12
impulse
“Your best sexual partner is yourself” What can you do when the government bans sex? Even law abiding citizens can’t help being horny.
Words by Andrew Chung
A
s I’m sure many people are aware, sex can be had in a plethora of positions: standing up, lying down, or bent over a (preferably clean) flat surface. Yet, somewhere along the way, we started naming and detailing each position to the minutiae, until each outstretched leg, cramped-up arm, and the exact degree at which our toes curl is accounted for. Sex shouldn’t be so pre-planned. A brief peruse of sexthemed blogs, complete with illuminating diagrams, made it rather apparent that there’s a lack of creativity when it comes to naming sex positions. Women’s Health magazine came out with some bold, if not confusing, position names, with ‘The Pretzel Dip’, ‘The Butter Churner’, and ‘The Pinball Wizard’ among my favourites. Frankly, if you need detailed diagrams and a bible-length explanation, maybe sex isn’t for you. When Covid-19 hit, we all retreated inside. Unless you were shacked up
with a partner, all ‘butter churning’ had to come to a halt and we reluctantly returned to dipping our own pretzels. But humans can’t be contained for that long. People feel compelled to copulate on two-hour flights, as if a brief departure from the ground constitutes a coital crisis. In that regard, lockdown was doomed to fail. The advice given at the beginning of the pandemic was that if your carnal urges could not be dissuaded, then sex should be performed with a mask on and mouthto-mouth kissing was a big no-no. Scientists noted that Covid-19 wasn’t picky - it could be passed through sweat, saliva, and semen. Unless we all wanted to invest in full body hazmat suits with crotch cut-outs, sex was off the table. Being sequestered in our homes
Unless we all wanted to invest in full body hazmat suits with croch cut-outs, sex was off the table.
wasn’t too bad in some ways. We got time to breathe, to reflect, to grow. Although general tensions were high, all the extra free time allowed us to explore ourselves both mentally and physically. People finally had an opportunity to come into themselves - some even came out to themselves. Some bought a sex toy for the first time, and some of us managed to exhaust our ‘I should really get around to watching that’ list. However big or small, we all learned over lockdown. RuPaul famously says, “If you can’t love yourself, how in the hell you gonna love somebody else?” This mantra of self-love applies while discussing ‘knowing’ our bodies as well. If we aren’t in tune with ourselves and our bodies, how can we be expected to learn and understand someone else’s? It’s almost like a video game, in the way that you shouldn’t even be attempting multiplayer if you haven’t got to grips with single-player yet. All these sex blogs and online gurus aren’t even that helpful. They peddle tips and tricks that often fall apart when put into practice. There’s not a single sex position that’s going to work for everyone, no hidden technique to make you a sex god, and no flavoured lubes that actually taste good. A tip we can all apply right now is to start opening our ears first, above other things. Because communication can be super sexy.
Illustration by Wiktoria Orlicka
