Follow Slashdot stories on Twitter

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×
Science

People Have Been Having Less Sex (scientificamerican.com) 243

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Scientific American: Human sexual activity affects cognitive function, health, happiness and overall quality of life -- and, yes, there is also the matter of reproduction. The huge range of benefits is one reason researchers have become alarmed at declines in sexual activity around the world, from Japan to Europe to Australia. A recent study evaluating what is happening in the U.S. has added to the pile of evidence, showing declines from 2009 to 2018 in all forms of partnered sexual activity, including penile-vaginal intercourse, anal sex and partnered masturbation. The findings show that adolescents report less solo masturbation as well.

The decreases "aren't trivial," as the authors wrote in the study, published on November 19 in Archives of Sexual Behavior. Between 2009 and 2018, the proportion of adolescents reporting no sexual activity, either alone or with partners, rose from 28.8 percent to 44.2 percent among young men and from 49.5 percent in 2009 to 74 percent among young women. The researchers obtained the self-reported information from the National Survey of Sexual Health and Behavior and used responses from 4,155 people in 2009 and 4,547 people in 2018. These respondents to the confidential survey ranged in age from 14 to 49 years. The study itself did not probe the reasons for this trend.
Scientific American spoke with the study's authors, Debby Herbenick and Tsung-chieh (Jane) Fu, about underlying factors that might explain these changes. Among the young, the researchers say social media, gaming and "rough sex" may contribute to this trend. The grief, health challenges, job loss and financial strain of the pandemic can all influence sexual interest and sex drive, too.
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

People Have Been Having Less Sex

Comments Filter:
  • Not me! (Score:5, Funny)

    by PseudoThink ( 576121 ) on Monday January 03, 2022 @10:43PM (#62140447)
    Can't have less than zero sex. Oh wait, imaginary sex counts too. Does the study use complex numbers?
    • Re:Not me! (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Kisai ( 213879 ) on Monday January 03, 2022 @11:09PM (#62140511)

      The problem is not the "reason" but the consequences.

      Less people are having sex because there are more gratifying means of stimulation, which includes porn and video games with pornographic material. There's websites like chaturbate. There's also just buying sex toys and self-gratifying.

      If you have sex with a real person, there is a chance of STD's or pregnancy, and with the current pandemic, count Covid as an easy and dangerous STD to get.

      But let's go one further, people are just unable to afford children, and apartments/homes big enough to have a child. So you really don't want to have children if you can't afford them. In a perfect situation, the government would endorse you having 1 child, and your partner also having 1 child, for a maximum of 2 that the government will fund. If you have any more than 2, then you're on your own for how you will afford to take care of them. This means having 3-bedroom and 4-bedroom apartment/housing that is actually used for families, not 3-unrelated and 4-unrelated strangers who want cheaper rent and hate each other.

      No, part of the problem is real estate, and the broadly poor quality, tiny-size housing being built. Even billionaires are only getting away with 1 floor of a stupidly-skinny, poorly built, building in NYC. There should be a mandate that no home should be less than 1500sq ft, with no less than 3 bedrooms. Or alternatively configured as 1x1x1 where one or two bedrooms can be partitioned off into 500sq ft each units, should the owner not need all the space, they could rent out one of the bedroom units as a bachelor unit.

      The other part is the cost of delivering a baby, and then taking care of it. If the government isn't giving you the equivalent of a 1-bedroom apartment rent for that child, you can't afford to have that child. Which means most people who aren't making $100,000/yr jobs can not afford children at all.

      • by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Monday January 03, 2022 @11:20PM (#62140525)
        solo masturbation is down too (there's a joke in there somewhere...). People are overall less interested in sex entirely.

