#UK’s coronavirus ‘sex ban’ will end for some couples this weekend

Photo by PIPPA FOWLES/10 Downing Street/AFP via Getty Images

British PM Boris Johnson announced Wednesday he would partially lift widely-mocked rules that made it illegal for a person to get frisky with someone they didn’t live with.

Beginning on Saturday, people who live alone will finally be able to meet up with their partner and stay overnight following weeks of separation, HuffPost UK reported.

“There are too many people, particularly those who live by themselves who are lonely and struggling with being unable to see friends and family,” Johnson said when announcing the relaxed restrictions.

“From this weekend we will allow single adult households, living alone, or single parents with children under 18, to form a support bubble with one other household.”

Under the new “support bubble” system, single parents and isolated grandparents will also be able to visit and stay with family members, without maintaining social distancing.

But the revised restrictions are just for those who live solo. They don’t apply to partners who both live in separate households with other people.

The Health Protection Regulations, instituted last month, forbade Brits from participating in public or private indoor gatherings consisting of two or more people.

But, as some British papers pointed out, the law was effectively a “bonking ban.”

Johnson warned that the rule change wasn’t an excuse for a free-for-all.

“We are making this change to support those who are particularly lonely as a result of lockdown measures,” he said.

“It is emphatically not designed for people who don’t qualify to start meeting inside other people’s homes, because that remains against the law.”