Health Department says your safest sex partner is yourself, but Dr. Oz says couples should bang it out in quarantine. Dating apps are encouraging us to keep our dates virtual, and those caught breaking quarantine for hookups incur a hefty round of social media shaming, but Dr. Fauci says app daters can feel free to hook up at their own risk.
To summarize, no one really seems to know anything, but in the meantime, coronavirus still appears to be cock-blocking much of the world. If condom sales are any indication, hookups (or at least safe hookups) are on the decline, with contraceptive producers reporting a worldwide sales dive, according to the Guardian.
The sales dip, which Durex parent company Reckitt Benckiser attributes to social-distancing guidelines taking a “toll on the number of intimate occasions” taking place during the pandemic, comes a month after the world’s largest condom producer shut down due to coronavirus lockdowns in Malaysia. The shutdown of Karex Bhd, which, according to the New York Post, makes one in every five condoms globally, prompted fears of a worldwide condom shortage. “We are going to see a global shortage of condoms everywhere, which is going to be scary,” chief executive, Goh Miah Kiat, told the Guardian at the time.
Now, condom shortage or not, it seems fewer people are finding themselves in need of contraception anyway, as there’s simply less sex to be had.
In the meantime, while condom sales may be down, sex toy sales have seen a significant lockdown-era spike, and a reported increase in masturbation suggests that while we may not be having as much sex with each other, we’re still having plenty of sex with ourselves.
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