        I suspect like most things "it's the economy stupid". The constant background stress from it coupled with every increasing work hours (Americans are, I kid you not, working more hours than the Japanese) puts a damper on things. My kid in high school was regularly putting in 14-16 hour days between school, travel, and homework. It was freakin' nuts. I'd sometimes wake up to go to the bathroom and find them studying at 12 o'clock at night. And this was pretty much what you had to do to get into college. Yeah, anyone can make it into their 100 and 200 level courses, but when it's time to get into your major there's not nearly enough slots for the number of qualified applicants in any major worth having. And that's before we talk about scholarships.

        America is hyper competitive. That sounds good when you say it, not so much when you live it.
      • Re:Not me! (Score:5, Interesting)

        by rattaroaz ( 1491445 ) on Monday January 03, 2022 @11:20PM (#62140527)
        Just an FYI, you are conflating sex with procreation. People don't need to have much sex to have children, and others can have tons of sex without having any children. If people could not afford children, they traditionally did not just become abstinent. But abstinence is now growing. So I think the "reason" is pretty important, AS WELL AS the consequences. Humanity and society is changing, but we are not sure if it is a good or bad thing, or maybe just different. We need to understand our societal changes if we are to understand ourselves.
        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by LoadLin ( 6193506 )

          If there was only less sex between couples, that it could affect little to birthrate.

          But it's not the case. Although it's out of the scope of this data, there is less sex because there is new patters in both, hobbies and date styles.

          Dates by Internet has amplify the previous existence of hypergamy, which creates a vicious cycle of man with a lot of short term sex/romantic encounters without long term projection (create a family) and a lot other men without or very little sex. It's not just that people has l

        • Re:Not me! (Score:5, Interesting)

          by teg ( 97890 ) on Tuesday January 04, 2022 @06:22AM (#62141101)

          Just an FYI, you are conflating sex with procreation. People don't need to have much sex to have children, and others can have tons of sex without having any children. If people could not afford children, they traditionally did not just become abstinent. But abstinence is now growing. So I think the "reason" is pretty important, AS WELL AS the consequences. Humanity and society is changing, but we are not sure if it is a good or bad thing, or maybe just different. We need to understand our societal changes if we are to understand ourselves.

          Indeed. Most sex is had not for procreation, but for recreation. Understanding why there is less sex is useful, as regular sex is important for both physical and mental health. One possibility: Creating engagement (or "addiction", as we would call it before) has become a key metric in gaming, social media etc - and it works. Facebook is more important than sex [cosmopolitan.com] is one example - and other social media is also problematic [nytimes.com].

          Also undoing a wrong mod...

          • People don't need to have much sex to have children, and others can have tons of sex without having any children.

            That depends what age they are. Putting it quite bluntly: a lot of people are holding off having children until later in life and, while they may not have 'left it too late', it can take a lot more sex to have children than when they were younger.

      • Re:Not me! (Score:5, Interesting)

        by SeaFox ( 739806 ) on Tuesday January 04, 2022 @12:24AM (#62140637)

        In a perfect situation, the government would endorse you having 1 child, and your partner also having 1 child, for a maximum of 2 that the government will fund.

        No, because the government has various programs that depend on the same stupid "endless growth" principals Wall Street does. At the very best, having two kids per couple is flatline population change, and that's assuming the kids actually make it all the way to adult life and become working members of society. I'm pretty sure the gov't would much rather have a few spares around for the dim bulbs and the ones that get broken.

      • Most people figured out condoms and other birth control methods so that's not it.

      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        In a perfect situation, the government would endorse you having 1 child, and your partner also having 1 child, for a maximum of 2 that the government will fund. If you have any more than 2, then you're on your own for how you will afford to take care of them.

        Not sure that's a good idea. People don't always plan to have more than 2 children, accidents happen even with contraception. If the third child isn't supported you start to get all the problems associated with children growing up in poverty, which becomes a cycle when they have kids...

        Education is the key and it works. Keeps the overall fertility rate below 2.1 (replacement level).

        As for the size of homes, yes they are insanely small. In the UK the average home is 729 square feet, and new builds are signif

      • Sex? Eew, that's so icky!!! No way I'm doing THAT! Give me solitary, lonely self-gratification & clean, coreographed, hair-free performance on a sanitised screen any day. Mmm... Slashdot...
      • I think you're onto something, in broad strokes. (No pun intended.)

