Coronavirus cases in the U.S. are shattering records all over the map as we head into colder weather, and the new normal—millions of Americans working from home—doesn’t look like it will change anytime soon. And that means that the other new normal—workers masturbating at their desks during the workday—is here for a while longer, too. 

In a recent interview with ScaryMommy.com, FriendFinder Network’s director of strategic development, Gunner Taylor, spilled the beans about the uptick in usage at Cams.com. “According to Taylor, their site use increased by 13% between May and October 2020,” reported ScaryMommy. And much of that activity takes place squarely during work hours: “Between March and September, user use was up 18% compared to the six month period before,” specifically between 11:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. 

“Working from home enables workers to use their home networks instead of office networks where the firewalls might typically block adult sites—giving a sense of freedom to access NSFW content during the workday,” said Taylor. 

It’s not exactly earth-shattering news. Sales of sex toys, along with traffic at adult sites and memberships at OnlyFans, have been way up since the pandemic began. And Vice reported back in May that more of us than ever were partaking of adult activities and entertainment during work hours. Back then, a full 35% of men and 17% of women admitted to “procrasturbating” during the workday—and 33.9% of men and 11.3% of women copped to watching some form of adult entertainment from the at-home office.

But few of us knew that the pandemic, and its work-from-home mandate for millions, would last this long. Now that we’re staring down the barrel of a disease-ridden winter, with lockdowns looming and toilet paper flying off the shelves again, it looks like many of us will keep working at home for a while. And with such doom and gloom hanging over our heads, masturbating may seem like a better option than ever before. Since we can’t take water cooler breaks with co-workers these days, maybe a fifteen-minute fap session with our favorite cam model is a great way to keep our spirits and productivity up. After all, getting off relieves tension, floods the brain with happy-making chemicals, and possibly even boosts concentration. 

But! And this is a big but, folks: We need to be conscientious about our fapping habits. Nine months into the pandemic here in America, some of us are getting lazy about wanking at work. Case in point: New Yorker staff writer Jeffrey Toobin, who was fired last week after exposing himself “accidentally” during a video conference back in October. At the time, Toobin called it “an embarrassingly stupid mistake, believing I was off camera.” Ugh.

Look, jerking off during work hours may be the new normal. And we get that your pajama pants offer way easier access than the office attire of yore. But if you need to relieve stress during work, do it with your camera turned off — and no meetings open. Hell, do it in another room. And use a totally different device than your work computer if you’re watching porn. The pandemic has relaxed our working lives in some ways, but some norms don’t need to relax too damn much.

Tissue box stock photo by David Lat from FreeImages.com