"I think we can all admit that sexual behavior is somewhat related to boredom."
Umm... no. I won't admit that. If I'm having sex, it's because I have an innate desire for the person I'm having it with and she reciprocates. It is not because we have nothing better to do.
I do see people say they're bored and want sex since they have nothing better to do, but that just doesn't make any sense to me. I'm not saying I'm in the majority, but think a little before ascribing a lack of imagination to everyone.
I don't, either, in my heart of hearts, and I've already reproduced at above replacement rate.
When I was a teen, the moral panic about unmarried folks having too much sex was still pretty near its height. For sincere spiritual reasons, I did not have unmarried sex. Witnessing the same "side" once panicking about sexual excess now panicking about sexual drought irritates and alienates me. Make up yer #$%*$$ minds, folks!
Maybe it's not fair of me to get this alienated. There are sociological reasons for considering sex-having a proxy for marriage or leading-to-marriage relationships. I've read Regnerus. It makes sense. But my lizard brain is left with the impression that our moral guardians are simply impossible to please.
I conceded from the start that my feelings of alienation over the change I've witnessed may not be fair.
Enough of my social and working life has taken place, though, in the right-of-center circles where it has become fashionable to at least strike a (not very nuanced, trust me) pose of panic over all the sex the youths aren't having now for me to get pretty narked. Think of me as a "failed manic pixie tradwife", perhaps. Not failed in the ways I think would matter most (irreligiosity, adultery, divorce). But failed because I got a growing sense that maybe those basics weren't what the social identity is really about.
I don't count Ryan among the "panickers". That I don't consider him a "panicker" about these things is one reason I'm here.
Great article. I think there are a couple of additional points to consider.
1) hypergamy - which is the hypothesis that females desire males with greater than or equal status as themselves. Males desire females who have less than or equal status as themselves. It's understandable if you consider the generalization that males innate drive is to protect and provide, females is nurturing, caregiving and social connections. Considering this, as 60-65% of college grads are female today, the pool of eligible males shrink.
I find it ironic that when the disparity of males to females was the opposite, the reason given by feminists was sexism. Since the disparity has flipped, the reason given is that females are smarter or have the obstacles removed. The reasons are of course multifaceted. Such as the push to get females into STEM by high school counselors encouragement, preferences in admissions, female only scholarships, employer recruitment and Title IX. This has a tremendous impact.
2) females who attend college are negatively influenced by the social sciences, such as women studies, queer studies etc. to resent males as victimizers. College campuses appear to be hostile to males. Also, males are seen as competitors in intimate relationships. My comments are focused primarily on females because they are the gatekeepers of sex.
This doesn't bode well for sexual relationships between males & females. Nor for the nuclear family, which is apparently where the most consistent and higher frequency sexual encounters occur. It goes without saying that this is a serious dilemma for society as a whole.
You make excellent points and I agree wholeheartedly. There has been a decrease in Testosterone in the last 20 years. The number of single family homes, primarily headed by females has increased tremendously. The result being the girls and particularly boys have been affected negatively. Some kids have no male role models. Thats are numerous reasons that are beyond the scope of this discussion.
I grew up in the 70’s. The most disturbing for me personally, is the portrayal of men in movies and TV. It’s horrible and still goes on today. I can’t understand why men don’t boycott them. It’s so toxic and sometimes subtle, like gamma bias.
I think the most explicit reason is the point you made about obesity. Makes a lot of sense. I think we can both agree that the causes of sexlessness are numerous.
Hum...totally left out of this discussion is the increasing number of non-traditional relationships.....that actually look and act like marriage. Wonder what's happening in those relationships?
So... trying to think of how to keep this tactful, but, here goes: as a gay agnostic in an open relationship, I'm intrigued by the smartphone conclusion. If anything, my partner and I use our smartphones to find *more* sexual partners and have more sex as a result (EDIT: And I don't think we have any less sex, just the two of us, together, as a result). And that includes conventional social media, texting, etc. as much as it does dating/hookup apps. I imagine this is true for most single gay men (or gay men in an open relationship) that I know as well. Even the least... well, let's say "sex positive"... of my gay friends has probably had 6 or more partners in the last 12 months?
Are we an anomaly? Is this just a straight issue? Perhaps women or even straight women specifically are more inclined to use social media preferentially over having sex? Not trying to "blame" women - but obviously if we're talking about men who have sex with men vs. straight folks - well, not a lot of women on one side of that equation.
Not trying to make this a conversation about morality (sorry, but not sorry - and probably not interested), though gay men admittedly have very different standards/ideas of "normal". My point is "we're too busy entertaining ourselves with technology/social media to have sex" seems like an odd conclusion to someone who uses that same technology to have more sex. What exactly is going on with straight folks that's different from gay folks?
