We’ve all fantasized about “end-of-the-world” sex, the kind of unbridled, feral fucking that can only happen when you know everyone is about to die and you won’t have to acknowledge whatever problematic thing you just requested from your final lay. The world is fucking ending, and there is no walk of shame in the afterlife.
What, though, if you’re stuck at home with your significant other and the one you really want to fuck as the world burns is the person you’re having an affair with, who, of course, is quarantined somewhere else?
It seems as though you just say fuck it, and put yourself and everyone else at risk. I mean, check out these two stories — one about a COVID-19 positive cheater possibly infecting his whole Argentinian town, and another about a husband infecting his wife after banging his COVID-19 positive mistress in Italy. Makes you almost miss the days when you found out a guy was cheating on you by getting chlamydia.
Kimberly Resnick Anderson, a certified sex therapist and the host of the Sex Savvy podcast, has numerous patients dealing with the dilemma of maintaining affairs during quarantine. They’re handling their new normal in several ways, she tells me: “Some of my patients see COVID-19 as an ‘easy out’ from an affair they’ve been trying to end, while others are temporarily suspending their affairs because they don’t want to risk exposure to the virus, and it’s just too difficult. Slipping away during lunch, claiming you have a dinner meeting or are working late are no longer viable covers.”
Still, she says, the most determined among them continue to, um, plug away. “Some are so enthralled with cheating that they’re in denial about the physical risks,” she explains. “One of my female patients told her husband she was going to go for a hike, but met up with her lover for a ‘quickie’ off the beaten path of the sparsely populated hiking trail.” She even bragged to Anderson about her husband not being suspicious at all.
Another patient told Anderson he has “cabin fever” and the only thing getting him through the day is planning his next hook-up. “He said, ‘You’d be surprised how many people are still willing to meet up during this time,’” she says. “And he’s right. I had another patient report that he met his girlfriend at a Mexican restaurant, had sex in her car and then brought food home for his family.”
Without making a moral judgment about the affairs themselves, these people are obviously being remarkably selfish from a quarantine/shelter-in-place standpoint — not just regarding the possibility that they might infect their spouse or family, but that they might also be endangering the service workers they come in contact with, especially in the hospitality industry. Sasha, a 32-year-old hotel worker in Ohio, says her 61-year-old mother is in the industry as well, and Sasha is incredibly anxious about the risk she faces. Because hotels and motels are deemed essential businesses in Ohio, they’re still open to the public, and hearing from her mom that they’re serving as fuck pads for cheating couples infuriates her.
“My mom is an assistant manager at a hotel and pretty much the only people getting rooms are local men meeting up with their side chicks,” Sasha tells me. “One side chick coughed as she walked in, barely covering her mouth with her hand and then just got on the elevator. The total disregard for others is disgusting. Hotels are open for truckers and in case someone is legitimately displaced from their home. When the schools first shut down, people were getting rooms so they could use the pool, and the hotel was full of unsupervised kids running around everywhere. The pool was finally shut down, but the people having affairs continue to shamelessly book rooms.”
“A local came in yesterday and rented a room for AN HOUR,” she continues. “Gee, I wonder what she was doing. She paid $80 to be there for an hour. It better have been the best hour of her life to have been so selfish as to possibly expose people to COVID-19.”
Luckily, at least a few of Anderson’s patients are more public-health conscious. “Some have temporarily stopped physical cheating but continue to sexually engage with their affair partners through technology, including dildonics. In fact, one of my patients was ‘working’ from home right next to his wife while he remotely controlled the speed and intensity of his lover’s vibrator, a gift he’d purchased for her.”
On the total opposite end of the spectrum, there are those who have taken their time in quarantine to reflect on their behavior. Kirsten, a 41-year-old stay-at-home mom in Minnesota, had been having weekly “lunches” with her lover for the entirety of her 20-year marriage. The forced break in action, though, has left her re-evaluating the whole arrangement. “I’m reflecting on the guilt I’ve felt over the years,” she confides. “I’m married to the greatest father and husband, and the amount of internal conversations I’ve had with myself after I see the guy I’m having an affair with is stupid. So this is a good time to understand the risk I’m taking every time I see him and finally make the decision to no longer let it happen. I just need to tell him, despite not having figured out the right words yet.”
I guess the moral of the story is, even a lack of end-of-the-world sex can still be earth-shattering — just totally in reverse.
Oh, and yeah, don’t fucking put hotel workers at risk of catching a deadly virus because you can’t keep your dick in your pants — or quarantined at home where it’s supposed to be.
Desi Jedeikin
Desi Jedeikin is a writer living in Los Angeles. She co-hosts the podcast Hollywood Crime Scene and has lots of things in development that will probably never happen. She wastes a lot of time on Twitter @desijed.
