Follow-Up: Adventures in Pandemic Sex Data

Hi! It's been a while. I hope that you are engaging and re-engaging with the world at a pace that feels right for you some or most of the time.

I promised in my last post that I'd circle back and share results of the informal (barely scientific) poll, and that's what I'm here to do today!

At the time that I am writing this, I've received 31 responses from folks who shared a bit about their sexual behaviors in the era of COVID, which is not enough to be statistically significant--so take everything you read below with a grain of pseudoscientific salt. I also realized--too late--after designing and distributing the survey that I should have included questions about sexual frequency before the pandemic. That's about what you can expect from impulsive social research that doesn't go through an institutional review board...

• Of respondents, 27 were in a committed, longterm partnership of 2 years or more, 2 were in more than one romantic and/or sexual partnership, and 2 were single.

• 27 had been sexually active since March of 2020, and 4 had not.

• Nearly 55% of respondents--17/31--said that their sexual activities took place at about the same frequency as before. 32%--10 respondents--said that their sexual frequency had decreased, and 4 (12%) said it had increased. And finally...

• A breakdown of the extent to which folks reported believing that the pandemic had impacted/impacts their sex life: A lot - 12.90% - 4 [respondents] Somewhat - 38.71% - 12 A little bit - 12.90% - 4 Not at all - 35.48% - 11

Overall, nothing too riveting or transformative to see here, but interesting (to me, and hopefully to you, too, if you're still reading this).

If I was expanding on this, I would also be curious about any correlations between how folks sexually identify (e.g., if they identify as asexual) and how they responded. I didn't calculate any correlations in this survey, which is perhaps its biggest weakness.

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Thanks for improvising with me!

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In this next month, I'm scheduled to sit for an interview or two about polyamory, and I'm hoping I can sit down to articulate some newer, fresher, thoughts-in-formation before those dates on the calendar.