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Natalie here - I don’t think this question is odd at all, and I wish we talked about it more. So, I would say the first thing to do is to initiate communication and then read social cues.

If you’re having a conversation in person, see how engaged this individual is in the conversation, whether they move closer to you when you speak, and what their body language is saying. Are they gazing at you? Are they repetitively touching their hair? Are they moving their eyebrows in certain ways? If you’re getting a sense that they might reciprocate your feelings, you could always say something like, “I find you attractive and was wondering if you wanted to hang out sometime?” However, context is key.

Now that we are in the era of COVID-19, online conversation might be the medium of choice. I would advise starting a conversation with them through text, Facebook chat, etc., and see how they respond back. Are you getting a lively conversation going, or do the messages go unanswered for days? Now, a caution, a lot can be misconstrued over text/chat. So, if you’re unsure I would ask about their feelings in a direct but respectful way. Similar to above, you could say something like, “I find you attractive/I really enjoy talking to you, would you be into doing activity X”? Activity X could be a date of your choice.

Important - if they indicate that they are not interested, do not continue to express your sexual/romantic feelings.

Lori here: great question. Researchers (and the public) have been fascinated with this question for decades. The research has gone back and forth as to whether the contents of female ejaculation (aka the squirt) is urine or fluid from the “female prostate” or peri-urethral gland. The most scientifically sound study confirmed that yes, indeed, most of the contents of the female ejaculation is indeed urine.

Lori: Great question! Since my research focuses largely on sexual desire, I think one of the most important findings from our research is that psychological interventions are very effective for cultivating desire, and although we have not directly evaluated them against medications, what we know regarding the data on medications for women’s low desire is that their benefits are modest, at best, and a third of women experience negative side effects. Mindfulness meditation, which other research tells us changes how the brain functions and also the structure of the brain, can be very effective for improving sexual response, and making people feel overall more satisfied about sex. It is surprising to me how many people engage in sexual activity without actually “showing up” for it! What I mean by that is that they can be distracted or having thoughts that are not relevant to the sex that they are having. One other intriguing finding is that people can benefit from these kinds of interventions regardless of their age. Thus, the belief that sex ends at a certain age is purely a myth!

Lori: Interestingly, the BC Centre for Disease Control actually recommended glory holes, and other barrier methods, as a means of reducing the transmission of COVID-19 during sex, especially with unfamiliar partners. http://www.bccdc.ca/health-info/diseases-conditions/covid-19/prevention-risks/covid-19-and-sex

Silvain: One of the (among many) surprising things I learned about people’s sexualities is the huge range of reasons people give for having sex, or for not having sex. There was one group of researchers which found that people gave 200+ reasons for having sex! And there’s lots of reasons people don’t have sex as well, ranging from because of painful past experiences to they’re simply not interested. For single folks, I think the biggest way to check if your single lives are “sexually healthy” is checking in with yourself. Are your current sexual experiences consistent with your values, and do they make you feel good or okay at the end of the day? Or do you feel dissatisfied and things seem really different from what you want in life? Ultimately, we each get to decide what place sex has in our lives and what is right for ourselves.