The curious case of vaccine and intimacy

A patient taking the Covid-19 vaccine. PHOTO|FOTOSEARCH

What you need to know:

What you need to know:

  • What will sex look like in a post-Covid era? Will everyone have to get tested and wait for 12 hours?
  • Will it be just like HIV, where we’re going to the VCT clinic together as a romantic gesture?

Are you getting the vaccine? I know there’s a lot of drama around it, but really, in a bid to get life back to normal, it would seem like it’s prudent for you to get one, if you can. The third wave is proving to be quite hectic. Kenya is only planning to vaccinate 30 percent before herd immunity of some sort kicks in, so if you’re able to be part of the revolution, take one for the team, soldier.

Speaking of taking one for the team, and (little) soldiers, I don’t know if the pandemic has changed your dating life the way it has mine. Before Covid-19, people could meet in person and pretend to be coy across dance floors and church pews. Now, virtually everything is – well, virtual, and no one really translates in person the way they do when they’re busting moves somewhere, do they?

Now, all your game has to be virtual game, in the DMs, if you know what I mean. Now that there is a new zoned lockdown, you can meet at a park somewhere, just make sure a significant amount of conversation has already happened before the meet-up.

Which is probably why everyone is on Tinder and Bumble and Hinge and all those things at the moment. At the basic level, we crave human connection. We want to feel loved and desired. We miss touch – or if you don’t miss touch, you miss sex.

Ok, of course not everyone misses sex, but there are definitely some people – many people – out here, struggling. You see, for many people, touch is a large part of a relationship, touch and intimacy. It can be challenging to build that on a screen.

And even after you do, what happens then? You meet for said date in a park, meaning the chances of anything after, if you catch my drift, have to be ascertained in at least the first two hours – unless you’re planning a sleepover, because there is a very limited time in which to decide whether it’s a drive by thing or an all-night thing. You understand?

And then, again, Covid. How do you sleep with people – new people who you met on Tinder last week who don’t look like serial killers – in a pandemic? What exactly is the protocol? I remember one of my friends telling me that she was following the Dutch government’s guidelines for sexual contact – only being intimate with masks on. The whole time. Safety can be…hot?

Which brings me back to the vaccine. Not that the biggest thing to worry about in terms of medical considerations is intimacy and human touch, but by God, it is necessary. What will sex look like in a post-Covid era? Will everyone have to get tested and wait for 12 hours? Will it be just like HIV, where we’re going to the VCT clinic (CCT clinic?) together, almost like a romantic gesture? Will we be whatsapping results before we meet, just to be on the safe side?

It’s a whole new world to navigate through.


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