Researchers: Why COVID Killed Off Sex Between Married Couples

An old-timer I used to work with in the newspaper industry liked to tell the joke that the only food known to man that kills a woman's sex drive is wedding cake. Now here we are in 2021 and researchers from the Kinsey Institute -- probably distant relatives; I really should dig into the family tree -- report that COVID is killing off the existing sex that was slipping into married couples relationships.

In a survey of 1,500 adults after the pandemic broke out, Kinsey Institute "found nearly half said their sex lives were in decline. The experts believe couples working at home together has left the former tag-team partners just wanting to avoid each other after clocking out from the home office.

Add in piles of laundry, kids needing to be taught by mom and dad, cleaning houses that used to be empty during the day and sexperts see a big issue.

“The vast majority of couples I’m seeing are finding it impossible to carve out time that’s uniquely for each other, without having to take care of work, children or cleaning the house,” Dr. Kleinplatz, a professor of medicine at the University of Ottawa, told The Globe and Mail.

The experts say that couples were lacking those triggers that turned into bang sessions. You take away Bret Michaels playing the hits for suburban housewives and sex is going to drop. Take away gyms for guys to get a pump in and you're going to see sex drop. Vegas trips were out, which meant married couples were less likely to get in back-to-back sex nights because it's Vegas and it makes you get crazy.

As researchers noted for the Globe & Mail, putting a puzzle together doesn't send many married couples into hot, wild sex.

The lack of sex isn't just a North American thing. Sex was down in China where women were experiencing sexual frequency 39% less than before the 'VID.

Add it all up and we're looking at a Baby Bust, according to researchers. As of January, births in Florida were down 8% from December 2019, Ohio was down 7% and Arizona was down 5%. Google searches for pregnancy and sex topics were down. And according to Philip Cohen from the University of Maryland, birth rates will continue to slide for months.

“People make long-term decisions when they have confidence about the future, and if there's anything that undermines confidence about the future, it's this massive pandemic,” he told NBC News.

Researchers seem to agree that married couples aren't having sex because they're tired of seeing each other at home and restrictions at bars led to less casual sex amongst the singles who've had a hard time mingling.

“One of the reasons we have falling birth rates is because women are deciding to spend less a percentage of their total lives raising children,” Cohen said.  “So they have one or two children instead of three or four children. And they do a lot of other things in their lives…which is great for reducing gender inequality. (But) it comes with some challenges.”

The good news is that vacations are back in style as people head off to Mexico without the kids who are starting to spend time with grandparents. Companies will slowly go back to filling office buildings, Happy Hour will become a thing again and married couples will have government checks to buy hot tubs with LED light shows to crank up the sexual tension to pre-VID levels.

How can the United State crank up the sex? First, you have to get Vegas open. You have to get kids into school, if they aren't already. You have to bring back 1980s hair bands. Cities across this country should be hiring Warrant, Whitesnake, Cinderella, Nickleback, Great White, Everclear, etc. back with a vengeance this summer. It's time to crank up the sex in these cities that have been so damn miserable.

It's time to get people banging again!