The pandemic has brought out a nasty puritanism.

By Megan Nolan

Ms. Nolan is a writer and critic. She is a columnist for New Statesman, where she writes about culture and politics, and the author of the forthcoming novel “Acts of Desperation.”

Dec. 22, 2020, 5:00 a.m. ET

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Credit...Amber Vittoria

LONDON — In early lockdown, I spent most evenings in the front room of my mother’s house, drunk, staring at a computer, reeling at the prospect of my body being deprived indefinitely of touch. In those days, there was a sense that all the things that make up life really might be permanently destroyed. My father, who is a playwright, speculated with sanguine acceptance that he might never see or work on another theater production. Leaving Ireland, where I grew up and where my parents live, seemed like a remote possibility, even just to return to Britain, where I am a resident.

Only weeks earlier, I was in New York for an extended visit, recently single and pleasantly crazy with the desire to date far and wide. My romantic and sexual value seemed higher then and there than it had ever been anywhere else. I thought it would suffer by comparison to all the extra special and extra beautiful people, but it turned out that mildly manic exuberance and a complete lack of interest in anything resembling commitment made up for my physical shortcomings, and I imagine my Irish accent didn’t hurt either.

I felt almost nauseated by the overwhelming knowledge of how many attractive people were out there. Even when my dates were with guys I would never see again, I usually found something in them or the evening that I would remember happily, like the one who looked fondly down at me in a hotel room and inexplicably exclaimed, “I love New York!” at the sight of my body.

And then in March came the shutdown. Because there was no way to tell if my newfound isolation was going to last five weeks or five years, I was urgently trying to recast the concept of pleasure as something that could occur without other people. I failed completely, and was even somewhat glad of this failure, the better to confirm my long-held conviction that the point of life is simply to be with other people as abundantly as possible.

I made the mistake in this period of suggesting in a Facebook post that single people, especially those living alone, could not be expected to go an unlimited amount of time without socializing or close contact. Some people reacted to this as though I had proposed an orgy on every street corner, pandemic be damned, but that wasn’t what I meant. What I meant was that human beings can’t be expected to endure the sudden and total loss of social comfort. For some people, that social comfort comes from dating or from having sex with strangers.

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In Holland, officials advised coming to an arrangement with a sex buddy. Denmark’s health chief said: “Sex is good, sex is healthy. As with any other human contact, there is a risk of infection. But of course one must be able to have sex.” Whether you agree or disagree, at least these countries were capable of addressing what was a serious concern for many of their citizens.

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But these countries seem to be exceptional. Mostly, the government here in Britain — as in many other places — pretended that sex doesn’t take place except between cohabiting couples. When public health advocates have brought themselves to allude to the existence of sex, the advice is usually unrealistic and inadequate, instructing couples who don’t live together to meet up outside and not touch. News releases from sex toy companies began filling my email inbox, advertising remote-controlled vibrators, as though the loss of physical connection was purely about missing an orgasm.

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There has been no serious effort to confront the particular challenges of what it is to be single — to be alone — in 2020. There have been no major harm-reduction initiatives, just the deluded implication that all of us who failed to partner up by March 2020 should live without meaningful connection until there is a vaccine.

The coronavirus pandemic has brought out a nasty puritanism in some people, who luxuriate in the ability to police the way others live. One doesn’t even need to actually break a rule to earn their disgust, only to express dismay over things they consider unimportant or, worse, hedonistic. To even complain about what it feels like to live alone and not be able to date right now is regarded as unseemly, dismissed as trivial. After all, some haven’t been able to visit vulnerable elderly relatives all year. Couples have it hard too, with many working from home in cramped quarters — not to mention those living with small children.

The complaints of a single person don’t begrudge or contradict the pain of the harangued parent or the anguished daughter missing her sick father. Our struggles are not undermined if society also concedes that there are people who once got substantial meaning from interacting in ways that are now impossible — through dating or casual sex. We are also going through something painful, without even the socially approved validity of the nuclear unit to back us up.

