Quarantine and contraceptives: What is the connection?

This period of quarantine seems like testing times for many young people out there but for some couples, this is just what they need.

At a time when newly hitched couples or couples who live together work ungodly hour shifts, work extra time and hardly get to spend time with each other, boom came the quarantine period due to the coronavirus outbreak. Couples confined to their homes, away from office, parties and other such distractions are finding solace in each other in these anxious coronavirus times.

Veering between social distancing and close cohabitation, many thousands of couples are rediscovering each other as cities and towns across the country go into lockdown.

“I have been married for almost 4 years after dating my husband for a decade. After having our daughter, I was always busy looking after her and he would scoot off to work. But this quarantine period has brought us close as a family. I love watching him play more with our daughter and it has also given the both of us time to rekindle that young love,” said 30-year-old Shanthini*.

With this increased intimacy, many pharmacies as well as e-commerce sites are reporting rising sales of condoms and contraceptive pills. “Along with demand for food supplies, masks and medicines, the demand for condoms and pills has also increased,” said Shah Nawaz, a pharmacist in South Delhi.

If you’re thinking that the boom in contraceptive purchases is because obviously couples have nothing else to do in quarantine, you might be wrong. Rajiv Mehta, consultant psychiatrist at Delhi’s Sir Ganga Ram Hospital has a different observation to it. “In times of war and epidemics, intimacy levels go up among sexual partners. Couples, married or otherwise, who were too busy with their professional lives are now getting proximity and time. So intimacy will increase as it has increased during wars. This is a war-like situation,” Mehta said.

With India having one of the worst work-life balances in the world, doctors cite that fatigue is on the main reason couples in big cities don’t have a healthy sexual life.

“People’s lifestyles have changed. It’s no more the woman taking care of the house and husband going off to work. Both of them go to work now, they return at late hours and carry back all the stress from work. They don’t have energy or time to engage in sexual intercourse periodically, though it can prove a good stress-buster. That pattern could change now due to the quarantine,” said Yamini Shankar, a psychiatrist in Chennai.

This theory has even given way to several memes on social media about how there is going to be a ‘boom of babies’ in December 2020 who will popularly be called as ‘quaranteens’ in 2033 when they turn teenagers.

There are others who contend this ‘honeymoon phase’ as well. Mini Rao, a Chennai-based psychologist said that it was 50-50. “On one hand it is aggravating couples because they haven’t spent so much time with each other before, it could lead to a lot of fights and miscommunications. On the other hand it is also bringing families close giving space to watch movies, play games, bond with your grandparents. People should really take advantage of the time,” she said.

Gaurav and Meera, a couple living together in Delhi, however have a different spin to the story. “It’s great that we are spending more time with each other as our week offs never used to match. But we both are still extremely busy working from home and dead tired by the end of the day. We would definitely be having a lot more sex if we weren’t so held up with work,” said Meera.

Any which way, this quarantine has gotten couples talking more, fighting more, sharing dreams and plans for the future, discussing their likes and dislikes and ended up drawn them close to each other.