"roles reversed, he might still be up for it" - barring outright fatigue, most men I know, roles reversed, might be MORE LIKELY to be up for it because, even if it wasn't the best sex ever, it would probably make them feel better...
(...the gender difference in sex drives feels like a bit of a cosmic prank, to the extent that it's a real. )
As a parent of a Toddler, I wonder what the impact of having children has on these. Do comparable age groups that have children report less sex than without?
I think this is a much bigger factor than the author is thinking. The amount of time spent parenting by parents has skyrocketed since the 70's, and certainly since the 90's, not just in the US but in many countries:
While the "amount of time spent" is interesting on its own, it has a lot of knock off effects. Since expectations are different, things are way more scheduled, and things like baby sitters are rarer. Kids are much older when they spend time at friends' house without us. The only time I've been able to go out on dates with my wife since my son was born (5 years ago) was when family happened to be in town (and this is, anecdotally, totally normal among my son's friends' parents). It's considered terrible parenting if kids play outside on their own. Often when riding bikes with my son, if he's up ahead (but still within eye or earshot of me), multiple strangers will come up to him to ask if he's ok and to make sure an adult is around. One time a lady angrily rang our doorbell and chastised us because our son was standing on our own front porch, on his own, for about 5 minutes.
All of this is to say that parents don't really have as much time away from their kids as they used to, and that's kind of a necessary component of sex.
The figures I'm citing are not normalized on a per-kid basis though. People are having fewer children, it's true. But they're also spending way, way, way more time parenting.
I think I've seen something supporting that before, but it's interesting that people are also having fewer kids, so if that theory was accurate, declining birth rates should increase sexual activity, assuming all else was equal (which it obviously isn't).
What is really frightening is that porn may be taking the place of sex. I’m no enthusiast for premarital sex, but I see why some might think that a bit of good honest fornication might be healthier than all this porn.
I am very curious, and I mean very curious.... I'm curious to see if the increase in men and women consuming pornography, is a contributing factor that correlates to of less sexual activity. In the Porn phenomenon conducting in 2015 through Barna, a staggering 4.6 BILLION hours of phonography was streamed from ONE site in 2016 alone! Again I am curious to see if there is a connection.
Fiirst off, I'm coming late to this posting....that kind of week...sigh...so other's may have brought up the points I'm bringing up....that said: .
Seems to me that there are a couple of reasons for the lack of people having sex that got overlooked in this very informative/enlightening posting.
1. People in their 20s-40s (i.e. those said to be most sexually active) used to have their own dwellings/abodes. Not the case for a huge number of 20-40s today....lack of privacy kills sex drive in this situation.
2. Multigenerational households are probably also a reason that everyone isn't having sex...but not for the reason cited above, rather for the fact that people are stressed out with regard to EVERYTHING....and sex doesn't thrive in that kind of situation/atmosphere.
3. And then there is the issue (noted in a previous posting) of being able to find a "suitable" sex partner. Ture, as a male friend told me back in college, re: set, all cats are black in the dark. But finding the cat is usually done in full light.
Also, RE: What do you mean about "farming clicks"? That phrase blew right by me.
Also, I loved Children of Men. And you didn't do a spoiler about the ending...so I'm doing it here: It's not a permanent "condition." (And I gotta admit, I really wondered about what had caused the lack of babies).
Excellent job of asking the right questions and teasing out the answers. My first thought, based on the denominations, was age. You disproved that guess solidly.
The married vs non-married graph is the real eye-opener. Previously, unmarried young people tended to be wilder. Many were unmarried BECAUSE they wanted to be wild. Now it's the opposite!
"I think we can all admit that sexual behavior is somewhat related to boredom."
Umm... no. I won't admit that. If I'm having sex, it's because I have an innate desire for the person I'm having it with and she reciprocates. It is not because we have nothing better to do.
I do see people say they're bored and want sex since they have nothing better to do, but that just doesn't make any sense to me. I'm not saying I'm in the majority, but think a little before ascribing a lack of imagination to everyone.
Interesting comment.
I find it hard to believe that the easy availability of pornography is not mentioned.
I must be part of the “problem” because I don’t see why any of this even IS a problem. 🤷🏼♂️
I don't, either, in my heart of hearts, and I've already reproduced at above replacement rate.
When I was a teen, the moral panic about unmarried folks having too much sex was still pretty near its height. For sincere spiritual reasons, I did not have unmarried sex. Witnessing the same "side" once panicking about sexual excess now panicking about sexual drought irritates and alienates me. Make up yer #$%*$$ minds, folks!
