“So. Much. Sex.” After nearly a year of being holed up inside due to Covid-19, this is what Margaret, a 23-year-old living in New York, will be doing when she’s fully vaccinated this summer. She wants to find a stranger and drive off into the sunset; to have a casual fling and then do it all over again a week later.
Before the pandemic, Margaret, a writer, used to go to bars to meet dating prospects. “I had my pickup lines so down, and would go home with someone every other week,” she says. When the pandemic began, all that stopped. She moved back in with her parents in Michigan in March last year, and of course, touching, kissing, even standing within six feet of strangers became off limits.
But two weeks ago she received her second vaccine , just like 86.2 million Americans so far – and after a year of bad news, restraint and boredom, Margaret is one of many ready for safe, consensual, CDC-approved sex.
What is the ‘hot vax summer’?
For folks who were dating before the pandemic, Covid presented a new reality. “Whether we were single, dating, committed, monogamous, ethically non-monogamous – doesn’t matter – our relationships were affected it,” says Rachel Wright, a relationship, sex and mental health therapist. “We couldn’t meet new people as easily, and even if we happened to meet them, we couldn’t have touched without a test and quarantining.”
After a year without much human touch – plus the feeling that it might be the last summer we have with an excuse to completely let loose – it’s no wonder people are craving unadulterated fun. Enter the hot vax summer.
The concept surfaced at the end of March, after Joe Biden made the commitment to having all Americans vaccinated by the Fourth of July. Coined by Insider Magazine a few weeks later, hot vax summer, much like the original phrase “hot girl summer”, encapsulated feeling confident in yourself and having fun. But with a a twist: in such a short time, people had already developed a nostalgia for some of the worst, messiest parts of going out.
The phrase became part of the online vernacular that summed up excitement for everything from the mundane to the ridiculous, post-vaccination, including alcoholic popsicles, making bad decisions, and screaming along to Taylor Swift. People were looking forward to “having a ho phase”, again, planning their hot vax summer outfits, and booking so many holiday rentals for the Fourth of July weekend that Airbnb had to put new limitations in place.
“Hot vax summer will be the collective rediscovery of the joys of human interaction and touch,” says Prishita Maheshwari-Aplin, a trustee at Voices4 London and the politics editor at Bricks magazine. “It’ll be the release of internalized anxieties, stress and frustration.”
For Dan, a clinical social worker based in London, hot vax summer means going back to carefree sexual encounters. Being in an open relationship, Dan is looking forward to dancing in a sweaty, dingy east London gay bar, kissing someone – anyone – before devouring a McDonald’s on the way home. He wants to let himself be happy, without bounds, pressure or judgment.
Even so, we should manage our expectations for this summer wisely and be gentle with ourselves as we ease back into society. “This summer has been put on a pedestal because we all needed to get through the winter. But we also can’t forget that accepting going back to ‘normal’ isn’t the goal. Building something new and better is,” says Wright.
New dating expectations
Based on her work, Wright expects people to have a lot of casual sex, and thinks there will be a lot of relationships being redefined. Her single or non-monogamous clients are slowly starting to be able to meet new people again and, she says, it’s a “wild emotional experience” for a lot of them.
“Folks are already starting to get back on [dating] apps stating that they’re half-vaxxed, with the date they’ll be fully vaccinated,” she says. “On one hand, this helps us to have easier STI conversations, and on the other, the perceived safety of the vaccine may encourage people to forget to have that conversation, because we’re out of practice,” she says.
When it comes to bringing up the topic, Wright recommends saying something like: “I’ve been vaccinated, and it’s important to me that anyone I’m going to be intimate with is too. What’s your vaccination status?”
“Be open, honest and courageous – and ask them,” the therapist says. “Personally, I wouldn’t meet someone in person if I didn’t know they were fully vaccinated. I’d recommend asking them questions about their experience of Covid; in listening to their response, you’ll hear what precautions they took and how seriously they take their health and the health of those around them.”
Light on the horizon
Margaret is excited about the warmth of summer, seeing people out, being dressed in next to nothing, and going out again. “I want to drink and get sunburned at the beach, to be surrounded by my friends. Even just getting looked at twice on the street has me preening,” she says.
Alexa Mendez, a client management coordinator at Christie’s in Miami, is looking forward to proper dates, hopefully with people being more direct and honest than before, and hopes that Covid-19 will give women a new language to say no without feeling guilty.
For Maheshwari-Aplin, who uses they/them pronouns, it’s the little things that count. They want to enjoy youth and partying without scolding, and “hazy, lazy days on the grass, surrounded by friends.” They even miss the worst parts of going out: like drinking too much and running through the rain to stand in queues. “Sharing whispered secrets with friends of friends I might never meet again, bubbling, overlapping conversations, eyes flitting around the room,” they say.
But before you get started on joyfully planning your summer plans, make sure to keep health guidelines in mind. According to the CDC, Covid-19 vaccines are effective at protecting you from getting sick and, based on what we know so far, people who have been fully vaccinated can ease back into normal daily activities.
But people who are dating should continue taking precautions – like wearing a mask, and avoiding crowds and poorly ventilated spaces – until we know more. While the vaccination will keep the person who received it safe, we still do not know whether that person can continue to pass on the virus.
from Lifestyle | The Guardian https://ift.tt/32NRv1Y
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