Most of society does not really believe that casual, nonmonogamous encounters can actually hold meaning, rather than simply serve as crude ways to blow off steam. I know that they can. Living as a purposefully single and promiscuous person was one way to know others, one way to find joy in the world, and it’s gone for now. Single people have lost something important, and should be allowed to bemoan it. I don’t have to want children to sympathize with families; you don’t have to share my priority to accept its validity in my life. There are not a finite number of ways to have felt pain this year.

A friend asked me a few months ago whether I didn’t perhaps regret having ended a long-term relationship in early 2020, at such a particularly bad time in history to choose to be alone. I won’t pretend it didn’t cross my mind that life would have most likely been far more pleasant if I had been with my ex during the worst of lockdown. Not only would it have been good to have company in general, but I also missed him, specifically. I loved him; I still love him, which does not mean that it made me happy to be in our relationship.

I left because I identified that my desires and needs were not being best served by monogamy. This would have been impossible in my earlier life, when I was crippled by need, leaking out of me onto every passing man who looked like he could fill a boyfriend-shaped gap in my life. Back then, I could no more have turned down the offer of companionship and love than I could water and air.

Now, I need differently. I need very little from individuals, but I am greedy for the world. And why not? Why shouldn’t I be? It’s a reasonable and good-natured greed, one fueled not by desperation but by a tremendous love of the world and the people in it. How could I be ashamed of that? That this impulse was thwarted in 2020 does not make it a malign one.

Some single people are not living in constant wait for the relief of a marriage to put them out of their misery. The restrictions of this year happened to suit couples and families best, but that doesn’t mean that the rest of us were getting life wrong.

As we move into 2021, I know now more than ever that I was right to do what was best for me. I won’t be pretending that I want things that I don’t for the sake of temporary comfort. I’ll be waiting until the life I do want — trashy, frivolous and shallow as it might seem to some — is possible again.

Megan Nolan (@mmegannnolan) is a writer and critic. She is a columnist for New Statesman, where she writes about culture and politics, and the author of the forthcoming novel “Acts of Desperation.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/22/opinion/sex-relationships-covid.html

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4718267&forum_id=2#41595689)

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/dec/21/compelled-hug-strangers-gathering-ancestral-clan

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4718267&forum_id=2#41600723)

What in the living hell is wrong with these people

How does this even get published

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4718267&forum_id=2#41595707)

Mass

3h ago

Thank you for giving voice to my desires regarding sex and relationships. I’m tired of feeling the need to profess an interest in the same things other people do for the sake of...what? Moral propriety? The solidarity of shared values? Other people’s comfort? If I found someone I wanted to be exclusive with, great. But that’s not an item on my to do list or emptiness in my life. I love men and I love having sex with them and I miss it so much right now, but, for me, those don’t need to lead to commitment and exclusivity.

I also want to comment how gorgeously written this is, content aside. Brava.

Reply156 RecommendShareFlag

Alan R Brock commented 2 hours ago

Alan R Brock

Alan R Brock

Richmond VA

2h ago

''Some people are not living in constant wait for the relief of a marriage to put them out of their misery.''

This point is essential and too often missed. There are more than a few of us out there who prefer to remain unwedded.

Also, I see so many couples who, in my unspoken opinion, ''settled'' for the best deal they could find at the point they determined that they just had to get married. I don't envy them. Not at all.

2 Replies147 RecommendShareFlag

Tirv commented 3 hours ago

T

Tirv

Ontario, Canada

3h ago

The term "nasty puritanism" is absolutely brilliant! There's a lot of SNL-style "Church Ladies" (and men) out there, desperately in need of some introspection as to the source of their own unhappiness, which they are all too quick to share- in the form of judgement. Best wishes and thanks to the author.

Reply139 RecommendShare

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4718267&forum_id=2#41595750)

Chicago

2h ago

Next year is my 50-year celebration of being single. It's been a joy remaining uncoupled. There were compromises, sure, and it's not for the weak-willed or dependent types.

The only real problem is that society treats us rather shabbily and gives unfair economic breaks to heteronormative couples on the breeding program.

2 Replies99 RecommendShareFlag

Buoy Duncan commented 3 hours ago

B

Buoy Duncan

Dunedin, Florida

3h ago

It is as good a time now as any, to stop pretending that being single is a dimension of marital status we every one of us long to escape from. Not so. Being in a long term relationship right now carries the danger of actually compounding the loneliness of this moment, not for all but certainly for some!