Maybe it's not fair of me to get this alienated. There are sociological reasons for considering sex-having a proxy for marriage or leading-to-marriage relationships. I've read Regnerus. It makes sense. But my lizard brain is left with the impression that our moral guardians are simply impossible to please.
I conceded from the start that my feelings of alienation over the change I've witnessed may not be fair.
Enough of my social and working life has taken place, though, in the right-of-center circles where it has become fashionable to at least strike a (not very nuanced, trust me) pose of panic over all the sex the youths aren't having now for me to get pretty narked. Think of me as a "failed manic pixie tradwife", perhaps. Not failed in the ways I think would matter most (irreligiosity, adultery, divorce). But failed because I got a growing sense that maybe those basics weren't what the social identity is really about.
I don't count Ryan among the "panickers". That I don't consider him a "panicker" about these things is one reason I'm here.
Great article. I think there are a couple of additional points to consider.
1) hypergamy - which is the hypothesis that females desire males with greater than or equal status as themselves. Males desire females who have less than or equal status as themselves. It's understandable if you consider the generalization that males innate drive is to protect and provide, females is nurturing, caregiving and social connections. Considering this, as 60-65% of college grads are female today, the pool of eligible males shrink.
I find it ironic that when the disparity of males to females was the opposite, the reason given by feminists was sexism. Since the disparity has flipped, the reason given is that females are smarter or have the obstacles removed. The reasons are of course multifaceted. Such as the push to get females into STEM by high school counselors encouragement, preferences in admissions, female only scholarships, employer recruitment and Title IX. This has a tremendous impact.
2) females who attend college are negatively influenced by the social sciences, such as women studies, queer studies etc. to resent males as victimizers. College campuses appear to be hostile to males. Also, males are seen as competitors in intimate relationships. My comments are focused primarily on females because they are the gatekeepers of sex.
This doesn't bode well for sexual relationships between males & females. Nor for the nuclear family, which is apparently where the most consistent and higher frequency sexual encounters occur. It goes without saying that this is a serious dilemma for society as a whole.
Thanks for the nuance...much needed in this kind of discussion.
You make excellent points and I agree wholeheartedly. There has been a decrease in Testosterone in the last 20 years. The number of single family homes, primarily headed by females has increased tremendously. The result being the girls and particularly boys have been affected negatively. Some kids have no male role models. Thats are numerous reasons that are beyond the scope of this discussion.
I grew up in the 70’s. The most disturbing for me personally, is the portrayal of men in movies and TV. It’s horrible and still goes on today. I can’t understand why men don’t boycott them. It’s so toxic and sometimes subtle, like gamma bias.
I think the most explicit reason is the point you made about obesity. Makes a lot of sense. I think we can both agree that the causes of sexlessness are numerous.
Hum...totally left out of this discussion is the increasing number of non-traditional relationships.....that actually look and act like marriage. Wonder what's happening in those relationships?
Men and women are just less attractive. I do put a good deal into this hypothesis.
Less attractive or less attracyed?
So... trying to think of how to keep this tactful, but, here goes: as a gay agnostic in an open relationship, I'm intrigued by the smartphone conclusion. If anything, my partner and I use our smartphones to find *more* sexual partners and have more sex as a result (EDIT: And I don't think we have any less sex, just the two of us, together, as a result). And that includes conventional social media, texting, etc. as much as it does dating/hookup apps. I imagine this is true for most single gay men (or gay men in an open relationship) that I know as well. Even the least... well, let's say "sex positive"... of my gay friends has probably had 6 or more partners in the last 12 months?
Are we an anomaly? Is this just a straight issue? Perhaps women or even straight women specifically are more inclined to use social media preferentially over having sex? Not trying to "blame" women - but obviously if we're talking about men who have sex with men vs. straight folks - well, not a lot of women on one side of that equation.
Not trying to make this a conversation about morality (sorry, but not sorry - and probably not interested), though gay men admittedly have very different standards/ideas of "normal". My point is "we're too busy entertaining ourselves with technology/social media to have sex" seems like an odd conclusion to someone who uses that same technology to have more sex. What exactly is going on with straight folks that's different from gay folks?
"roles reversed, he might still be up for it" - barring outright fatigue, most men I know, roles reversed, might be MORE LIKELY to be up for it because, even if it wasn't the best sex ever, it would probably make them feel better...
(...the gender difference in sex drives feels like a bit of a cosmic prank, to the extent that it's a real. )
As a parent of a Toddler, I wonder what the impact of having children has on these. Do comparable age groups that have children report less sex than without?
