COVID-19 has us living in unprecedented times for a number of reasons. Among those: the fact that the term “glory holes” now appears in official health literature from governments across North America.

Public health organizations have been issuing new guidelines and messaging to help stop the COVID-19 pandemic—including best practices for having sex. (Such advice has proven to be especially crucial after several months of lockdown).

Public health units, including New York, have recommended using large barriers like glory holes as a potential way to avoid spreading COVID-19. (For the uninitiated, a glory hole is an opening through a wall or partition used in performing a variety of sex acts.)

This week, British Columbia climbed aboard that bandwagon with new guidelines around COVID-19 and sex from the B.C. Centres For Disease Control (BCCDC).

In the guidelines, BCCDC representatives suggest residents “use barriers, like walls (e.g., glory holes), that allow for sexual contact but prevent close face-to-face contact.”

BCCDC also suggests wearing a mask during sex and avoiding kissing or using face-to-face positions.

As with other public health guidelines, the BCCDC’s rules understore that “you are your safest sex partner”, and that you should not have sex if you or your partner has shown symptoms of COVID, has come into contact with a known case of the virus, or has been asked to self-isolate.

The guidelines add that it is not yet clear if the virus can be transmitted through sex.

Early research on the topic has offered differing conclusions. While one study found no traces of the virus in the semen of men who had had COVID, later research found traces in the semen of six out of 38 men tested.