This post addresses my own attempts at intimacy and connection during the pandemic with a bit of background because I can’ presume that readers know anything about me or my experiences. I have been open about my sex life in public because I am privileged to do so. I think it’s important to share alternative narratives to the puritanical attitudes we are so often faced with on social media and in the news. The recent over-turning of Roe v. Wade in the US Supreme Court shows that the rights of women and non-binary people are being undermined. I stand up for the rights of pregnant people to have abortions if they want. I stand up for the rights of consenting adults to enjoy sex in any way they want as long as it doesn’t cause non-consensual harm. I feel it is important to raise our voices in solidarity for sex positivity and transparency in these times more than ever in our era.
I’m going to begin with a question for you: how has your sexual life changed due to the pandemic? There’s a huge issue with loneliness and lack of intimacy for people during these times. How are you getting intimacy and connection now? What has changed from the before times? What are some of the ways in which you are struggling with figuring this stuff out?
Background – a lot of adjectives
By way of introduction for those who do not know me, I’m a polyamorous, pansexual, submissive exhibitionist sensual cis-gendered intersectional feminist in my late 50s. I am a woman. I am a white settler. I have benefited from financial stability from my mid-twenties to present time. I almost died in 2009. I was diagnosed with diabetes in 2022. I write poetry, visual poetry and prose. I wrote erotic fiction from 2004 to 2012 regularly and do so now on occasion still. I run two small presses as a volunteer.
Polyamorous
My husband and I have been together in an honest, caring, passionate, and supportive relationship since 2001 and in 2004 we opened our marriage. While we did try to hang out with the local polyamory community, we learned that just because we are polyamorous doesn’t mean we have anything in common with others. We didn’t find any commonality within the group at the time.
I am fortunate to have many dear friends, but they opt for platonic relationships with me because of their own monogamy;
I have had a few long-term relationships that involved sexual activity.
I have had numerous flings over the years. Note: I use the term “fling” rather than hook-up because for me a hook-up implies that I don’t meet them in public first but let them come up to my apartment sight unseen and fuck then leave. A fling means we have a conversation over coffee or a meal, then if we have chemistry, we go to bed. This could be a one-off or multiple encounters, but it usually doesn’t end up being more than a few times.
Ethical non-monogamy is the goal always.
I am a slut. I own it. I like multiple sexual interactions and as long as I take responsibility for my sexual health through testing and condom use, and engage in only safe, sane and consensual activity, I’m good with it.
I believe that love is infinite not finite. The more I open myself up to giving love, the more love I feel for others.
Submissive and Kinky
Since so much of my sexuality is tied up with my brain (oh, a pun!), I am attracted to exploring the range of possibilities of sexual activity.
I don’t particularly enjoy penetration as I don’t orgasm during penetration but will allow it with condom and lube as long as the sex is quite gentle. I prefer giving and receiving oral sex, humping my clit on a leg or foot or just jilling off or fingering. The feel of a gentle feather light caress on my tiny clit will cause climaxes that are out of this world. From here, you can do a deep dive into the concept of a vaginal orgasm, the understanding of clitoral stimulation that finally occurred in the late 90s (ha!) and the G-spot.
I didn’t know I was submissive until my mid-thirties when a lover told me I was “naturally submissive.” I didn’t even know about the concept, believe it or not. I didn’t watch a lot of porn and in my coming-of-age years there was no Internet. I read the Story of O in my late 20s and was highly aroused by it, identifying with the character of O, who was made to sexually service men in an establishment in France. I read this book over and over and fantasized about myself in these situations. I even read the rules she’s given a lot and that turned me on, but I didn’t pursue it any further with my then spouse.
So this term “submissive” was an eye opener for me. The man who introduced me to the concept and I did some soft-core BDSM activity, and it was fun and cautiously satisfyijng. Once he opened up that possibility for me, I looked at my past and realized how much this was true. As a kid, I told my friends stories of pirates kidnapping us and torturing our breasts. I tied up my Barbie and Ken dolls. And by the way, all of these barbies slept together, no gender or monogamy barriers. So yes, I am submissive in bed. I worry that being submissive conflicts with feminism. I think I would be submissive with anyone whatever their gender. I am a pleaser and a worshipper.
I’m a cock worshiper and can imagine myself as a clit worshiper too. Men are excited to hear about my skills. For more on my cock worshiping, I recommend reading “How I Learned to Give Good Head, a story I wrote about the subject.
My husband and I enjoy a dominant/submissive dynamic in our sexual activity and have since the beginning.
There is a dynamic of power exchange that satisfies me when it comes to my sexual interactions with men. Years of patriarchal programming perhaps. I do find it intriguing to explore things that I abhor and see how my body and mind react to them. Often there is cognitive dissonance between how my body and mind respond. My mind says something is appalling but my body says, bring it on. We humans are complex characters, aren’t we?
Sensual
I like to play music during sex. I love incense and candles. I have been known to make a little post-sex feast with wine or scotch and a few decadent treats. I love colour and texture, leather and lace, scent, sight, touch and taste. Pleasure.
