'Risking It All for Some Dick': Here Are Your Quarantine Sex Stories

Illustration: Jim Cooke

April showers bring May flowers and May flowers bring an increasing number of people deciding to break quarantine to get laid. As social distancing mandates continue to deny everyone the joy of going to a bar and hooking up, some Jezebel readers have boldly gone where the CDC has recommended not to go: another person’s home. Last week, we asked for your quarantine sex stories and your responses did not disappoint. While some wrote of their sexcapades in near-pornographic detail, others had a touch more shame. “If I do get Covid and die, please don’t tell my mom it was for dick,” said one email. Tell your mom not to read any further.

This reader, who is an essential worker in a non-healthcare industry, decided lockdown was the best time to strike up an office romance:

My office has 11 people that are here on a daily basis, and 2 who are working from home but still come in every week or two for half days. We’re a pretty small business that still does a lot of things on paper so it’d be pretty difficult to WFH. I’ve mostly stopped going into stores, I wear a mask outside of the office and my house, and don’t hang out with friends or family. I’m able to avoid stores because my husband is not working for reasons unrelated to Corona. When he and I were dating I told him monogamy wasn’t for me and he was immediately alright with that.

So when I started my job I got a crush on a coworker who looks a bit like my husband and started putting out feelers. Just around the beginning of lockdown I finally was sure that he was feeling the same and I made my move. He was totally ok with the situation as he is in the middle of a divorce from a wife who withheld sex to manipulate him. The sex has been mindblowing. His goal is always to make me orgasm as many times as possible, I tried to keep count the first time and gave up somewhere in the twenties. He orgasms probably half of the time and it doesn’t bother either of us.

There are a couple of issues though, he has a roommate who has a girlfriend and a teenage daughter he has 50% custody of. I’m not exactly quiet, so we’ve hooked up in the backseat of his truck behind empty businesses a couple times to give the roomie a break. I have told my husband about him and he knows where I’m going but doesn’t want to hear anything else. The reason my husband and I are not banging every day is that he’s been doing a ton of house projects and is often worn out from that. But he’s also having a lot of confidence issues with not being allowed to work. Begging my spouse to be turned on by me is the biggest boner killer and marriage ruiner in the world so I’ll take my once a week marriage sex and keep getting the rest of my fix somewhere else.

Another reader also felt like getting a fix somewhere else, like just right outside their own state:

I crossed state lines to have sex with stranger. I connected with a guy on Scruff after I had moved and we met up for a drink. It didn’t seem like a perfect match at the time, but he was nice and into trans guys. Then the pandemic hit. Months into this and I have had little contact with anyone besides people at the grocery store, and my roommate. He popped back up into my world, and we both agreed that we were into seeing each other for a romp.

Quarantine negotiation around seeing people is very similar to queer safe sex practices: Who’ve you seen, who you been with etc. He said he had been pretty isolated. And I have been too. It seemed really risky, but I needed the risk. And I needed for someone to touch my body after having not even have received so much as a hug for over 6 weeks.

Crossing state lines was terrifying. Like there was a giant bullseye on my car saying I was crossing and it wasn’t an essential worker.

I arrived safely. We casually talked and then played the game Pandemic. Eventually he put his hand on my leg. I put my hand on his shoulder and we started making out. Clothes came off and we had sex. After we both came, we laid there for a bit.

After a reasonable amount of time of post-sex cuddling, I said goodbye. Again crossing state lines I was nervous, but once I got back to my state I knew I was clear.

I only told one friend what I was doing, but more out of safety. I had also written his name and address on a marker board in my bedroom just in case. I knew most people would strongly disagree with this rash choice. Most of my friends were quarantined with partners; they receive touch every single day and have a shoulder to cry on. I was happy for them, and also felt resentful for any judgment that could have come my way if they knew.

I haven’t heard from him since and I have no regrets.

Not to pit readers against each other in a game of one-upping but I see your state crossing and raise it by a whole different country:

I am an American currently living in a Middle Eastern country with a very strict lockdown but very few cases of coronavirus. So I boned. A lot. This country has a curfew from 6 pm every night to 8 am in the morning during which you can’t leave your home, taxis don’t run, etc. A man came over to my apartment to “chill” which eventually turned into sex. Great! Super fun time. But then, around 5 pm he started calling Ubers to try to get home. And they all, without fail, cancelled on him, until the sirens rang at 6 pm to remind us to stay in our homes. So strange man, who I had only met this day basically just for sex, stuck in my apartment overnight.

Luckily it was actually really fun and we hooked up all night. And in the morning. Then he got an Uber home. But could have been SO BAD if I didn’t like him. Overall great experience, would definitely do it again.

It must be nice to be regret-free. Unfortunately, not every reader had a no-regrets, orgasm-filled sex break.

I had about 5 zoom dates with a guy, and I was really excited about him. Then one night, he timidly suggested that we get together. I didn’t hesitate. I agreed to get together with him at his house the following Friday. The night of, we ordered pizza for curbside pickup and hung out in his living room. He was a lot weirder than he was online. He was extremely nervous, but not about Covid. He talked a lot about his ex girlfriend, who apparently moved out/left him after 3 years while he was out of town one weekend. Like, she just left him a note saying “we’re over and you’ll never see me again.”

