He breathes hard and his heart pounds, and a voice coming from his walkie talkie tries and fails to get him to respond. There's a sudden, brief scuffle, and a woman in a hospital gown jumps him, pulls his erect penis from a hole in his clean suit, and wordlessly fucks him.

"I think people are attracted to COVID-19 themed porn the same way people who are scared of their shadow are attached to horror movies: We are all searching for things that make us come alive," Spicy, the male half of the Spicy x Rice duo, told me. "COVID-19 is something that brings fear and mystery to pretty much everyone in the world right now... You need to be able to feel something, and what better way to make you feel something than the global crisis we are all in right now."

A search for coronavirus on Pornhub returns 112 videos with titles like "MILF In Coronavirus Quarantine Gets Hard Fucked for Medicine" and "Coronavirus patients fuck in quarantine room." On xHamster, there are only four within that search term, and at least one is an older reposted video of people doing nurse roleplay with face masks. But according to xHamster spokesperson Alex Hawkins, following an offer last month to provide free premium accounts to regions severely affected by coronavirus, the overwhelming surge in signups outpaced xHamster's ability to approve new accounts.

If it's true that art imitates life, right now life is pretty shitty for a lot of people around the world. And if there's any form that can turn a fucked-up situation into escape and entertainment, it's porn.

Chase told me that this video was inspired by old Delta Airlines safety videos. The primary goal of their video, which they shared full-length for free, was to help inform viewers about proper mask usage and how the virus spreads.

In " COVID-19 Coronavirus: Horny Slut Has to Use Protection During Outbreak! " performer Little Squirtles skips into her front door, kicks off her shoes, and shouts, "Daddy, I'm home! And so horny." Her partner Chase Poundher emerges from the hallway wearing a face mask, his hand stuck out to stop her. "Wait, don't you move a foot closer. Haven't you heard of COVID-19?" He proceeds to give her a 30-second PSA on coronavirus with concision the CDC could envy: on the state of the coronavirus outbreak in China, the purpose of masks, and why they should use protection during sex.

"We thought we would use our porn as an avenue to get some legitimate information out with some comic relief included to get people interested and reduce our chances of being banned," Spicy said. "This sparked the idea, knowing every current event ends up as a porn eventually, we knew people will be searching for it on less censored platforms like Pornhub."

A lot of the videos online now with coronavirus or COVID-19 in the title are trying to bandwagon. One is a woman running barefoot on a treadmill in a thong, with the vague title "End Coronavirus." Another features two people in fogged-up hazmat suits pretending to fuck through the rubbery fabric. Some are just videos of guys jerking off or getting blowjobs with "coronavirus" in the title. A lot of it features asian actors, and some of the titles and comments are, unfortunately, quite racist—as too much of racially-themed porn tends to be.

Some of the videos that fall under the coronavirus theme appear to be people in quarantine, passing the time or earning some money online. Whether they're actually shot by people who are under self-quarantine is unclear. If you have coronavirus—including a cough, fever, and shortness of breath—you probably wouldn't feel well enough to have rigorous sex, let alone shoot porn. But if you're on the mend, super bored after weeks alone, and have an internet connection? It could happen.

"We knew that the corona event was 'good viral material' but we also knew it was affecting people in tragic ways," Spicy said. "We didn't want to insult them by making it too real. We personally know people actually stuck in Wuhan and made it with them in mind." They asked themselves: Would they be offended by this? Or would this take their minds off their situation? "We want the latter."

There probably aren't zombified women in affected regions waiting in the shadows to suck dick, and wearing a face mask to go down on someone won't stop you from contracting a virus. But that's where the fantasy of porn comes in.