A Guide To Pandemic Sex... From The Government

Staten Island comedian Pete Davidson seems to have got the NYC sex guidelines for the pandemic wrong on Saturday Night Live this past weekend. He was right about "sex but no kissing" and wrong about what he called "heiny smoocheroos," which was widely interpreted as an OK for rimming. Rimming however, is not OK.

I guess his main point was that it's hard to imagine that the government of New York City-- not the state-- is offering "some tips for how to enjoy sex and to avoid spreading COVID-19." Obviously, they recommend sex with your regular partner (husband, wife, monogamous boyfriend or girlfriend) but also note that "Masturbation will not spread COVID-19, especially if you 
wash your hands (and any sex toys) with soap and water for at least 20 seconds before and after sex."

Also they are clear that rape is bad. "Having close contact-- including sex-- with only a small circle of people helps prevent spreading COVID-19. Have sex only with consenting partners. (The emphasis was their own.) "You should avoid close contact-- including sex-- with anyone outside your household. If you do have sex with others, have as few partners as possible. If you usually meet your sex partners online or make a living by having sex, consider taking a break from in-person dates. Video dates, sexting or chat rooms may be options for you." It gets steamier:

Take care during sex.

• Kissing can easily pass COVID-19. Avoid kissing anyone who is not part of your small circle 
of close contacts.

• Rimming (mouth on anus) might spread COVID-19. Virus in feces may enter your mouth.

• Condoms and dental dams can reduce contact with saliva or feces, especially during oral 
or anal sex.

• Washing up before and after sex is more important than ever.


o Wash hands often with soap and water for at least 20 seconds.
o Wash sex toys with soap and warm water.

o Disinfect keyboards and touch screens that you share with others (for video chat, for watching pornography or for anything else).

What Are Sex Addicts Doing Now? Is Promiscuous Sex Still A Thing During The Pandemic?

Mike Huckabee's 10,000 square feet $6 million McMansion looks out over Walton County's Gulf Coast. Mother Jones reported that he's been complaining about people walking on his beach-- and says he once "saw a young couple strip naked and have sex on a YOLO board there at two in the afternoon. But now that the county has finally closed the beach and kicked out all the spring breakers as part of its pandemic response, Huckabee has sued the county because he can’t go out there either. I wonder if Huckabee wants to have sex on a YOLO board. Are people still having promiscuous sex with strangers? Dan Savage says NO-- No, No, No! "We're not supposed to come within six feet of anyone we don't live with, NR, which means you can't invite this guy over to play cribbage and/or fuck you senseless. If you wanted to invite this guy over to stay, you could shack up and wait out the lockdown together. But you can't invite him over just to play."

Brothels and prostitution are basically legal in Europe-- but not during the pandemic. Sex workers in countries like Holland and Germany-- most of them foreign-- are now unemployed and many also now homeless-- and unable to get home through closed borders. There were between 100,000 and 200,000 prostitutes-- 80% of them foreign, mainly from Bulgaria, Romania, Poland, and Ukraine-- working in Germany before the brothels were shut down in March along with other non-essential businesses like restaurants and nightclubs. Some of these sex workers are now are soliciting for clients on the streets to survive meet until brothels reopen.

Nevada has a similar story-- legal prostitution and, as of March 19, closed down brothels and strip clubs. Nevada's brothel industry brought in between $35 million and $50 million that year, and served about 400,000 clients. But there are sex workers everywhere across America. Are some of them disregarding social distancing and working now? Are some of their regular clients been driven by whatever drives them under non-pandemic circumstances?

On Tuesday, L.A.'s David Kordansky Gallery opens a month-long Tom of Finland exhibition-- online. They represent the Tom of Finland-- Touko Laaksonen-- estate and emphasize that the artist "has long been recognized as one of the 20th century’s great visual innovators. As he confronted the stigmas and stereotypes that long burdened homosexual desire, his depictions of empowered gay men fully enjoying their sexuality proved liberating on social and aesthetic levels alike. The sheer range of his influence on the culture at large is immeasurable. His work assumes a key role in the art historical discourse (Tom’s drawings are in the collections of institutions like The Museum of Modern Art, New York and regularly appear in museum shows throughout the world), while also occupying a place in every corner of the popular imagination."

Can an online exhibition of his erotic work serve as a substitute for sex? Or a provocation to go out and look for the real thing? I don't know. I asked the gallery's publicist. She didn't know either. I also asked a young friend of mine who is sexually active with strangers-- or was. He no longer uses Grindr and is strict about social distancing. But... he knows of underground parties in L.A. "Some people wear masks and gloves," he said.

Writing last week for the New Yorker Masha Gessen asked about lessons from the AIDS crisis that can be helpful today. Gessen-- who prefers the pronoun "they"-- wrote that "Over the past month, those of us who lived through the aids epidemic have searched for ways in which that experience can inform the covid-19 crisis. Do we know something that can be useful now? Can this knowledge help us survive?