        You're ignoring the part where solo sexual activity is also down, but the summary only mentions younger people. The interview in the article proposes some possible causes (social media, gaming), but I'd also say that economic stress and lack of privacy may be contributors. It's hard to have a sex drive when you're stressed about money. It's hard to think about masturbation when you're crammed in closely with your family (at least in our curr

      • by lorinc ( 2470890 )

        This is the most murican comment I've seen in a long time, to the point of being comical.

      • You did read the part about that they are not performing acts of sexual self gratification either.
      • Even for a single lower income family in the richer parts of Europe you don't have to give up that much for kids, yet birthrate is still in the toilet.

        The problem is cultural more than financial.

      • by nucrash ( 549705 )

        They pointed to masturbation being down too.

        There are a number of factors contributing to this. COVID-19 hasn't helped but much of this data is from before the pandemic.
        Another person replied that the world is changing and that's very true. What's next, I don't really know. Probably have to look to history to see what's next.

    • If complex numbers worked in this case, just imagine what one could do with quaternions...
  • tiger woods really went downhill after he cut back!

  • by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 03, 2022 @10:44PM (#62140451)

    Maybe you don't, but I have lots of sex. Every night. With lots of ladies. Because they want to have sex with me. And we have sex. Lots of it. Nightly. Sometimes not even at night.

    • Maybe you don't, but I have lots of sex. Every night. With lots of ladies. Because they want to have sex with me. And we have sex. Lots of it. Nightly. Sometimes not even at night.

      So you're saying... they mostly cum at night, mostly?

  • Just wait for fantasy VR sex to become an thing!

  • The pandemic? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Tom Veil ( 115114 ) on Monday January 03, 2022 @10:46PM (#62140459)
    Why would the pandemic have had an effect on sexual activity between 2009 and 2018?
    • Re:The pandemic? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by phantomfive ( 622387 ) on Monday January 03, 2022 @10:51PM (#62140473) Journal

      It corresponds with the rise of smartphones.

      • and the decline in wages relative to productivity [i.redd.it].
      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Powercntrl ( 458442 )

        It corresponds with the rise of smartphones.

        Yeah, it's probably smartphone dating apps that are to blame. Take what I'm writing with a grain of salt because it's from my perspective as an antisocial gay guy who didn't participate in the hookup scene, but the way it seemed like it used to work work (in the pre-smartphone era) was that people would meet at clubs/bars/socials, put on some beer goggles, and at some point there'd be uglies getting bumped. Alcohol was the great attractiveness equalizer.

        Now it's all swiping left or right or some shit on a

    • Who knows.. Humans bread like rabbits, so the fact that population growth isn't growing exponentially all the time sounds OK to me.
    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      More likely it's the effects of the 2008 financial crisis. Hit younger people hardest. Many can't afford to move out of their parents' house.

    • by spth ( 5126797 )

      I doesn't. The study is about parntered sex in the US 2009 to 2018. But the summary links to an interview with the study authors.

      The interview doesn't just discuss the study, but also related research: Changed in partnered sex in other parts of the world, changes in solo masturbation, etc

      In that interview, there is a question on the pandemic. Apparently, the researchers mention some trends they see there, even though that more recent research hasn't been published yet.

    • by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

      Search Engine Optimization.

  • I'm married (Score:4, Funny)

    by JustAnotherOldGuy ( 4145623 ) on Monday January 03, 2022 @10:52PM (#62140475) Journal

    I'm married, so it's not like not having sex is a hardship.

    • I am married too, and I totally disagree, it's a terrible hardship. Oh, you meant being married and not having sex with ones own wife... Carry on, as you were.
  • So I don't know what the expectations are from these researchers. I don't know much about previous pandemics throughout history, but the fact human population INCREASED is absurd. The fact these idiot researchers are making stupid claims about people having less sex is beyond absurd.
    • Less sex, not NO sex.

