“The Rules Were Bending in Every Way”: Six People on the Life-Changing Sex They Had on Election Night

Relationships Something in the Air Tonight Six people on the wild, reckless, and occasionally life-changing sex they had on election night. Photo illustration by Slate. Photos by KinoMasterskaya/Getty Images Plus and Ward DeWitt/iStock/Getty Images Plus. Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily. I’ve always had affection for the apocryphal theory that there’s a spike in the number of births nine months after some dramatic national or citywide event—like a blizzard or a power blackout or a surprise underdog sports victory. (A 2023 systematic literature review analyzed fertility rates following catastrophic events; results were mixed, of course.) There would be a big romance to this idea if true. Even though it’s theoretical, a surge in babies would be tangible proof that a massive collective experience can make people a little more likely to be lovers. This behavior has been studied with storms and heat waves and earthquakes—and maybe a future graduate thesis will consider elections. Maybe even a midterm election. According to several people I spoke with, the seismic Democratic win last Tuesday threw people into a lot of spontaneous, unexpected, even reckless sex. It was a night when many were running on shock and fumes and relief, when celebrations on the streets spilled into bedrooms, then back to the next party. For actor and comedian Adam Conover, that Tuesday night in November—a work night for most—felt like “New Year’s.” He spent the evening in Los Angeles, party hopping between Marissa Roy’s party, Nithya Raman’s party, a DSA after-party in a warehouse, and Little Secret, a venue known for sexy events supporting leftist politics. Especially as the night wore on, he reported, “people were having some trashy, wholesome fun.” Wholesome in the sense of civic pride, and trashy in the sense that everyone was suddenly smoking cigarettes inside on sticky floors. It was good-bad behavior mostly, Ashley, a pseudonymous election-celebration partygoer told me. She echoed Conover: “It was New Year’s Eve for nerds. There was a real sense of civic joy.” And also some social norms–breaking. “It was, like, a ‘purge’ type of night, right? It was like the rules were bending in every way, so maybe there was a window for those things.” On any given night, people have sex mostly for personal reasons. But with unexpected sex on an election night, the reasons have a wide variance. For some, it’s part of a communal act of celebration, relief, or refuge. It could be a shock response, a little prize for months of hard canvassing and organizing, or an escape from a future destabilized. In a general sense, large-scale cultural events like elections can prompt erratic behavior. High stakes and intense emotion can depress activity in the prefrontal cortex, which manages our impulse control, long-term planning, and logical reasoning. Meanwhile, shared victories, or even partisan validation, can release a surge of dopamine that makes everything feel more rewarding. In some cases, stress and anxiety—which run rampant during elections—can even increase sex drive. For the following six people, that certainly seemed to be true. In these reports, election night (mostly the 2026 midterms, but previous elections as well) brought about life-changing, relationship-deepening sex, as well as deep betrayals and the ends of friendships. There were spontaneous hookups, wild parties, and long-held attractions finally let free. Was this behavior widely exhibited? Report back in nine months. Note: Names and identifying details have been changed for everyone quoted in this piece. Julia, 40, Chicago On the night of the 2026 midterms, I was in Chicago on a business trip, and I was supposed to be working. But what I really wanted to do was meet up with one of my guy friends. “Eric,” as we’ll call him, is married, but he and I have always had a thing. We’d had incredible sex a few times before but decided to stay friends and never do it again because he couldn’t handle cheating on his wife. I was fine with [not having sex again], but I still wanted to see him platonically. I was curious if we could hang out without hooking up. At first, he made all sorts of excuses not to see me while I was in town, and it looked like our schedules wouldn’t align. Then came election night, which for him provided the perfect cover. He told his wife he was watching the results with some buddies at the bar, while she stayed at home with their kids. And he came to meet up with me. The moment I saw him, I knew we were going to hook up again. Our chemistry is insanely electric—even when we’re not flirting, we’re flirting. We danced back and forth in the friend zone for a while, then we both let that slip away, and we found ourselves back at my hotel. The sex was even hotter knowing that we’d agreed to be friends. It’s almost as if it highlighted how much we couldn’t keep our hands off each other. Personally, I could have cared less about the election. (I’m a leftist, but I can’t forgive the Democratic Party for its innumerable failings—the whole system is rotten, with glimmers of hope from certain individuals.) But the logistics of the evening gave him an excuse to fly under a believable stretch of his schedule undetected. I’m not sure if he was riding the collective high of the evening or the desperation everyone felt to be joyous, hopeful, and full of possibility for once. Maybe he just wanted a release from the terror and suffocating evil we see on our screens and in our streets every day. In any case, he fucked like he was really alive for the first time in a very long time. Iris, 33, Philadelphia I had been planning to avoid the election results until the next morning, because it’s often such a slow, worrisome, stressful slog. But the New York Times, without asking me, put an election tracker on my home screen. So I’m looking at these results just ticking up and ticking up—and it was so exciting. Watching all the results come in made us so happy that my partner and I had a ton of sex. And we decided to make my frozen eggs into embryos, and I decided I could finally sell my previously beloved house in Philadelphia and fully move to Los Angeles with him, because I didn’t need to vote in Pennsylvania anymore. The Pennsylvania vote was so powerful and important to me, and I didn’t realize how much I didn’t want to let it go until that night. I feel like that night liberated me. Carlos, 23, Los Angeles In L.A., things technically close at 2 a.m. There was an illegal DSA afters at this new space that everyone went to—kind of a massive, edgy warehouse party. People were chain-smoking and dancing. I