But adverts aren’t the only indication: consumer behaviour is signalling a Roaring Twenties-esque summer, too. In the US, condom sales surged 23% in April, compared to the same period in 2020. Condom maker Durex says it saw double-digit boosts in sales in April, too, and attributes the spikes to restrictions lifting (the company says the same happened last summer when there was a period of eased social distancing). Some sex psychologists do say that it is indeed possible that rates of sex – especially casual sex – might go up this summer. One of the main reasons may be surprising: our collective trauma. “When we're faced with our own mortality, we have a tendency to be riskier… we want to make the most of our lives," says Ashley Thompson, associate professor of psychology at the University of Minnesota, US, who specialises in human sexuality and behaviour. This is part of a concept she’s researched called “terror management theory”, which holds that death anxiety controls human behaviour. “That may lead to more casual sexual behaviour, to sort of combat those negative feelings of one’s own mortality.”