I think this is a much bigger factor than the author is thinking. The amount of time spent parenting by parents has skyrocketed since the 70's, and certainly since the 90's, not just in the US but in many countries:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/parents-time-with-children-triples-since-1970s-5371973.html
While the "amount of time spent" is interesting on its own, it has a lot of knock off effects. Since expectations are different, things are way more scheduled, and things like baby sitters are rarer. Kids are much older when they spend time at friends' house without us. The only time I've been able to go out on dates with my wife since my son was born (5 years ago) was when family happened to be in town (and this is, anecdotally, totally normal among my son's friends' parents). It's considered terrible parenting if kids play outside on their own. Often when riding bikes with my son, if he's up ahead (but still within eye or earshot of me), multiple strangers will come up to him to ask if he's ok and to make sure an adult is around. One time a lady angrily rang our doorbell and chastised us because our son was standing on our own front porch, on his own, for about 5 minutes.
All of this is to say that parents don't really have as much time away from their kids as they used to, and that's kind of a necessary component of sex.
I didn't just like your comment, I loved it.
We are now in the era of helicopter parenting....and the lowest birthrate ever in the US.....duh. Is there, possibly, a connection?
People are having fewer kids, though, which probably increases the amount of sex in married couples.
For me the biggest impact was extended breastfeeding, which reduces libido. Once I stopped breastfeeding, our sex life largely went back to normal.
The figures I'm citing are not normalized on a per-kid basis though. People are having fewer children, it's true. But they're also spending way, way, way more time parenting.
I think I've seen something supporting that before, but it's interesting that people are also having fewer kids, so if that theory was accurate, declining birth rates should increase sexual activity, assuming all else was equal (which it obviously isn't).
People are having fewer kids. Ergo I would suspect this would impact things in the other direction.
Wahat is TFR? Please respond.
OHHHHHHHhh....thanks for the info/insight/clarificstion. Will read what you sent soon.
E Beal
I wonder if it has to do with the uptake of SSRI medications, which can hinder libido.
Good point!
The one of the obvious problems is pornography. DUH! From VHS to DVD to the internet, porn is getting more ubiquitous and easier to access.
What is really frightening is that porn may be taking the place of sex. I’m no enthusiast for premarital sex, but I see why some might think that a bit of good honest fornication might be healthier than all this porn.
Environmental chemicals. Notice how the women look less feminine and the men less masculine nowadays? Occam's razor y'all.
I am very curious, and I mean very curious.... I'm curious to see if the increase in men and women consuming pornography, is a contributing factor that correlates to of less sexual activity. In the Porn phenomenon conducting in 2015 through Barna, a staggering 4.6 BILLION hours of phonography was streamed from ONE site in 2016 alone! Again I am curious to see if there is a connection.
replace "having sex" with "having a relationship" and what the post author wanted to say becomes much clearer, i.e.:
"if I find smartphones more interesting or less risky, troubling etc.. than a relationship, I'll do without relationships, including the sex part"
(whether that's right or not is another issue)
Fiirst off, I'm coming late to this posting....that kind of week...sigh...so other's may have brought up the points I'm bringing up....that said: .
Seems to me that there are a couple of reasons for the lack of people having sex that got overlooked in this very informative/enlightening posting.
1. People in their 20s-40s (i.e. those said to be most sexually active) used to have their own dwellings/abodes. Not the case for a huge number of 20-40s today....lack of privacy kills sex drive in this situation.
2. Multigenerational households are probably also a reason that everyone isn't having sex...but not for the reason cited above, rather for the fact that people are stressed out with regard to EVERYTHING....and sex doesn't thrive in that kind of situation/atmosphere.
3. And then there is the issue (noted in a previous posting) of being able to find a "suitable" sex partner. Ture, as a male friend told me back in college, re: set, all cats are black in the dark. But finding the cat is usually done in full light.
Also, RE: What do you mean about "farming clicks"? That phrase blew right by me.
Also, I loved Children of Men. And you didn't do a spoiler about the ending...so I'm doing it here: It's not a permanent "condition." (And I gotta admit, I really wondered about what had caused the lack of babies).
Well, when you aren't even sure of the gender of the person you want to be with, it can be a little off-putting, don't you think?
Do you really think people aren't having sex because of that? IME trans women are having a ton of sex, unlike the rest of us.
We definitely do live in interesting (as in not traditional) times.
Our evangelical work here is done.
Brian, don't understand what you mean by your posting....please clarify if you feel like it.
Excellent job of asking the right questions and teasing out the answers. My first thought, based on the denominations, was age. You disproved that guess solidly.
The married vs non-married graph is the real eye-opener. Previously, unmarried young people tended to be wilder. Many were unmarried BECAUSE they wanted to be wild. Now it's the opposite!