Which Fantasies and Kinks Will Gain Popularity in a Post Pandemic World?

COVID has already affected our sex lives greatly. How will it continue to influence our erotic imaginations?

While it’s a misconception that they stem directly from our traumas, kinks can be used as tools to process them, as well as internalized shame, guilt, and other negative experiences.

By creating scenarios that either exaggerate or counteract them, we can utilize our kinks to face our fears. Bondage, for example, can help us confront a phobia for being restricted and giving up control, while simultaneously resolving an unmet need for feeling held and protected.

Other times our kinks are rooted in taboos; the more far fetched or forbidden, the more thrilling and tempting.

Happy new fear?

We’ve been living in an exceedingly strange world over the past two years and it’s hard to see an end in the immediate future. The new normal keeps contorting; do we even know what normal is anymore?

The question of what it means and whether it ever was normal, to begin with, is a story for another day, meanwhile, the pandemic has already altered our sex lives in a variety of ways. The first lockdown in 2020 saw a spike in partnered sex caused by forced togetherness. Though this desire later plummeted as a cause of too much togetherness, various studies indicate “a rise in sexual experimentation” with approximately one in five adults reporting having expanded their sexual repertoire. (USA Today)

Among singles, the effects of the pandemic on their sex lives have been divergent with just over one-third reporting having less sex, another third indicating no change in activity, and slightly less than a third saying they’ve been getting it on even more than before. However, social distancing and other restrictions have fueled sexual creativity and given rise to new ways of sharing intimacy.

In late 2020, the Guardian reported that the use of OnlyFans exploded from 7.5 to 85 million users in just one year. This is only one of the many ways online sexual interactions have blossomed. Camming, cybersex, and broadcasted shows have taken off; we can now view burlesque performances from our living rooms, while the Zoom-boom has brought us conference-style sex parties.

Behold the rise of the glory hole

I predicted — on my podcast, at the start of the pandemic — that it could kick off the golden age of glory holes. And here we are. —Dan Savage / @fakedansavage on Twitter Jun 10, 2020

The infamous sex columnist said it first and proved to be right; we have, in fact, seen a glory hole renaissance in a time when the New York Health Department have issued guidelines urging its inhabitants to “make it a little kinky” using “physical barriers, like walls, that allow sexual contact while preventing close face to face contact.”

This has made me ponder which other kinks and sexual eccentricities will gain traction in the time ahead. Looking to our fears, anxieties, and traumas, and our kinks as ways to confront or assuage them, I personally predict the following to gain popularity in a (post) pandemic world:

Exaggeration and fetishization

When we face our fears through exaggeration, we can take them to their extreme in a safe environment, while fetishization allows us to sexualize something that isn’t traditionally viewed as such. Both have a way of disarming the things we dread.

Isolation kinks

We’ve been isolated to various degrees for almost two years, so why not deal with the fear of isolation by isolating some more? While caging and confinement have always had a place in the BDSM scene, I foresee this niche fetish rising from the underground to make its way into the mainstream. If the lockdowns gave you a case of cabin fever, try sexualizing it and let yourself get locked up in a human-size dog pen and see if that changes your perspective.

Masks of all kinds

Now that we barely leave the house without one, masks have become ubiquitous and it only makes sense that these will make their way into our sexual fantasies as well.

Beyond the medical type, I bet we’ll see masks of all kinds, from gas masks to vintage plague masks, balaclavas, wrestling masks, and everything in between.

Medical play

Doctor and nurse play is another corner of the BDSM and kink world that I bet will gain popularity beyond the tried and true sexy-nurse get-up for Halloween. Now that we’ve gotten into the habit of sticking swabs up our noses and down our throats for months in the form of Covid-19 antigen tests, sticking other things into other orifices feels less far-fetched than before.

The allure of the forbidden

Tell a child they can’t have that particular candy bar or that they’re not allowed to watch a certain tv-show and it’s all they want. While our tastes might change as we mature, the principle remains; we want what we can’t have.

And what are the things we haven’t been able to do or have?

Orgies

While ever-present in our communal erotic imagination, as reflected in mainstream porn, I’m certain that group play and private sex parties of every variety will flourish like ever before. I’m already seeing this here at home, in Berlin, where the pandemic fatigue combined with limited access to clubs has caused people to start hosting more frequent kinky house parties—with the prerequisite that all attendants are fully vaccinated and tested, of course.

Incognito and anonymous meet-ups

With the fear of microbiome and germs follows a general stranger danger mentality that I bet will make the idea of swooping fluids with complete strangers seem even more thrillingly risky than ever.

Hands in mouth

We’ve been told since childhood not to stick our dirty fingers in our faces and mouths without washing properly and Covid has taken this to the next level too. Like spit and strangers, hands have never been grosser or more dangerous, hence why I think imagery of hands in mouths will get hot-hot-HOT!

Saliva kinks

Last, but not least, we have spit. A kink I’ve touched on before, spitting is already something we see much of in porn — too much, according to some.

Favor positions where you are not face-to-face while having sex to avoid contact with saliva or other secretions and spend as little time as possible (Basically, have a quickie.) — Excerpt from the Covid Safe sex guidelines by Thailand’s Department of Health

Since nothing has been feared as greatly as droplets have over the past few years, spit is becoming the ultimate taboo. Therefore, I’m certain that all kinds of saliva and spit play, as well as pinned tongues, gags, and the resulting drooling, will have such a triggering effect that it will rise to an all-time high.

Adversity breeds creativity

All through our pandemic sex lives may have taken a hit, tough times like these also happen to make us more inventive and adventurous. As we ride out these last (who-knows-how-many) waves, I’m sure we’ll continue to see a development of virtual and online sexual interactions of all kinds. Moreover, I think this will be a time when we’ll start facing our fears and reenacting our collective pandemic trauma through sex and kink. And who knows, perhaps there’s no better way to process what we’ve all been through?

© Ena Dahl 2021