Exhibitionist
Ever since I started to do online dating in 2000, I have loved showing my body to strangers online. I bought my first digital camera in September 2000, newly separated from my partner of 18 years and living alone. I put the pics up on Web personals and shared them with men on the Yahoo Northern Lights forum.
My body hasn’t had much notice in public since my early twenties. I’m short and chubby with brown hair, now silvering. I don’t wear revealing clothes. I don’t go to bars. Men don’t notice me unless I am naked. I like the looks of my body. It turns me on. My breasts are gorgeous: big nipples, not that saggy yet. I never wear a bra if I can avoid it. I have long legs, and a heart-shaped ass, a hairy cunt, which I refuse to shave. I’ve done so in the past and it’s just too damn sensitive all time, not to mention the irritation of ingrown hairs. When men see my pics, they go apeshit. I like the adulation and attention, I have to admit. If I were in my 20s, I’d probably be a cam girl to make money for school instead of the factory jobs I had back then.
Near-death: Grateful to be alive and celebrating
I had a near-death health crisis in 2009 and this required a few years of recuperation and recovery. I had careful and gentle sexual activity with my husband and myself but not others.
What I’ve always wanted is intimacy and connection, physical contact, being able to give pleasure and show my gratitude for being alive by facilitating and savouring moments of joy. This desire to not waste time with bullshit. To connect with others who understand the importance of celebrating life today is even more vital to me.
My submission had to become less physical because of the aftereffects of the health crisis: trauma, claustrophobia, association of pain with health issues. Anal sex is not possible because my colon was removed and I have to keep that area tight.
Pansexual
Until about 2017, I thought I was straight. For various reasons—perhaps this will be the subject of another entry—I realized/accepted, figured out—I can’t really articulate the right way of expressing this understanding—that gender isn’t the reason I’m attracted to people and that opened up my eyes, mind, heart, and lusty bits to the possibilities. Unfortunately, I have not experienced sexual activity with women or non-binary folk yet. I have soul-searched and questioned myself over my inability to make these connections. Is it because I am not attractive? Too hairy? Too old? Not monogamous? Married to a man? Not into going to bars or doing big group social things? I don’t know what the reason is or if there are any reasons, but it’s one of the aches I feel that I can’t fix or change and just have to live with for now. But you know how it is: if you are lacking something in your life or experience any kind of setback, you assume it’s your fault. Maybe in this case, it’s just a matter of timing and circumstance.
Sites and Hook Up Apps
I’ve been on these sites for 22 years, beginning in 2000 at the end of my first marriage. It was a revelation to me. The chance to be able to connect with fellow sexual folk was wonderful.
Northern Lights
I began with Yahoo’s Northern Lights group, which was a forum for Canadians. I wonder if anyone reading this remembers Yahoo chat groups. They were very liberating to me: the chance to connect with like-minded explorers.
Web Personals
This was the first site to offer people online dating opportunities. I joined it in 2000 and was thrilled at the opportunity to connect with men who I didn’t know or who didn’t live near me.
OK Cupid
I’ve been on this site for years and it gets more and more difficult to connect with people based on their increasingly complicated ways of messaging. Now men can’t message women unless the women do so first. And you can’t find out if someone likes you unless you pay for a subscription. So I tend to avoid OKC. What I like about it is its surveys. You answer a pile of questions and that’s how you end up matching with someone. It could lead the way to a lot of interesting conversation, but in my experience it doesn’t.
Tinder
I was banned for chronicling my sexual desire for clit stimulation and cunnilingus. Note that many men had their desire for fellatio on their profiles. Meh.
Fetlife
Fetlife is a site that I want to be better than it is. It has so much potential. You can list your fetishes and join groups for like-minded kinksters. Unfortunately so often it ends up just being the nexus of toxicity – transphobia, misogyny, racism—it’s all there. I hate that about it, and yet I have no other equavilent pervy place to go and I need to find kindred kinksters for society and intimacy. I hate feeling like I’m the only perv in the community I’m in, and in the literary community people keep that side of themselves private, unless you can read their work, in which it sometimes appears.
Whisper
Whisper is an app where people can post anonymously with a photo from the app or one of their own. It is worse than FL in many ways for misogyny, racism and transphobia, but it also has huge potential for the disclosure of taboo secrets and that is what I find so alluring about it. Whenever I disclose a little taboo confession, I am messaged by men from all over the world. I tend to respond only to locals and I get a thrill out of their degrading comments to me. You can also share photos through the messaging part of the app.
Snapchat
This is an app for messaging with photos. It’s used by all kinds of people in non pervy ways, but I’ve found it very exciting to share my id and have random strangers pop up to view my naked pics in my stories.
Queer Dating Apps
I’ve tried a variety of queer dating apps: Lex, Her, etc, but while I’ve had lots of “likes” for posts, and have sent out messages, I never get a single response. Compared to sites that focus on M/F primarily where I get a ton of messages, this is just too depressing for me. I’m an attention slut as well as a sexual slut.
Bisexual App
I tried SwingsBothWays.com, a new bisexual dating site, but it’s just the same old, same old, with lots of thirsty dudes messaging me.
