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.