This winter has hardly been a winter at all; there have already been several 50+ degree weekends. There was one weekend in January that felt like a weekend in May, which was lovely, but sitting outside in the park in just a t-shirt in the middle of winter felt sick and wrong, like the earth giving us a treat before it self-destructs. But I am also deeply concerned about the effects the rapidly warming climate will have on the necessary, time-honored debut of Horny Season: That first weekend in late winter/early spring where temps finally hit 50+ degrees, everyone lets their legs out for the first time in months, and there’s a visceral, chaotic feeling of horn in the air, buzzing around everyone like fruit flies to a rotten apple.This winter is on track to be the warmest on record in the contiguous U.S., January 2020 was the hottest January in recorded global history. The effects of climate change are causing the coldest seasons to heat up faster than the warm ones, which has dire consequences on the environment: California’s crop supply may shrink due to not getting enough cold weather, or “chill hours;” bees in Atlanta are flying out of their hives; and bark beetles, no longer dying off in the freezing weather, are killing forests. All of these effects are terrifying and they will only continue to get worse, thanks to people in power refusing to use that power to do anything about this at all.But humans are also creatures of habit; the weather cools, the sun sets earlier, and we attach ourselves to each other in a ritual known as “cuffing season.” (Experts have warned that the warming climate can and will put a damper on cuffing.) Then that first warm weekend arrives (typically sometime in March), and we all wear that one Urban Outfitters sundress we independently decided to buy along with a too-thin jacket, get tipsy on too many afternoon Aperol spritzes, and, notice, as if for the first time, that everyone around us is….. Kinda hot???? It was, or used to be the beginning of Horny Season.But can Horny Season ever begin, if it has no end? And more importantly—can it ever end, if there's no beginning?This Monday morning, a morning in February, I woke up to sunbeams in my eyes and the sound of birds (pigeons, maybe… do they chirp?) outside my open window. The weather, 48 degrees and climbing to a high of 55, was delightful, so I decided to walk to work. I bought a cold brew—my first since October!—and took my sweater off once I got to the Williamsburg bridge, already starting to develop a light sweat. I treated my arms to the feeling of direct sun. People walked by in dresses, no tights; a man rollerbladed past wearing just shorts. If it weren’t New York City and if it didn’t feel a little dystopian, we’d all have been slapping high fives and whistling tunes.One of the many horrendous effects of climate change is that it is stomping all over this terrible and necessary pattern. With so many warm, sunny days breaking up others that are really only sorta cold, everyone is being suspended in an unprecedented state of prolonged horniness. Will this be the year without that first warm weekend of flirting in the park, getting fresh strawberry stains on aforementioned sundress, and feeling a tingle of horniness? After being turned on and riled up via the warmth and sun for so long, our sex drives may simply dry up, bringing about a Children of Men situation, right on time for 2027.Sign up for our newsletter to get the best of VICE delivered to your inbox daily.Follow Hannah Smothers on Twitter.
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