The Now: Navigating Intimacy During Covid 19
Year One – 2020
My pre-Covid life involved going to literary events in Ottawa, Toronto, and Montreal. I have many friends in the literary community. I avoid getting sexually involved with literary folk because I worry that as an editor and publisher, I have a role that might make people feel pressured into sexual activity with me. It seemed ludicrous to me that this was a possibility, but it makes me wary of engaging with anyone sexually from my literary community, and since I spend most of my time within this community, this means I don’t have a lot of other options for meeting potential lovers, which is frustrating.
I joined a university fitness program for people over 50 in January 2020. I was starting to make friends, and could see possibilities in cultivating friendship, both platonic and nonplatonic. Then in March, the pandemic came to Ottawa, and we were in lockdown. The main fitness class I was taking moved to Zoom in June or so.
I shut myself in with books, writing and editing projects, developed beautiful friendships with UK writers and visual poets through e-mail and Zoom, and kept in touch with dear friends through social media and e-mail. Sexual intimacy happened with my hands, with my husband and with men on apps and sites, such as Snapchat, Whisper, OK Cupid and Fetlife, but I wasn’t meeting anyone in person. There were a few men who kept in touch, and we talked about eventually meeting.
My near-death health crisis experience made me extra anxious about the possibilities of catching Covid or spreading it to anyone, especially immuno-compromised and vulnerable people.
Covid-19 Year Two – 2021
Vaccinations against Covid began. I had Astra Zeneca for dose 1, then Moderna for dose 2. In the autumn, it seemed that Covid was starting to abate. Did we do wastewater detection then? I’m not sure, but our health authorities were reporting a decrease in cases and hospitalizations.
I decided I would start meeting again for sex. I insisted that all parties be vaccinated. I met one man at a local cafe who I’d been chatting with for a few years on Whisper. I hadn’t realized he was in a so-called monogamous relationship, and once I found out, I did not pursue anything further with him.
In September, I decided to meet one of the men I had met on OK Cupid. He was my age and in an open marriage. We met at a nearby café on the patio. We cautiously removed our masks. We were the only people on the patio and in shadows. He groped me on the couch in the corner. It was tremendously exciting. He had stormy blue eyes that made me wet when they caught fire as he looked at me. He was intense but kept that side of himself carefully hidden. I found it thrilling that he revealed it to me. He told me stories of his childhood, of his own near-death experiences. Like me, he had scars, both physical and emotional. It was a lovely fling.
I had a one-off experience with another man, I met from Fetlife. K and I met in my favourite park, Dundonald Park, a little city oasis near my apartment. He too was in an open marriage but not open to his community. We took a long walk on a cool late fall morning and then back to my place where I kneeled for him on my couch. That was the end of it for me. It was a fun moment.
Covid 19 Year Three – 2022
Booster shots 1 and 2, Covid 19 vaccinations 3 and 4…not sure how to refer to these, but I had my 3rd and 4th doses as soon as they were available to me.
At the start of the 7th wave, I had a fling with a man I met on FL. He is single and younger, open to a variety of sexual activity. He was willing to give me his full name, which I was able to Google. I am usually very careful about meeting men from online sites and hook up apps. I insist on seeing a current face photo and ask for their full names. In a few instances in the past, I have learned that a few of the men who wanted to meet me had been charged with rape or possessing child porn. If a man is unable or unwilling to disclose his full name, I don’t meet him.
My imagination has always been a huge part of my sexuality. Since the pandemic my fantasies have gotten increasingly degrading. I have been torn about letting this side of myself out with new lovers. But I’ve started to do so. I have to be really careful and make sure that my limits are well communicated.
A and I had a fun one-time adventure. I met him at the Chinatown Gate, near my place. We didn’t even have coffee, we walked right over to my place and went to bed. He called me names and mounted me. I sucked him off and I humped his foot. It was fun and safe and without any complications.
I met another man on Whisper and Snapchat recently. When I’m thinking with my little head I can be impulsive. I have been sharing a lot of photos with me in dresses and my breasts hanging out. These ones seem to really cause a lot of attention. He was into them. I didn’t find out his last name. We met in my lobby. He asked me not to wear underwear and I obeyed. He got me to prelube. I felt like a whore. It was exciting. He used a condom and was triple vaxed. He even used a condom for oral. He called me names as we had sex. I have gotten off to this memory over and over again. I will never see him again.
I intend to continue to seek occasional lovers, or lovers occasionally, depending on how things go. I will insist on Covid precautions and transparency. The big question: what about monkeypox? It occurs from skin-on-skin contact, not just sexual, and not just gay men, as the media likes to portray. I will continue to take precautions, ask questions, avoid groups. I will mitigate risk, but I will seek intimacy and connection and when I find it, I will enjoy and savour.
I welcome your comments and if this resonates in any way, please do drop me a line at amanda at amandaearl dot com, if you’d rather not comment here.
Bonus content: do you like to play music during sex but don’t necessarily want lovey dovey content? Here’s a link to a Spotify playlist i made. <iframe style="border-radius:12px" src="
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