The debate over the coronavirus 'sex ban' proves once again that we're obsessed with romantic relationships
It’s official: it's illegal to have sex with someone who lives in a different household to you. And the news that the government accidentally banned casual sex and sex between partners who don’t live together caused many a raised eyebrow and snigger this week.
Political commentators and the people of Twitter expressed their outrage at such a rule, but for single people it didn’t come as much of a surprise. We had already gathered from the fact we aren’t meant to go within two metres of anyone else that even kissing, let alone sex, was off the cards. And while I know there could be some troubling long-term consequences to this legal accident, I can’t help but feel that the frustration of many is misplaced.
For those who haven’t seen them in detail, the new guidelines, which form part of the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) Regulations 2020 bill, state that: “No person may participate in a gathering which takes place in a public or private place indoors, and consists of two or more persons.” The fact that has even been dubbed a "sex ban", when it doesn’t even mention sex once, again shows that the most important thing in our collective mind is the status of our romantic life.
Whether we can see, or even find, a romantic or sexual partner is always top of the agenda - even today, when the legislation in question bans a lot more types of gatherings and partnerings than that. It means we can’t go to the pub, to a party, or to a friend’s house to sit on the sofa with a bottle of wine laughing our heads off; we can't have our families round for Sunday roast; we can’t even go inside if it starts to rain during one of the permitted back garden gatherings of six.
As a single person, of course I'm looking forward to going on a date or two when the rules allow. But my main priority is when I will next see my sister, who lives in Cornwall. It’s been months now since we were together and the hardest part of lockdown is not knowing when she will be able to drive up. It’s a long way from hers to Shrewsbury, where I live, so a brief socially-distanced walk is out of the question. I would also love to know when I can meet and hold the first child of one of my closest friends, who was born during lockdown. I want to know when I can hug one of my best friends, who has been living alone just a few miles away from me.
The coronavirus pandemic has had a devastating impact of all kinds of human relationships. You don't just have to be missing out on sex to be struggling. Many single people have lost the physical presence of their entire support network and nobody is talking about other relationships that are strained.
Those grieving for those they've lost to Covid-19, I’m sure, are far more interested in when they can hold their loved ones than when they can next hook up. Headlines about sex bans must feel particularly grating to them.
On the Facebook group I run for single people, those who live alone simply want to know when they will be touched again. And by touch I mean simply a pat on the arm, a cuddle from their mum, their best friend holding their hand. These are simple things, but are so important. They matter to people just as much, if not more, as whether they have a 'significant other' sharing their bed - but you wouldn't know that from the discussion around these new rules.
The uproar about the apparent ban on sex also plays into the rather sixth form idea that absolutely everyone is having loads of sex all the time. God forbid a few of us have to wait a few months for our next chance. In her book The Sex Myth: The gap between our fantasies and reality, the Australian writer Rachel Hills found that most people aren’t having as much sex as either they would like you to, or that the media would have you, believe. Hills spent seven years interviewing young people about their sex lives, and about the disconnect between their lived experiences and what they and society expected them to experience. When I read the book I remember thinking that if an alien wanted to learn about people’s sex lives from watching films, they would be forgiven for thinking that going just 40 days and 40 nights without sex was a feat to be proud of.
Of course sex and intimacy are very important parts of being human, but our society still prizes them over all other things. As we're all stuck in lockdown, let’s not forget all the other types of interpersonal relationships that single people – and everyone else – are missing out on. They are just as important.
