[imagesource: Getty]

If your hands shot into the air, I have two things to say to you.

First, I hope you weren’t reading this in public.

Secondly, you might be something of an exception at the moment.

When lockdowns and stay-at-home orders were implemented worldwide, some experts predicted that we would be looking at an entirely new generation of the horrifyingly named “coronababies” when all of this is over.

Why? Because, when things seem dire, the instinct to repopulate the world usually kicks in.

(Although, by the end of this century, we may be looking at a very different population by geographical region.)

The baby boom, beginning in the late 1930s and ending in the 1960s, for example, occurred in countries that experienced tremendous damage from World War II, and were going through dramatic economic hardships.

During the pandemic, we’re also faced with more spare time, and with working from home becoming the new normal, we’re supposed to be all furiously mating in captivity.

But we aren’t, according to Stuff. In fact, libido appears to be at an all-time low.

Throughout the last few months, far from feeling energised, many people have actually found their libido has been stolen, stripped out, set on fire and now stranded like shrivelled Subaru shells somewhere out on the back roads of Dargaville.

And that’s for those of us who don’t have kids, let alone the poor parents who were in the trenches, locked down, homeschooling, and working from home with their entire broods. Forget passion, you guys are still finding playdough in your bed.

A number of recent studies have backed this up.

A breakdown for your consideration:

• Research in New Zealand found that 75% of people either had the same quantity, or less sex, during the lockdown.
• Global studies state that 48% of the world’s population said that the pandemic had a negative effect on their sex lives.
• A study from China looked at the effect of natural disasters on libido. Before an earthquake, 67% of married women said they were having sex twice a week. One week later that had dropped to 4% and four weeks later it languished at 24%.

It makes sense. Crippling stress, anxiety and an uncertain future don’t exactly make for an effective aphrodisiac.

So, if you aren’t jumping into bed every five minutes, you can take comfort in the fact that it’s totally normal, especially when faced with a natural disaster.

If you are, good on you, provided you aren’t seeking out random partners and inadvertently spreading the virus around. Here’s a handy infographic explaining your options:

Image: The Signal Online/ Alyssa Shotwell

Take it easy, and stay safe.

[source:stuff]