Sex on the Beach Is Bad for Everyone, Including the Beach

It’s just human nature to want to have sex outside, and there is perhaps no natural environment more famous for encouraging an outdoor romp than the beach. Unfortunately, it turns out this particular brand of sexual rendezvous is actually bad — and not just as a fruity cocktail. (Just kidding, it’s obviously delicious, admit it you cowards.)

According to a new study published in the Journal of Environmental Management called “Sand, Sun, Sea and Sex with Strangers,” sexual activity on Spain’s Canary Island beaches is taking a toll on the ecosystem, as Jezebel reported. Researchers were able to to identify 298 “sex spots” that show evidence of ecological destruction by way of fornication among the dunes in protected areas at the Maspalomas nature reserve in Gran Canaria. According to the research, everything from couples bushwhacking their way through the vegetation to establish a “semi-private” space to leaving behind various bodily secretions and discarded condoms has an adverse effect on the environment.

“The direct impacts generated around the sex spots can be observed in several ways, such as the impacts on the vegetation, the abandonment of waste or the presence of urinal and defecation location,” researchers wrote in the study. “The most representative (in proportional order) are cigarette butts, torn/cut vegetation, toilet paper and wipes, condoms, fruit peel, cans and feces.”

Gross! Meanwhile, not only is sex on the beach bad for the environment, but I am of the opinion that it is also just bad in general. Like many sex acts whose appeal seems to be based primarily on the novelty of doing the sex somewhere other than you normally would (hot tub sex, road head, etc.), sex on the beach sounds like a perfect example of good-on-paper, impractical-if-not-disastrous-in-reality sex. Have you ever been on a beach? There’s sand. Everywhere. And that sand often has a way of finding itself in every crease, crack and crevice even when you’re not amorously rolling around in it. Personally, any situation that involves the possibility of sand being introduced to the genitals and turning the vagina into a sand-paper tunnel is a hard no for me.

If you want my advice, I’d save your genitals the sanding and the beach the disastrous environmental impact. You know what’s better than sex on the beach? Sex after the beach. Go home, shower, enjoy a sun-kissed, blissfully sand-free encounter in the comfort of your own non-sand-paper sheets, and save the sex on the beach for the bar.