Is Sex Dead for Parents? – The New York Times

My partner — who would probably rather decompress together but isn’t the needy type — respects the boundary. It helps that I explained it to him in a very straightforward way: This was how I had to spend my nights for a while. “It’s not a permanent thing — and it’s not about us — but for now, at night, I need to be left alone. All night.” Then I smiled and said, “You can still sleep in the bed.” He nodded sweetly, and that was it. It wasn’t small talk and it wasn’t big talk, it was just the truth.

There is so much pressure to have a passionate relationship. And I’m not pretending wild-heartedness is not gorgeous and great — wild-heartedness has been the driving force of my entire life (for better or worse). I’m just saying it’s OK, it’s no big deal, to deprioritize passion if that’s what you need to do for a while.

Look, just before I got weird with the whole R.I.P. sex thing, we watched “Normal People” on Hulu. Let me tell you, that series could make dirt flirty. Will that level of desire ever come back again? Of course it will. Soon enough, I’m sure sex will go down like free Champagne. Nights and nights of free Champagne. That’s why I can talk about it so openly, and why I think it’s important to remind everyone not to worry. If you’re too tired to have sex because your world erupted and it’s still taking a toll on your entire being, don’t panic. You are fine. Your sex life will survive. Buy yourself some sateen sheets.

While conducting this ridiculous sex poll with friends, someone challenged my “sex negative” theory by bringing up the once-rumored baby boom (it’s since been debunked but I didn’t know that at the time). I didn’t have the answer. I thought: Who are these people having sex like rabbits? They, for sure, don’t already have kids. Are they the same people accidentally losing a lot of weight? I’m sure they are lovely but those are not my people.

My people are simultaneously trying to keep their jobs alive, and their kids alive, and their parents alive, while privately being very scared, and quite sad. My people are desperately dodging the droplets of sweaty joggers, while trying to remind their young children what color the sunset is. My people are the bone-tired single moms, which is how I started out. My people are not discovering ceramics and erotica; they are discovering how to pee, text and floss at the same time. I am astounded by the grace and strength of my people, who truck on with their masks on, fighting the descent into despair.

“Right now, when the world feels on fire, pulling away from a partner may be self-care,” said Lexx Brown-James, better known as Dr. Lexx, M.D., a marriage and family therapist. “Taking a break can be a relief, and it can also build up intimacy in ways outside of physical touch: sharing stories, reading to one another, playing games, talking about art and culture.”

Dr. Lexx continued: “There’s also nice, simple things you can do for each other, like helping with the garden or laying out your partner’s pajamas. By relating to each other outside of physical touch, you start to bond, and it creates a form of stress-free foreplay. This helps sexual connection feel more organic and less obligatory.”

In the spirit of Dr. Lexx’s “nice, simple things,” early yesterday morning, I hiked up Atlantic Avenue searching for coffee for me and my partner. When nothing was open, I started to cry. It wasn’t about the coffee. It was my first heavy cry of the coronavirus, and it brought me to my knees. I cried about the pain good people are going through. I cried for all the sickness and all the loss. I cried to honor the emergency responders and frontline workers. And I cried for my kids whose childhood would now, in part, be defined by this pandemic.

When I came home, I told my partner I was feeling a little fragile (something I have never said, perhaps, in my entire life). We took turns with child care and conference calls. We refreshed the news, hoping for better days; and we talked — more than usual — about our secret struggles and frustrations, about the future, and about what our family might look like after this has passed.

Early evening, we strolled our sleeping little ones as we took a long, aimless walk. We held hands, not because that’s our style, but because we wanted to feel close and steady. We ordered street-side cocktails from a man who slid them to us with a shuffleboard cue. I’m not sure if it’s appropriate to say we had “a nice night”; that it felt as if there was an old country love song playing softly on a scratched record; like we were, maybe, resetting — together. But I will say, at the end of our walk, I kissed him. I kissed him like I meant it. And then we went upstairs.