sex and 'fighting for joy' amid the pandemic

justin lehmiller, a social psychologist and research fellow at the kinsey institute at indiana university, recently published a seven-month  u.s. survey  showing that almost half of respondents reported a decline in their sex lives during the pandemic.

aitken and her toronto-based co-ceo, grace bennett, had just launched  bonjibon  when covid-19 hit. while they were anxious about starting a new endeavour in a pandemic, “it became obvious that people were home and horny,” says bennett. now their biggest stress is trying to keep up with the demand. “choosing to value our bodies says that, actually, pleasure is good. this is doing good things for our body. it’s doing good things for our brains,” says aitken.

aitken says they’ve seen a trend during the pandemic toward exploring sexual pleasure with more curiosity. “we live in a world where we’re told to do things in one way,” says aitken. their products and  online magazine  explore the many ways to experience our sexuality, from talking to our partners about sex, to gender-affirming kits, and toys for self-pleasure and new kinds of sexual expression with partners.

another area of stigma is sexual fantasy. justin lehmiller recently released  tell me what you want: the science of sexual desire and how it can help you improve your sex life , a book based on his research on the sexual fantasies of 4,175 americans .  “people have a lot of shame around their sexual fantasies because they don’t know what is normal. that’s in part because we don’t talk about fantasy at all in most sex education. so more often than not, people tend to think that their fantasy is either weird or strange or unusual,” he says.

one common fantasy he found is consensual non-monogamy — 79 per cent of men and 62 per cent of women said they desired it, although only one in five said they’d acted on the desire. lehmiller’s studies on consensual non-monogamy show positive outcomes, with  each of the relationships strengthening the other .

while many people assume opening a relationship is inviting disaster, many large studies comparing monogamous to consensually non-monogamous relationships  find no difference in the stability or quality of the relationship , he says. “you probably know people who are in open or polyamorous relationships, but you don’t know how successful they are because it’s not something that is often talked about.”

montreal psychologist laurie betito, who’s been a sex therapist for more than 30 years, broke barriers as the host of cjad 800’s radio show  passion , answering questions from her listeners about sex and pleasure for more than two decades.

for example, psychiatrist rosemary basson, clinical professor of sexual medicine at the university of british columbia,  debunks  the assumption that we all progress along the traditional linear model of the human sexual response – the straight line from desire to arousal, to plateau, then orgasm. instead, basson proposes a more complex, contextual and circular model.

it also needs to include all of the multitude of motivations we have for engaging in sex. beyond physical pleasure,  basson’s model  includes desire for empowerment, intimacy and connection, stress relief, expressions of love, or pleasing or feeling desired by a partner.

“at the beginning of the relationship,  something’s happening chemically  that is making us feel lust and people want to maintain that, but we can’t,” says betito. “in long-term relationships, that dissipates after about six months to 18 months, and it’s replaced by another chemical, especially for women: higher levels of oxytocin leading to higher levels of bonding.”

we often think of problems with desire as not having a strong enough sexual accelerator, which can definitely be the case. but we also have  sexual brakes  that come on when our body is telling us that it isn’t safe to have sex. this is why all the stressors of the pandemic, being a parent, struggling at work, the pressure that we “should” have more sex or anxiety about performance or body image all can turn our previously enjoyable sex life into something we push away. we’re not broken; the brakes are just on.

in addition, three-quarters of women don’t regularly have an orgasm during intercourse with a man without clitoral stimulation, says betito. those who do are the ones lucky enough to have a  short distance  between their clitoris and vagina, she says.