know one senior staff member on a progressive campaign—and he met a girl at the Nithya Raman party who invited him to her place. He went over, and her boyfriend was there, and her boyfriend was like, “Go for it!” They hooked up, then they left to go to the Little Secret party, which is a really sexy party [Conover describes the progressive, nonprofit community space Little Secret as “the indie sleaze queens of L.A. politics”], but they couldn’t get in because she had a bottle of vodka in her purse. They were then dancing together at the DSA party. I mean, it was a historic night, right? Like, we have at least 55 Senate seats. Los Angeles elected two DSA citywide officials for the first time. Everyone was just celebrating and drinking and definitely hooking up and having fun. I think everyone was in shock. I don’t think they’re used to winning that extensively. So we were legally obligated to go celebrate in this warehouse and make out with people and have fun—and that’s what everyone did. Miranda, 34, in a “liberal coastal city” In the very left-leaning area where I live, Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election caused quite a stir. When the news came out that he’d won, the city exploded with what felt like revolutionary joy. All at once, a strange sort of zombified groupthink mentality took hold, and we all ran out of our houses, shot off fireworks, and started honking our horns. Thousands of people began to descend on the main street of my neighborhood—there was already music playing, somehow—and a massive, gyrating street party began. It really felt like we were all infected by a festive virus. There was this huge discharge of tension, and I remember my skin feeling prickly because I could sense everyone’s relief. I ran into my friend on the street as I was milling about in the throng of people, just grinning stupidly, having no thoughts. This friend and I always had a lot of sexual tension, and we’d been crushing on each other for years. We’d had sex once before—a totally unplanned encounter fueled by tequila—but we quickly put a lid on that because I had a monogamous boyfriend. On election night, my boyfriend was out of town, so I was on my own. My friend and I started hanging out, and had a few drinks. The vibe was platonic—so platonic that I agreed to go back to his place and watch the street party from the balcony of his apartment. We were just looking down at the crowd, feeling joyful, like maybe there was some good left in the world. That’s when I felt his hand on the small of my back. Then it was like we were both completely taken by some unknowable force. It wasn’t just lust—it was this mutual feeling that we (“we” being those who voted blue) had defeated some common enemy and could finally release the tension and anxiety we’d been holding for four dark years, one of which had, of course, been the pandemic. I’m completely embarrassed of how naive that sounds, but you had to be there! So we had sex, and I cheated on my boyfriend a second time. I don’t think it would have happened were it not for the very unique feeling in the air that night. There was something inebriating about it. It felt dangerous, in a good way, and very physiologically activating—horny even. What I did was awful, I know! That was bad enough on its own, but the encounter also nuked my friendship with this guy, who was just as taken aback that we’d done it as I was. He wasn’t thinking clearly either. So, the next day, when I should have felt happy and secure, my life was, instead, in shambles. Thanks, Joe Biden! Christine, 28, Los Angeles Two years ago, around the presidential election, I had a devastating crush on this girl. It was all-consuming. She had essentially told me, gently, that she was a fair bit older and that she felt big-sisterly toward me, which was the worst news. I was like, Oh, it’s OK. I’ll just die. I was devastated. Then the [2024] election happened. She was extremely depressed. She was scrolling through an archive of these old political lesbian buttons. One of them said: “Don’t Die Wondering.” She texted it to me out of the blue, and she was like, “Hey, I have a weird proposition, but, like, do you want to have doom sex? Come over.” This was her way to fix her mood, which I found really sexy. It was reckless, but it felt intentional. She made a nice dinner, and she was insistent at the time that it wasn’t a date and it was just casual, which was her way of coping. It was fun because it was kind of nerve-racking. It was also such a big reframe. Because everything was so grim, I had this feeling that we would just have to build nice things. Sex, in general, is one of the last free, intimate, fun things we could do. It felt like action, but also a detachment from the death spiraling. It was amazing and felt kind of crazy to do in those circumstances. We’ve been together now for two years. We’re permanent partners, and we’re going to get married. It’s so funny: We have this sense memory connected to elections that has absolutely nothing to do with voting politics. This election was much more positive. I’m pretty far left, so it was both exciting and bitter. I feel like every election cycle makes you feel briefly connected to something bigger. Even if I think I’ve distanced myself from [politics], the funny thing is, these shifts happen, and people are hopeful that the whole entire country is going to change overnight or something. I think the best lesson with the story of my girlfriend and me is this: It was so scary, but we thought about what we could do to survive. That tends to be where the most productive and hopeful, forward-moving things happen. Taylor, 27, Providence, Rhode Island I had quite the opposite of reckless election sex, and I’d planned on sex! I went on a first (gay) date with a man, and I found out he did not vote. I reacted more politely than I should have and said, basically, “Oh! Well, you should have!” and jokingly gave him shit about it throughout the rest of the date. But on the inside I was not joking! Elections are one of the biggest shared experiences—maybe the biggest shared experience—that people actively participate in. To vote in one is to consider the world outside yourself: You’re abstractly and intentionally imagining people that you both know and don’t, and deciding on an action precisely because it will affect them. People vote not just in their own interests (though plenty do!) but with a care toward the collective. After all that, it feels like a small step to imagine that elections might increase desire for concrete, immediate, and physical proof of another person. Sometimes the body politic really does rile you up. Dating and Relationships Democrats Elections Politics Sex 2026 Midterms