Reply89 RecommendShareFlag

John commented 2 hours ago

J

John

Lancaster PA

2h ago

The author expresses beautifully, but indirectly, a plea for the end of the social pressure to establish long term monogamous relationships. She quite rightly recognizes that monogamy is not ideal for many people. Queer people, particularly men, who were legally excluded from socially sanctioned monogamous relationships (marriage) until quite recently, have long known this and many have built happy long-term relationships without any expectation of sexual fidelity. Sex can have many meanings, but sometimes sex is just sex. What makes this column unusual is that it is a frank admission of this by a heterosexual woman, for whom social pressure to buy in to the marriage-monogamy=happiness equation remains the greatest.

Reply87 RecommendShareFlag

Ruth commented 43 minutes ago

R

Ruth

Denver

41m ago

Times Pick

The pandemic reminds us of that secret we all try to hide. We are animals that live and die. Dignity and morality are not absolutes, especially now.

Reply85 RecommendShare

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4718267&forum_id=2#41595755)

Indeed, who could resist.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4718267&forum_id=2#41595839)

LOL

O

L

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4718267&forum_id=2#41595904)

https://www.instagram.com/p/B_atoAXHecO/

https://www.instagram.com/p/B71WOkhHBZm/

the problem is her playing frumpy hipster schtick

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4718267&forum_id=2#41596191)

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/c726ee04ec052283dce9e479ab6cfbf01c7ece27/159_586_4492_2695/master/4492.jpg?width=620&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=e129fa4ed983f1a479d73b257dd2d0a8

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4718267&forum_id=2#41600716)

1. Bipolar/manic

2. Woman/indeterminate mud

3. Hate all things pure in the world such as religion/family

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4718267&forum_id=2#41595927)

No one wants to read about well-adjusted got families.

Not defending it but their existence is predicated upon publishing smut like this.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4718267&forum_id=2#41597363)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4718267&forum_id=2#41596004)

this article was pure cringe btw. seems like she was just trying to justify to herself why having random sex in nyc is good for a person when it’s obviously not.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4718267&forum_id=2#41596997)

there are so many of these

ruthless sodomy

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4718267&forum_id=2#41596060)

with respect, however, I disagree

this chick is thoroughly average in every way

I banged a less annoying version of her in a different east coast city for a few weeks

as 5 as the day is long

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4718267&forum_id=2#41596232)

She's a 3.5.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4718267&forum_id=2#41596906)

(1) you don’t really want to see that

(2) they exist; they are real; they are spectacular

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4718267&forum_id=2#41596257)

this is classic birdbrain female logic. no, your sexual value isn't high if app guys are lining up to pump and dump you. any girl with a vagina can get pumped and dumped every single night of the week with ease.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4718267&forum_id=2#41596201)

Also XO: How dare this chick turn the NYT's message even one degree away from Lockdowns Uber Alles and say that she wants sex!

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4718267&forum_id=2#41596258)

men are speaking. MANLY men

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4718267&forum_id=2#41596314)

her worst pic in this thread is a 2

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4718267&forum_id=2#41596954)

have you ever had friends you weren't trying to fuck? (I'd ask about male friends but that may not make my point)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4718267&forum_id=2#41600220)

EDIT: I mean, I get that it's funny that she's like I want to be free enjoy non-monogamy. Would've been more trad if she just argued like I wish dating could be normal rn. There are a ton of health professionals who say shit like "I wouldn't feel comfortable going on a first date at this time"

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4718267&forum_id=2#41600223)

https://www.instagram.com/p/CCk9Y6-HYsW/?igshid=qi6vp07vtnb4

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4718267&forum_id=2#41596514)

NYC35m ago

Times Pick

It all depends on your attitude. My daughter, age 22, told me she frequently encounters attractive runners when she's out for a run. Often, they duck off-trail and have a quickie. Relieves the stress! Life is too short and youth fades very, very quickly. Live while you're alive!

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4718267&forum_id=2#41600172)

The homosexualization of heterosexual relationships

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4718267&forum_id=2#41600588)