After a year where sex was essentially banned, sex club organizers and punters are ready to seize every opportunity a post-pandemic world can offer

After more than a year of being kept from mingling, millions of Americans are eager to return to exploring play and pleasure. Adult stores anticipate growth of over $8 billion.

Even before the pandemic, more people began to practice non-monogamy — a blanket term for a relationship philosophy that includes more than one partner — and there's no sign of that stopping anytime soon.

The truth is that dating as a gay, bi+, or pansexual man can be as messy, unfulfilling, and complicated as “Queer As Folk” makes it seem.

But it doesn’t have to be. These tips can help!

Daniel Saynt, founder of the New Society for Wellness (NSFW), who suggests the issue is more of a psychological one for most men.

“So many of the shortcomings that men deal with privately can be attributed to low self-esteem due to size of penis or body dysmorphia, depression, stress, anxiety, the pressure to perform or to have sex when they don’t want to,” he says. “Men are expected to lead. They are expected to know how to please [their partners.] They are expected to always come or be rock hard. They’re expected to always want sex and to know what we’re doing without any education outside of porn. They are expected to have a certain body type.”

Ah, orgasms! Who doesn’t love them? There are so many ways to achieve the big O, from jacking off to intercourse to playing with sex toys (hi, vibrating cock rings). But your penis isn't the only way to experience such pleasure. In fact, if you're looking for a toe-curling, mind-blowing orgasm, you might just find it...in your ass.

Sex-positive groups didn't abandon one another during the pandemic. Now that venues are reopening, the bonds that tie them together are even stronger.

Last month at a bar in New York City, where more than 30,000 people have died from COVID-19 and lives are still claimed by the virus each day, a seemingly intoxicated guest walked in and told a bartender who was delivering drinks, “Let me hug you!”

“After having such a long period of time after we’ve had to be socially distanced, I feel like people are going to be longing to go back to that, to a standard of connecting with people through a hug, something that feels familiar,” says Daniel Saynt, founder of the New Society For Wellness, a sex-friendly private members club based in New York. As he’s welcomed guests back into his establishment of late, he’s observed some people break down in tears over experiencing their first hugs in over a year. “There is an importance for people to incorporate hugging into more of how they connect with people,” Saynt says. “But it’s also important, obviously, to ask for consent and make sure you’re confirming that person wants to be hugged. In doing so, you’re going to help heal a lot of the damage and trauma that was caused over the past year and a half, and I think that’s very important for everyone to consider.”

Somehow, somewhere, someone has decided that May is “Masturbation Month,” and if you think about it, there’s never been a better time to explore a little self-stimulation, now that we’ve had more than a year of self-isolation.

There are plenty of resorts around the world eager to greet people like these with open, oiled up arms. Whether you’re an experienced swinger or a young couple looking to test the lifestyle for the first time, the one thing everyone talks about after visiting is how welcoming this community is.

Buying lube can be, at best, embarrassing and, at worst, downright confusing, especially if the only type of lube you’ve purchased before is from the drugstore. But if you have resigned yourself to a life of using less-than-perfect lube (or you’ve avoided it entirely), you probably just need to try a different type to notice better results.

As much as sex-positive folks love to say, “Consent is sexy,” and, “If it isn’t a ‘Hell yes!’ it’s a ‘No,’” (two statements I wholeheartedly endorse), the omnipresent existence of rape culture makes understanding the intricacies of consent a bit difficult.

For those who want to keep using Instagram, Daniel Saynt, founder of sex-positive club NFSW, has a few tips. Saynt has been banned from Instagram multiple times, but managed to get his accounts recovered by asking other account holders to message Instagram on his behalf to ask for his account to be reinstated. “Unfortunately,” he says, “when you’re doing things alone you have little chance of getting your account back, but when you’re doing it collectively the amount of messages Instagram receives is enough to make them take notice.”