Earlier this year, we made some predictions about what the post-COVID future of sex might have in store for society, asking professionals to weigh in on whether months of lockdown might lead to the eventual post-pandemic “fuckfest” certain whisperings on Twitter had foretold.
According to Yale professor Dr. Nicholas Christakis, a sex-crazed period of post-pandemic hedonism is indeed on its way. In his new book, Apollo’s Arrow: The Profound and Enduring Impact of Coronavirus on the Way We Live, Christakis suggests society will greet post-pandemic life with a Roaring ’20s-esque period of indulgence and extravagance, basing his prediction on behaviors that have emerged following pandemics throughout history.
“During epidemics you get increases in religiosity, people become more abstentious, they save money, they get risk averse and we’re seeing all of that now, just as we have for hundreds of years during epidemics,” Christakis told the Guardian. After COVID-19, all these trends will be reversed in an attempt to make up for lost time, he predicts.
“People will relentlessly seek out social interactions,” said Christakis, naming “sexual licentiousness,” lavish spending and a “reverse of religiosity” among the post-pandemic vices we have to look forward to.
Unfortunately, according to Christakis, the Roaring ’20s of the new millennium may get off to a later start than expected. The social epidemiologist says we probably won’t enter our post-COVID bacchanal until around 2024, after society has had time to fully recover from both the virus and the economic devastation it caused.
The good news is, Christakis is pretty confident his prediction is sound. While “unprecedented” has been the hot word of this pandemic, Christakis stresses that pandemics are far from a novel occurrence throughout human history, and they are reliably followed by an era of reactionary vice and revelry.
“One of the arguments in the book is that what’s happening to us may seem to so many people to be alien and unnatural, but plagues are not new to our species.” Christakis told the Guardian. “They’re just new to us.”
So while 2020 may not have ushered in the decade of Gatsby parties we all had in mind, we can take solace in the fact that our era of decadence and debauchery will have its day; we’re just gonna have to wait a bit. Fortunately, as one wise Twitter user reminded us all back in May, “The longer the lockdown … the bigger the fuckfest when it’s over.”
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