(040) A Pandemic, Technology and Sex
Authors: Tiffany K , Anto-Ocrah M 
Published: June 2023

Introduction

Prompted by global restrictions on public gatherings, quarantine & lockdown measures, travel limitations, and decreased access to “non- essential” services, the Covid-19 pandemic has redefined our sense of normalcy in many ways. During this collective global trauma, there has been a substantial rise in the use of technology as the pandemic shifted most human interactions from physical settings to virtual interactions. People are now spending even more time with technology while consuming news media, watching television, using social media to connect with others, utilizing lifestyle apps to shop for groceries and other consumer goods, and engaging in home workouts (Nielsen Global Media 2020).

Objectives

In this paper we explore the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the sexual health of individuals, and the technological adaptations that took place to allow maintenance of sexual health in a socially distanced manner. As appropriate, we stratify our findings by gender to highlight any differences noted.

Methods

We used primary and secondary sources and reports for this project. Primary sources included recorded interviews found online, Reddit threads and government guidelines released to the public. Secondary sources included various news articles and journal articles. We included any articles that discussed the following in the title or content “sex”, “sexual health”, “technology”, “online”, “social media”,“covid-19”, “coronavirus”, “pandemic”.

Results

We found 32 sources and included 19 of them in the final work. The main findings of this research were that the pandemic greatly affected people’s sexual health but society found many ways to adapt. The technological impact of the pandemic was seen in the sex worker industry, access to pornography and online dating tools. In the United States, many sex workers, who were mostly female, transitioned to an online platform as quarantine measures were instituted and the pandemic began to take an economic toll on their business. In interviews, female sex workers discussed how their interactions with their mostly male customers changed from purely sexual acts to intimate conversations about their mental health and coping during the pandemic (VICE 2020). The pornographic website PornHub became a free service in Italy and globally, doctors released guidelines on how to have sex while avoiding the coronavirus (Tacopino 2020). OnlyFans, which is a website for selling and viewing pornographic content, saw a great rise in their memberships as the pandemic worsened and more people were forced to stay at home (Cook 2020). Reports from popular dating applications Tinder and Bumble showed users interacting in longer conversations through the apps (relative to pre-pandemic durations) because they couldn’t meet in person (Today Show 2020).

Conclusions

The coronavirus pandemic reframed the use of technology in sexual health and changed the nature of intimate relationships. These findings provide us with an understanding of what people are willing to use technology for and could be the basis for using technology in telemedicine platforms for maintaining the biological aspects of sexual health such as, sexually transmitted diseases and mental health surrounding sex.

Disclosure

No.