The number of American adults reporting no sex in the last year has reached a 30 year record high. According to a survey published in The Washington Post this can be attributed in part to an overall aging population but predominantly it’s due to sexlessness among the young. The fact that the amount of men in their 20s reporting having no sex has more than tripled since 2008 for instance, is a major factor.
The news further emphasises the phenomenon that has already begun to be referred to as The Great American Sex Drought.
The survey was carried out by the General Social Survey and showed that 1 in 4 Americans spent the year without having sex once, a total of 23% of all adults in the US.
One of the takeaways from the findings was that sexlessness among the young, and particularly among young men under 30, was a chief contributing factor.
Since 2008 men under 30 who report having no sex in the previous year has risen to a shocking 28%.
Experts say that one of the root causes in the rise of sexlessness among young men is the fact that people partner-up later in life. What’s more young men are more likely than young women to live at home, 35% in total claimed to still live at home compared to 29% of women of the equivalent age.
But the results don’t only reflect how unpartnered men are making America have less sex! They also point to the impact technology has had on people’s social lives since 2008, indicating how we live a dramatically more on our devices and despite our hyper connectedness, real-life human contact has actually been on the decrease.
Further to the point, the study indicated that partnered people are also having less sex, with the numbers of couples having relations on a weekly basis having dropped.
The main group that seemed to do well were people in their 30s and 40s who are more likely to have a partner and therefore far more likely to have sex during the course of a year.
The report is somewhat depressing, not least because it seems to fall in line with other reports about growing loneliness and the role of screens in people’s lives.
But at least amidst the doom and gloom, what’s certain is that since 2008 our notion of sexuality and stretched and become more inclusive and intersectional (even if none of us is doing it!).
