The clubs are shut. The pubs are shut. Tinder dates are canceled. One-night stands are practically illegal. But, despite these obvious hurdles, coronavirus has still created a sex industry sales boom.
Wired UK
This story originally appeared on WIRED UK.
Lelo, a Swedish luxury sex toy brand, says it has seen sales increase by 40 percent. Ann Summers, a sex toy and lingerie retailer, has seen a 27 percent increase in sales of sex toys compared to this time last year, and condom sales have doubled in the space of just a week. UK Meds, an online pharmacy based in Nottingham, reported a spike in Viagra sales and a 23 percent increase in orders of the morning-after pill.
With extra time during the day saved by not commuting or working, it’s only natural that couples are using it to have sex, says Helen Fisher, senior research fellow at the Kinsey Institute, a research center focused on sex, gender and reproduction. And having sex causes hormonal changes in the body that are welcome in these austere times—dopamine is released, which causes a feeling of pleasure and happiness. Testosterone levels are raised in both men and women, which raises libido, making you want even more sex. “I do think that the one of the reasons that so many people are turning to sex is not only they’ve got the time, but it’s actually very good for you,” says Fisher.
Those who aren’t happy at home are finding other ways to get frisky. Illicit Encounters, a dating website for those seeking extra-marital affairs, has experienced a 15 percent increase in activity based on this time last year. In a survey from the website, 54 percent of men said they had started affairs in the last four weeks, with 74 percent of these men saying their reason for doing so was boredom.
Tinder has seen a 12 percent increase in daily conversations in the UK, which on average in March were lasting eight percent longer compared to February. In Italy, which is said to be around two to three weeks ahead of the UK in terms of the spread of the virus, conversations are lasting 29 percent longer than they did a month ago.
“People still might get some degree of connection and some degree of arousal virtually,” says Murray Blacket, a relationship counselor. He believes that being on dating websites and apps could provide some degree of self-soothing during the pandemic, as people distract themselves by making these connections with other people.
In the past, enforced lockdowns have meant an increase in the birth rate nine months down the line. So could we be facing a coronavirus baby boom at the end of the year? An oft-quoted piece of research from London School of Economics shows that a nationwide blackout in Colombia in the early 1990s led to a slew of unplanned births—if people being stuck at home in the dark caused more pregnancies, then being stuck at home in a lockdown could have a similar effect.
David Reher, professor emeritus at Complutense University of Madrid, is skeptical. He has studied the effects of seasons on birth rates and the causes of the original baby boom, and believes that it would be an ambitious leap to assume there would be an uptick in fertility because of how these events played out in the past. “Just having downtime due to the Covid-19 business will not necessarily show up in nine months’ time,” he says. During this lockdown, theoretically the only people who will be having sex are the ones who are isolating with their long-term partners, so there may be fewer people having sex overall. And the increase in the number of sex toys being sold could simply be due to people buying them to use on themselves.