      Also not all sex is reproductive (intentionally or otherwise) so birth statistics is not entirely indicative of overall sexual activity.

      =Smidge=

    • by gweihir ( 88907 )

      So I don't know what the expectations are from these researchers. I don't know much about previous pandemics throughout history, but the fact human population INCREASED is absurd. The fact these idiot researchers are making stupid claims about people having less sex is beyond absurd.

      There was this little invention called "contraception". I guess you missed that. Since then having sex and producing offspring are not that much correlated anymore.

  • "The study itself did not probe the reasons for this trend."

    Clearly, they should have probed more!

  • by mnemotronic ( 586021 ) <(moc.liamg) (ta) (cinortomenm)> on Monday January 03, 2022 @11:45PM (#62140565) Homepage Journal
    See this earlier Slashdot thread: Samsung's New TV Remote Uses Radio Waves From Your Router To Stay Charged [slashdot.org]. That's some powerful EMF. Between that and 5G from my Pixel 5, no wonder my parts are shriveled.
    • Your statement is like saying solar panels make the Sun brighter so dicks don't work and you can't have sex. It sounds to me like your antennae down there is a little short to pick up a 5GHz signal with it's 6cm wavelength.
    • by JakFrost ( 139885 ) on Tuesday January 04, 2022 @12:11AM (#62140611)

      I don't exactly remember the article or the story, but there was a direct correlation with the amount of birth control hormones found in municipal water systems that are not filtered by the municipal sewage treatment plans because the particles in molecules were smaller than the treatment plant was designed to do and also there is no federally mandated standard to filter out any type of prescription or illicit drugs or any type of medicines out of the water system.

      The federal guidelines for water, cleanliness or purity did not include any type of tests for these types of compounds in the filtered and treated water.

      What I remember from the article and the story was that when there was a study done for a long amount of time that the amount of testosterone of male children within municipalities that had treated water was much lower and also there was a measurable difference in a smaller penis size for the male children. Then children that were from outside large cities and municipalities and their water came from separate and cleaner sources.

    • I'd say it is environmental. This makes sense, given the timing (this is where things can get difficult).

      Plastics and the green revolution (chemicals are food!!!) were very prevalent in the first world in the 1950-70s (before modern material sciences/understanding, example - Tupperware - 1956). Colorings, preservatives, flavors,etc.

      And lifetime testosterone levels, for an individual, are probably determined during childhood development (environmental factors contributing to genetic triggers failing or beh

  • by RobinH ( 124750 ) on Tuesday January 04, 2022 @12:02AM (#62140589) Homepage

    This was noticed years ago, but there are many factors that have been put forward that are affecting it. A big one is that smartphones and social media have drastically changed how people interact. In the 90's you almost always interacted with people in-person face-to-face. Even if you were using the phone you had voice calls. You develop empathy for someone if you're actually talking to them. Text is a good way to communicate ideas, but a horrible way to communicate feelings and develop empathy. Secondly, there are many more distractions (video games, streaming, and social media) all of which are finely tuned to absorb as much of our attention as possible. Similarly there's the rise of internet porn. It's about as good of an example of reality as watching super hero movies where you see one invincible character beating up another invincible character... it might be entertaining but it's going to give you a completely unrealistic expectation of what a fight would be like. Plus the availability of porn has made it a lot more accessible for women... If you're a woman and you know many of the men around you are expecting porn sex (and they don't realize it's 99% fantasy) then I bet you'd be a little more cautious about hooking up. On the men's side, I think a good portion of men are taking things like "me too" seriously and they don't want to be "that guy" so they're a little less likely to initiate anything... but in reality the guys who are most sensitive to me-too issues probably weren't the biggest offenders in the first place, so all that did was reduce the number of "nice guys" in the market. That just makes dating suck even more for women. These are all pre-pandemic trends.

