Currently with countries on lockdown and millions being made to stay at home, it’s unsurprising many couples and single people are wondering what coronavirus means for their sex lives. With this in mind, we asked three experts five of the most pressing questions about intimacy during the pandemic. First, the facts. COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, is spread by direct person-to-person contact or by people who are close to (within six feet) of each other as it’s believed that the virus is expelled in respiratory droplets from a cough or sneeze, according to the Centers for Disease control of prevention (CDC), which you can then inhale. You can also pick it up from contaminated surfaces if you then touch your face without washing your hands properly first and therefore introduce the pathogen into your body.
So, yes, sex can contribute to spreading the coronavirus. You’re clearly close enough to someone when you’re naked on top of each other, and you are also probably kissing, or at least breathing heavily. But it's not contracted directly from sex. “The coronavirus is a respiratory virus. It can be transmitted through your saliva and intimate contact, but it is not directly transmitted genitally,” Mark Surrey, MD, a clinical professor in the department of obstetrics and gynecology at UCLA’s David Geffen school of Medicine, tells Health. That distinction matters, because safe sex during the pandemic depends on your current relationship situation and, well, why you’re having sex in the first place.
If you and your household partner have not been exposed to anyone with COVID-19, are showing no symptoms, feel healthy, and have no reason to believe you might be harboring the virus, you can have sex.
