Introduction: The novel Coronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID-19) began by some estimates in December 2019 in Wuhan, China with rapid spread globally. The response to this global pandemic was an almost universal shut-down of most social activities outside of the home which in turn, has led to rise in depression, suicide and drug utilization. What about sexual activity which is strongly linked to these same societal norms?
Methods: All published writings on or about the sexual activity of diverse groups was searched for throughout the world during the COVID-19 pandemic specifically. There is a massive amount of media output on these aspects, but relatively little actual studies, though they are expected to lag behind the pandemic as it takes time to collect and process data from these studies.
Results: There are now well over a dozen peer reviewed articles upon the sexually-related effects of COVID-19 pandemic. The famed Kinsey Institute at the University of Indiana has begun a three-wave longitudinal study called “Sex and Relationships in the Time of COVID-19" and preliminarily they noted less sex, but more sexual diversity. PORNHUB® gave free ‘Premium Access’ to Italians for the month of March 2020 and it proved so popular they expanded it to the entire world until the end of April 2020. They also publish their data on-line.
Conclusions: There is growing evidence that four sexually-related aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic are having upon the population. These are partnered sex issues associated with more diversity, that is exploration of newer sexual practices. Increased solo-sexual aspects including the advent of technologically advanced practices including robotic sex, telephone sex (sexting) and on-line sex (setting records). There are sexual and reproductive issues such as anger and abuse to sexual partners as noted above and an anticipated rise in separations as well as divorce. And finally, there are fewer childbirths (just the opposite of what was hypothesized from isolation). Perhaps many of our well-established social norms could be blasted away by this pandemic- masturbation becoming accepted, methods of accessing electronic sex activities being promoted and the rise of advanced sexual technologies such as robotics replacing prostitution. But be cautious, preliminary results from The Kinsey Institute suggests this may be the result of “market hype” behind the boom in SexTech. Don’t switch to oatmeal (or cornflakes) just yet.
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