Since the pandemic caused by COVID-19 began , our way of relating has changed drastically: from the reduction of our social circle to the almost impossibility of meeting new people with whom we share affinities. In fact, at Maldita.es we already told you what you could or could not do with your partner or dates during the state of alarm.
Although now the expansion to new vaccination groups and the hope of achieving the so-called group immunity open up the opportunity to recover our old social life, the pandemic has also generated new ways of flirting among the youngest: at vaccination points.
The traffic light technique in vaccination centers: expressing your love and sexual life through your clothes
You may have heard it before. The traffic light technique is nothing Gen Z has come up with now. Until March 2020, in nightclubs and entertainment venues it was common for so-called “traffic light parties” to be held, an encounter that consisted of nothing more than showing, through your clothes, your love and sexual “availability”. Without saying a word, those attending these events could tell someone’s desire to meet new people or not just by looking at their outfit. The theory is simple: red if you are in a relationship or do not want to associate with unknown people, yellow if you are open to it and green if you are single.
And although, as we said, the traffic light technique was used, mainly, in places of leisure, with the discotheques closed in some autonomous communities and the expansion of the groups that can already receive the injection against COVID-19, the vaccination centers are now those who embrace this technique to flirt. Through social networks such as TikTok, many of them have made calls for you to wear “green if you are single or red if you have a partner.”
The trend has not gone unnoticed by many and is that several users of generation Z already describe vaccination centers as “an in-person Tinder.”
It turns out that young people are flirting in color-coded vaccine waiting rooms. They go with green clothes if they are single to the traffic light disco.
Of course, Latin America takes advantage of us with this trend . There are several digital ones that have already echoed how the traffic light technique has been installed at the points where the injection against COVID-19 is administered and the desire of young people to turn them into a massive dating app, especially in Mexico where the health authorities have already opened online registration for people between the ages of 18 and 29 to receive their dose.
The “new sexuality” after confinement
In Maldita Ciencia we already told you that the new normality and social distancing in the face of COVID-19 has brought important changes when it comes to establishing face-to-face sexual relations with other people. Until the different vaccines against the coronavirus were approved by the different drug agencies and we began to move towards achieving herd immunity, the known stable partner was the safest person, after oneself, to achieve sexual pleasure. However, Francisca Molero, president of the Spanish Federation of Sexology Societies (FEES), explained that zero risk does not exist and that responsibility lies with adopt all possible preventive measures whenever sporadic relationships were maintained.
Of course, when you have relationships with other people, indicated the sexologist, sometimes the objective is erotic communication in addition to pleasure, so “if you have to be controlling what you do and don’t do, our cognitive part must be alert and blocks the sexual response.
With the advent of injections against COVID-19, the situation has changed, but in any case, and although vaccination is advancing significantly globally, it is worth remembering this guide prepared by the New York medical service that provides a series recommendations for safe sexual practices.