The list of fun activities you can do while Mayor Muriel Bowser is ordering you to stay home got a little shorter. The District released its official guide to sex during the global pandemic, and certain types of butt stuff are officially in the risky category.
More specifically, “rimming, or any sexual activity that involves putting the mouth on the butt/anus, might pass COVID-19,” the District’s sex guide says. “The virus has been found in feces.”
(LL notes that the Washington Post was too prude to include the District government’s advice regarding anilingus in its write-up. But we’ve got your back got you covered.)
The good news is that D.C.’s COVID-19 sex guide isn’t recommending total abstinence. In fact, Dr. Julia Marcus, an infections disease epidemiologist and professor at Harvard Medical School, told the Guardian “If you live with a regular sexual partner and you don’t have any symptoms, or likely exposure, sex might actually be a really great way to have fun, stay connected, and relieve anxiety during this potentially stressful time.”
But there are limitations to what constitutes safe sex during a global pandemic, hence the sex guide.
The safest sex, according to D.C.’s guide, is with yourself, which is the same advice New York City gave its residents weeks ago. Just wash your hands before and after, the guides advise.
Your next safest option is to have sex with a person who you live with as long as both of you are feeling well, which is probably good advice to follow even without the threat of transmitting a deadly virus. Symptoms of COVID-19 include fever, cough, and shortness of breath.
COVID-19 spreads through droplets that live on surfaces and can be sprayed into the air from an infected person’s mouth and nose, so kissing people you don’t live with is also risky.
“Consider not kissing anyone you do not know or who you are not sure has been isolated for 14 days,” D.C.’s sex guide says.
Condoms and dental dams can help, the guide says, and if you use toys, be sure to wash those things like you wash your hands—with soap and water for at least 20 seconds.
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