Unemployed and risky

- Photo illustration by Adam Vieyra

“Jane,” a 29-year-old student from Temecula, is unemployed. She hasn’t found steady work for the last three years. She hasn’t found a steady relationship, either, and after two breakups, she’s once again a single gal. She says her financial troubles have led her to be more “adventurous” in her sex life.

“When I’m broke, I’m a little more aggressive than I usually am when I go out,” Jane explains. “When I’m poor, I need someone else to buy my drinks. That usually leads to me having sex with someone. When I have my own money and can pay for my own drinks, it’s not so much of an issue.”

Jane admits that she’s taken big risks in her sexual encounters during this period of unemployment. She says she hasn’t always been careful in using contraception, though she is selective when it comes to whom she goes home with on a given night.

“All my bad decisions can probably be attributed to being poor and somebody else paying,” she says. “It’s like when someone says they’ll pay for the pizza if you go pick it up.”

Jane’s sex life fits with trends researchers have documented while studying the consequences of long-term unemployment. In 2009, Matthew J. Davis, a researcher at Texas A&M University, published a report in the journal Sexual Addiction and Compulsivity that concluded that the long-term unemployed not only engage in more sex with more partners than individuals with steady jobs, but they were also less likely to use condoms than employed people. Davis reasoned that work gives a person a greater time structure and sense of purpose, which can shield against negative behaviors. He also suggested that unemployed people have a harder time imagining a positive future and therefore may be more prone to embrace a seize-the-day attitude towards sex.

That definitely matches the story “Alice” tells. A negative bank account has caused her to do things that would make her momma cry. The 27-yearold North Park resident has been without steady work for close to two years after losing a full-time writing job. Alice admits that being unemployed has made a difference in her sexual encounters.

“I remember when I lost my job [in 2010]; I was so bummed out,” she recalls. “I mean, I’m still bummed out, but at that point, it was especially bad. I felt like I didn’t even know who I was anymore. They tell you to keep busy, but you get bogged down. One night, I just said ‘fuck it’ and got wasted off some whiskey I found in my cupboard. I ended up having sex with some random dude in this alley by the Whistle Stop [Bar]. It wasn’t my classiest moment, but it’s kind of funny.”

Though drunken trysts aren’t completely new to Alice, she says they’ve become a lot more frequent. Unlike Jane, Alice says she uses protection every time to avoid “catching the herp.”

Unemployed men, however, may have another experience altogether due the stigma of unemployment.

After losing his job at a record store, 31-year-old Aaron Bustos says he moved in with his mom in Encinitas to save money. That put a major damper on his sex life and damaged his self-esteem. He says he often lies to women. He’ll say he still works at the record store, makes money as a musician or is applying for grad school; he thinks it sounds better than “I’m collecting unemployment.”

“When I do meet girls, it usually doesn’t go very far based on the fact that I don’t have a job and I live with my mom,” Bustos laments. “I am more inclined to have a one-night stand and go back to her place. I probably wouldn’t do that as much before I lost my job. ”

Even so, it hasn’t actually meant that the sex he has is good. Stress has long been established as a factor in sexual dysfunction, and unemployment is inarguably a great source of stress. A 1987 study published in Health Psychology, for example, found that unemployed men who were told they’d have to talk about their sex lives after watching a porn video were less likely to get erections than their employed counterparts.

“I would definitely say I don’t put in as much effort. I don’t give my all,” Bustos admits. “But low self-esteem and unemployment go handin-hand. It does affect my sex life.”

While single people tend to be affected by economic hardship in a way that leads to more promiscuity, married couples and people in serious relationships seem to have the opposite issue.

Valerie and her husband “Jes se,” who live in Imperial Beach, say their sex life had been very active over their 11-year marriage, kept “spicy” with new positions and sex toys. But things changed for Valerie and Jesse, a foreclosure officer and plumber, once they got their pink slips last year. Sex between them dropped from daily to twice a week as the spice went bland.

“When things are bad, it’s just, like, ‘Handle your thing; I’ll handle mine,’” Valerie says. “It gets awkward. The only reason I make sure we still have sex is because I prefer I give it to him so he won’t cheat.”

Valerie admits that when finances are tight, her eyes tend to wander. Research dating back to the Great Depression indicates that unemployment can be significantly detrimental to marriages and families. Valerie says that she’s noticed herself gravitating toward other men.

“When things get bad, I have the tendency to flirt with other guys,” she says. “I’m trying not to do that anymore, though.”

While the economy can hurt marriages, it also works the other way. A 2011 study commissioned by the producers of the reality TV show Cheaters concluded that marriage infidelity hurts the U.S. gross domestic product by $61.6 billion each year.