I felt sorry for him, but also wondered why she felt she had to do it that way; was he fucked up or abusive or something? We had sex a couple times, and it was fine. I didn’t get off. He kept saying “fucking goddamn you, [name]” while he was fucking me, which I didn’t really understand. I got my period immediately after our second session, and I didn’t have a tampon, so he drove me home. The next day, I asked him if he was down to hang out again later in the week, and he responded by saying he was freaking out and that I was the only woman he’d been with since his ex, and could I please let him have a few weeks before we see each other again. I was like, what the fuck ever, and felt a huge sense of guilt and regret because I broke quarantine to have bad sex with a weirdo.

I would never wish bad weirdo sex upon my worst enemy, but it certainly wasn’t as bad as this reader, who ended up getting sick.

I met my (now ex) boyfriend early last year. We fell in love QUICK. Once the pandemic started, I was actively asking him to just keep his distance. As an essential worker he can’t social distance, and smokes with a lot of people. Me telling him that he should be wayyyy more careful seemed to resonate for a while but then… the longing set in for both of us.

We missed one another so bad and we broke quarantine a few times. Always with weeks between visits. I’ve been unemployed since February, so I was trying to ensure I was not getting ill after our romps. Sex then quarantine was all I knew.

I saw him again in late April and was sick within days. He’s still fine, I’m guessing he’s asymptomatic. I was so upset with him, after a well deserved dressing down, we ended up breaking up. Oh well. And he still hasn’t been tested.

Heartbreak can’t compare to the waves of fever. The foggy brain, the body aches, the fucking rash, the diarrhea – even with NO APPETITE and I’m barely eating. I feel a bit better at night but I can’t really sleep during the day because of light and sound sensitivity. The agitation at the smallest things because I’m so exhausted.

Honestly, give me heartbreak ten times in a row, fucking that man was NOT worth putting my life on the line. I’m STILL mad at myself and I got a positive diagnosis damn near 15 days ago. “Mild case” don’t mean shit when you still riding an awful wave between feeling maybe okay, then the fever/pain/congestion hits like “Hey, I’m baaaaack. I missed you, you dirty careless idiot!”

Easy to see how getting covid-related diarrhea from hooking up with your boyfriend can put a strain on the relationship; breaking up was the right choice. Meanwhile, in Texas, there’s a little more romance:

I’m single, gay, in my thirties and quarantined by myself. When this all started in March, I was taking daily walks around the neighborhood to get some fresh air. About a week-in I ran into a familiar face – someone I’d had a one-time hookup with back in January – let’s call him “Hot Neighbor”. We met on an app and had some quick fun one cold afternoon. Good chemistry and we only got to third base. It wasn’t completely surprising to run into him in the neighborhood, as I remember he’d said he only lived a half mile away.

I saw him coming towards me a block away, but he didn’t see me till we got up close which allowed me to gage his reaction, wide eyes of surprise turned into a big smile. At first, he went to hug me and then we both paused a bit realizing that wasn’t safe anymore, so he stuck out his elbow for a bump of sorts – a little strange, but I was into it. He was on the phone so it was a quick greeting, but you could feel some heat and we walked away.

The next day, I got a message from him saying how great it was to run into each other, initiating sometimes-daily chat between us for the coming months. We would vent to each other, talk about how messed up the world was, confide good and bad days and feelings, flirt and sext – each day a little more intense.

After weeks of this, I had an idea for a socially-distanced way to get off. I have a fairly private back yard, so we set it up for him to come in through the gate, strip off our clothes and sit six feet apart facing each other on blankets. We talked, watched and encouraged each other to get ourselves off. Actually a pretty unique and fun time, made more intense by a storm that had just produced some incoming thunder in the distance. We did talk to each other throughout how difficult it was to keep our hands off each other, but we did.

That left us only partially satisfied – we resumed the chat quickly after and it became obvious that we were going to fuck soon. As of the last week of April, we had both quarantined separately for over a month and had really limited any trips out of the house. The flirting got more frequent and intense, but we also had a real conversation about being able to trust each other. This put us over and we were full-boil. A few days later, I got a message that he was out for a walk and just passed my house. He wanted to stop over, just to “say hi”.

Well of course “hi” turned into “come inside for a drink”, turned into “let me show you around my place”, turned into us in the bedroom where six feet of distance became inches. Viscerally, we grabbed each other and kissed pulling each other in close. It was electric – heightened by the lack of touch and buildup over the course of weeks. We spent an hour together and it might have been the best hour either of us had since the world stopped in March. After that we slowly put our clothes back on, lingering and talking. He pulled me in for a big hug and he was off.

We still message often and may even do it again, but the buildup was what made it memorable. I think that single people all over the world took casual sex and just touch for granted. Separately, I think that gay men are now learning a little about what it felt like in the early days of the AIDs crisis. Maybe it’s not such a bad thing to be forced to think about sex in a different light.