    I know it's cliche to say, but "if I only knew then what I know now..." When you're a young person, the idea of being rejected is so terrifying that it turns you into a dumb idiot. You're so tied up in your own head that you don't realize this other person over there is actually not complicated at all... they're a human being living in a society that puts all kinds of expectations on them about what they should want and what success looks like, plus there are deeply ingrained biological drives from the times when our ancestors had to survive on the Savanna, and all those things are well documented. They're just as much stuck in their head as you are in yours. There's a good chance they look at you and think, "if I start a relationship with this person, I'll have to be seen in public with them... my parents will meet them... my friends will meet them." It's not just about you... they need all those other parts of their life to work smoothly too. And if we're talking about people considering long term relationships, I think both men and women, and I assume anyone who identifies as anything, is asking themselves those same questions. So they're looking for someone who checks a lot of boxes, and whether those checkboxes are ones that society imposes, or biology has evolved into us, or the other person has made up on a whim, you better figure out what those boxes are and start checking them. In reality, 9 out of 10 of those boxes have nothing to do with sex. On the bright side... look around: the competition isn't that... wait for it... "stiff." :)

  • by timeOday ( 582209 ) on Tuesday January 04, 2022 @12:13AM (#62140615)
    Obesity has risen and has known negative effects on both sexual desire and ability.
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

    it was ahead of its time

  • It's from all the estrogen in the water coming from those pesky birth control pills.

  • This article brought to mind the old joke that "95% of young males masturbate and the other 5% are liars"

  • by jddj ( 1085169 )

    Destroy the libido. Ask me how I know.

    • I think you're onto something there. Here are some numbers that I googled: in 2015-2018, 13.2% of US adults had taken antidepressants in the past 30 days (8.4% of men, 17.7% of women).

      That's a lot of people! Now consider the fact that if only one member of a couple has a suppressed libido, it's likely to affect frequency of sex for both of them. So if you're in an opposite-sex couple, what are the odds that at least one of you is on antidepressants? We don't have enough information to know, but I'm gues

  • But being a 70-year-old fart might have more to do with it..,,
  • We've got too many people as it is, anything to help reduce those numbers please.

    • You can have sex without it resulting in children, you know? Enjoy and develop your sexuality as a normal aspect of a healthy life.
  • These respondents to the confidential survey ranged in age from 14 to 49 years

    So are the 50-and-over age group taking up the slack from their younger counterparts?

  • The roll of media (Score:5, Interesting)

    by SciCom Luke ( 2739317 ) on Tuesday January 04, 2022 @05:02AM (#62140961)
    I think media may have a role to play here as well.

    Sex is made ugly in the media.
    There is less softcore porn, and romantic aspects that make sex beautiful are vanishing.
    It is all mindless jackhammering and extremely distorted faces without either partner seeming to remotely enjoy the experience.
    If you look at the good old Hub, you need to do quite a bit of searching to find anything that is remotely attractive.
    If young people see this, how then do you think they are possibly attracted to try this themselves?

    Also, erotic aspects in regular movies are vanishing.
    We see a lot of highly popular recent animated movies that have no erotics at all.
    Films aimed at more mature audiences that may include sexual tension and erotic scenes never seem to make it to mainstream.
    Notice for example even the adorable naked butt in the film 'Splash' that was in a recent prudiation effort covered by CGI hair for reasons I cannot begin to understand.

    There is a roll for the media to display sex once more as a regular aspect of a healthy natural life.
    • Selling a movie with sex is lazy. That was just a porn substitute with better branding. There are a lot of movies being made now with good writing and acting.

  • Everyone is too busy trying to be a billionaire or just keeping a roof over their head - sex is free but involves having spare time and instead of 'Netflix and Chill' people are just doing the first bit!
  • Ever since my marriage ended, I've been having a lot more sex. :P

Competence, like truth, beauty, and contact lenses, is in the eye of the beholder. -- Dr. Laurence J. Peter

Working...