Here's how to practise (pandemic-)safe sex

Yes, it’s become a real thing in 2021 – practising not just safe sex but Covid-safe sex this Valentine’s Day.

After all, while you do want to get things all hot and steamy metaphorically, you don’t really want to feel hot and steamy (read: feverish) IRL these days because a rising temperature can only mean one thing… jialat, you have to see a doctor right away.

In fact, the New York City Health Department recently even issued a two-page memo on “strategies to reduce the risk of spreading Covid-19 during sex” because “decisions about sex… need to be balanced with personal and public health”.

Since we can’t imagine our health authorities doing this, here are our strategies for you.

1. Stick to one sex partner only. It’s like how you must restrict the number of people visiting your household liddat so you can easily track and trace who’s been where if someone falls sick.

2. Avoid face-to-face positions to reduce the risks of transmitting infectious saliva particles. The New York City Health Department’s memo helpfully offers this tip: Be creative with sexual positions and physical barriers, like walls.

Erm, call us prudish Asians but we have no idea what they mean by being creative with walls. Also, ahem, we don’t think HDB would allow us to drill holes in the wall that separates our living room from our neighbour’s.

3. For the same reason, avoid kissing. Also why you should not be chatting (or chattering) fervently on public transport or in F&B establishments.

4. Don’t just wear a condom. Wear a mask too. Yes lah, that’s the new norm for safe sex.

5. Before and after having sex, wash your hands thoroughly with soap and water, and take a shower. Unless you subscribe to your mother’s threat of “can see, cannot touch” when you were a kid and you stepped into the glassware section of any department store.

6. If you don’t feel well, avoid having sex. In fact, if you don’t feel well, the only place you should be going to is your GP’s clinic.

7. Just got back to Singapore and doing your Stay Home Notice (SHN) in a hotel? Don’t be geh kiang like that woman who checked into the same hotel as her fiancé, who was serving his SHN, and then had him secretly creeping up the stairwell late in the night to slip into her room. He got caught, so don’t try it.

8. Sext or video chat (with the other party’s consent, of course) instead. Better yet, be an old-school romantic and snail-mail love letters and your undies to your BB.

This article was first published in Wonderwall.sg.