Even in the middle of a nearly nationwide lockdown, at no level do we think of the pandemic as our problem. That allows the Supreme Court to rule that Wisconsin cannot extend its deadline for absentee ballots, deciding, in effect, that it’s the voters’ problem if they would not risk their health to go to the polls and the state didn’t have enough ballots for them. This is a problem not only on the right of the political spectrum-- back in March, Joe Biden’s campaign was encouraging voters to go to the polls, when he should have been imploring them to self-isolate.

Before it’s over, the pandemic will get much worse, and so will we. Then it will end. And, unless we start the work of noticing and remembering now, we will forget how low we went. We will assimilate the ways in which the virus has changed our perceptions. We will romanticize the heroism and ingenuity of people who were betrayed by their government, rather than confront the people responsible for the betrayal.

"I have in my heart the stories of suffering and pain of the minors who were sexually abused by priests" (Pope Francis)

"Words cannot fully express my sorrow for the abuse you suffered. I'm profoundly sorry that your innocence was violated by those you trusted."

-- Pope Francis, to a gathering of abuse survivors today, in prepared
remarks as released by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops

"As with all things related to the Catholic Church, you have to listen to the words and then you have to watch what they do."

-- abuse survivor John Salveson, president of the
Foundation to Abolish Child Sex Abuse

by Ken

Earlier in the pope's visit, the victims of priestly sexual abuse and their defenders complained about his failure to squarely address the issue of the victims and of his uncomfortably consoling message of support to the assembled American bishops. The complaint seemed to me to have merit, and while it was clear that he had a heavy schedule of public appearances still to come during his whirlwind tour of Washington, New York, and Philadelphia, the absence of any comment from Vatican officialdom was hardly encouraging.

Today in Philadelphia the pope returned to the subject. Perhaps not surprisingly, the doubters aren't satisfied.

Here's the start of the report by the Washington Post team covering the papal visit (links onsite).

Pope Francis finally met with sex abuse survivors but more action is critical, activists say

By Sarah Pulliam Bailey, Abby Ohlheiser and Terrence McCoy
September 27 at 5:00 PM

PHILADELPHIA – Pope Francis told U.S. bishops and seminarians on Sunday that he had met with sex abuse survivors. “God weeps,” he said in remarks ahead of a prepared speech on the family.

Five adults who were abused as minors – three women and two men – were at the meeting along with their families, according to the Vatican’s press office. The survivors were abused by clergy, family members, or their teachers.

“I have in my heart, the stories of suffering and pain of the minors who were sexually abused by priests. And, it continues to overwhelm me with shame that the people who were charged with taking care of these tender ones violated that trust and caused them a profound pain. God weeps.” Pope Francis said at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary, according to a translation of the Spanish remarks by The Washington Post.

“The crimes and sins of sexual abuse of minors cannot be kept in secret any longer.” he continued.

Pope Francis said he was committed to “a careful vigiliance of the church to ensure that youth are protected, and I promise that all those responsible will be held accountable.”

Survivors in the U.S. have mixed feelings on Pope Francis’s record on the topic since becoming pope, with some praising him, and others seeing his statements and actions as inadequate. Some survivor activists have been urging Pope Francis to substantively address the sex abuse crisis during his visit.

And while he has discussed the topic this week, many of those same groups found his comments lacking because he emphasized supporting the clergy’s reforms, rather than the suffering of victims.

“As with all things related to the Catholic Church, you have to listen to the words and then you have to watch what they do,” said John Salveson, a clergy sex abuse survivor, prominent activist and president of The Foundation to Abolish Child Sex Abuse.

Salveson said the Vatican has been aware of possible solutions “for years, if not decades.” They include releasing the identity of priests who have been defrocked for abusing children; involving civil authorities when there is abuse, particularly in other countries, and extending the statute of limitations on clergy sex abuse, he said.

“The reason this all continued is that these priests don’t get prosecuted and the bishops who hide them don’t get prosecuted because they are protected by the statute of limitations,” he said.

The pope’s outreach is useful to the extent it eases victims’ suffering, said Marie Collins, a member of an advisory commission the pope set up to help him improve the church’s response to abuse.

“If it’s going to help their healing, then it’s a positive experience for them. It’s a very positive experience for them,” said Collins, a clergy abuse survivor from Ireland. But, Collins added, the meeting “really is not connected [to the] work for the future of child protection.”

Instead, she said, the pope’s decision to set up a papal commission advising him on how to handle the issue going forward was “the most positive change to happen” so far.

Robert Hoatson, who held signs in support of victims of abuse in front of Philadelphia’s basilica over the weekend, said on Sunday that he felt the pope’s comments brushed too quickly over the serious issue. “This is getting more bizarre,” said Hoatson, who works with victims. ” It’s going to cause more distress, more traumatization, re-abuse,” he said, “because it seemed like a side note.”

“It was as if he added this to his talk without telling the bishops what he is going to do, including removing some of [the bishops],” Hoatson said.

The meeting happened at the seminary at about 8 a.m., just before Pope Francis’s remarks, according to Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi. The meeting lasted for a half an hour. . . .

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