Americans Aren’t Getting the Advice They Need

In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, the government of the Netherlands made an unusual suggestion to single people: Get a quarantine seksbuddy. Many individuals who aren’t in a relationship still need physical intimacy, and having one consistent sex partner is much less likely to promote the spread of the coronavirus than having multiple partners is. Dutch public-health officials were simply acknowledging these realities.

Yet one can hardly imagine the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention making such a recommendation—and not just because American health agencies are less relaxed about sexual matters than their Dutch counterparts are. It’s also because, even as states begin to ease social-distancing rules, Americans are receiving very little help in resolving any of the countless practical dilemmas they are encountering every day.

[Juliette Kayyem: After social distancing, a strange purgatory]