It’s fair to say that there’s a lot about the last twelve months that we will be more than happy to leave behind. The crippling anxiety, the brutal sense of isolation and loneliness, the worrying if your place of work is going to go under and make you redundant, the being stuck indoors for most of the day most of the time, the limits on exercise, and the general worry that you are going to catch a life-threatening illness. It’s been an impossibly tricky year, and frankly, we can’t wait to see our friends and loved ones and go for a drink down the pub.
On the other hand, some trends feel like they might be a good thing, or at least the start of something good. For example, we all got a lot better at cooking as we tried to recreate our favourite restaurant dishes at home. We all got a lot more aware of our mental health and learned how to be more open to discussing both how we’re doing and how we can help people struggling. We even got into DIY, home improvement, and gardening as we looked for things to do around the house.
And speaking of being more open, experts around the world have been looking at how COVID-19 affected our sex lives. We’re more than 12 months into the pandemic at this point, and it feels like there’s been a lot more discussion about how we’ve been dating and hooking up, how much sex, and what kind of sex we’ve all been having. Here are a few trends from the past year, some of which may disappear with time, and some of which may be here to stay.
It Was Online Dating’s Time To Shine
Perhaps this one shouldn’t be too surprising, but it is interesting. The pandemic didn’t stop people from meeting people for dates, it just forced them to do it in a virtual space. The last twelve months have been significant for dating apps like Tinder and Bumble, and OKCupid reported a ludicrous 700% increase in dates between March and May 2020 while Bumble’s video call numbers were up by 70%.
While it seems safe to assume that these numbers will decline when things do finally go back to normal, online dating will still be the best option for people looking to meet someone new for a while yet. At the very least, we can all be thankful that these apps were around!
Sex Toys Were Incredibly Popular
On the one hand, what did we expect? If people are being forced to stay home and limit contact with other people wherever possible, then of course, a massive spike in the sales of sex toys was to be expected. However, what’s interesting is that the number of sales, which more than doubled according to this blog post, wasn’t limited to toys designed for solo use. No, indeed, toys designed for couples, such as couple rings, were a big hit over the last twelve months.
Why? Well, for one thing, we’ve all had a lot more time to try new things as we sit around at home waiting for everything to reopen. For another, we’ve all been looking for ways to keep things fresh, fun and exciting in the bedroom during this difficult time, and couples all over the world are turning to toys.
Cam Girls And Sex Cams Were There For Everyone

As you may have gathered from those statistics for sex toys, one of the big changes that we’ve seen in the last twelve months is that discussion around masturbation has been normalized to a huge extent, which is probably why everyone feels way more comfortable talking about cam girls, sex cams and adult chat. Yes indeed, the pandemic may have been hit a lot of industries incredibly hard, but the adult sex cam business was booming. Discussion about it became so commonplace that we’ve started to see mainstream celebrities set up their own channels on adult social media sites. Why? Well, one of the main attractions of adult cams is that they are inherently personal.
The user can interact with the cam girl or cam guy directly. When a lot of people are feeling incredibly isolated and lonely, the people in the webcam business have thrived because they can create that personal touch. This massive boom has also helped raise awareness around the industry and the sex workers who make their living in it and dispel some of the stigma surrounding it.
For example, when actress Bella Thorne joined the adult platform OnlyFans in August, she was met with a huge backlash from sex workers who saw her exploitative and damaging actions.
The uproar from them and their supporters was so fierce that Thorne issued a public apology. We can expect adult cams to be part of the conversation long after things go back to normal.
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