My husband and I started sexting when the pandemic began. Now it keeps our sex life alive.
- I am a mom of two young kids who were at home for a while because of the pandemic.
- My husband and I also own a restaurant, which meant added stress in the early days of COVID-19.
I had just put the kids down for a nap when my phone buzzed with a WhatsApp notification from my husband. I opened the app to a selfie he'd sent: naked, hard, and in the shower. I ducked into our bedroom, lifted my shirt, snapped a pic, and sent it back.
We weren't a couple who sexted regularly until the pandemic hit. With our kids at home all day and the stress of trying to keep our businesses afloat, it was no surprise that sex was the last thing we had time or energy for. But a messaging app came to the rescue, and now, two years later, we still have fun with it.
How it started
My husband and I own a restaurant and have two young kids. Back in the spring of 2020, we were simply struggling to make it through each day.
Andrew would be up late into the night applying for loans and government grants to keep our business afloat and planning how to best keep our staff employed. I was writing and recipe-testing a new cookbook with a looming deadline, facing continual hurdles in sourcing from empty grocery stores and gnarled supply chains. On top of all that, our kids were now with us 24/7, learning on Zoom and just trying to understand why their lives had been so shaken up.
In those early, blurry days, Andrew suggested we download WhatsApp. Any parent of young children will tell you it is difficult to find the time and space to be intimate with your partner; all that was made harder with the worries of a global pandemic.
Before March 2020 we were able to find time when the kids were at school all day or with their grandparents for a weekend. Now we weren't so lucky to find the time or energy.
I wasn't so sure about sexting at first
Admittedly, I was skeptical of his suggestion. Our courtship occurred just before online dating became the standard, but we are both young enough to have our phones with us at all times. Sexting wasn't something I'd needed or learned how to do. Andrew was right there. And since we work together and live together, he was right there all the time.
There was no need for an app to ramp up our sex life. But I downloaded it, ensuring that every word, photo, and video was as private and locked away as possible — that there was no way the prying eyes and fingers of our children could ever find them. Andrew would send me photos and texts, and I would do the same.
Two years later, WhatsApp has been great for both our sex and our marriage. It is hours of foreplay at moments throughout the day that are convenient for us. We don't need to be in the same room at the same time. Our quickies we'd try to squeeze in didn't feel like quickies anymore, because we'd spend all day ramping up for them with videos, photos, and ideas. It gave us another avenue of openly talking about sex — what we fantasized about, what we were looking forward to, and what we were feeling.
I get to save looking at the app for moments when I am in the mood. It's a little gift waiting for me. Because we didn't use WhatsApp in our daily lives before, it is reserved just for sex, and we don't get bogged down with work or family talk. We continue to use WhatsApp multiple times a week. Getting off has never been more fun.
Briana Volk is a cookbook author and writer. She lives in Portland, Maine, with her husband and two kids.