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Declines in Sexual Frequency Among American Adults, 1989–2014
- 542458 10y agoSounds interesting. Anybody have a link to the full article?
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- return0 10y agohttp://sci-hub.cc/https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10508-017-0953-1 http://sci-hub.cc/https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%...
- d--b 10y agoI'm curious about the correlation with alcohol consumption?
- trhway 10y ago>With age and time period controlled, those born in the 1930s (Silent generation) had sex the most often, whereas those born in the 1990s (Millennials and iGen) had sex the least often. smartphones and social networks.
- vkou 10y agoLong commutes, economic uncertainty, mismatched job shifts, not having any free time or energy... My partner's workday ends at 10:30-11:30 pm. I can't get any work done if I don't get up and head to work at ~6:00 am. She works Tuesday -> Sunday. I work Monday -> Friday. But no, surely it's the fault of smartphones and smooth jazz music.
- braymundo 10y agoFrom the abstract: "The decline was not linked to longer working hours".
- coldtea 10y agoCreating and accepting such a labor landscape as described in part depends on smartphones and other such changes... And while job uncertainty is a give (compared to previous decades) "mismatched job shifts" are not necessarily more...
- VLM 10y agoI would recommend intentionally mismatching your sleep shifts if you have a newborn in the house so you can both get excellent uninterrupted sleep. Worked great for my wife and I. WRT the main topic, the only impact was fun time was no longer immediately before or after sleep. Something I find fascinating about the pr0n genre is heavily fictionalized fun time is almost any time other than right before or after sleep. But from what I gather of gossip about non-fictional fun time, most "settled down" couples stick exclusively to immediately before or after sleep, which is kinda weird. I can assure you all the parts work fine if you meet up at lunch time or pretty much whatever you're physically together, you don't need permission from a wall clock to have a good time.
- koolba 10y agoSo the silent generation was less talk, more action?
- d--b 10y agohaha, nice one
- up_and_up 10y agoHow many of that older generation had 6,7,8,9,10+ kids. There were certainly "things a going on."
- pavel_lishin 10y agoSome of those things were a wife who stayed home and didn't typically work, a lack of contraceptives, and social expectations of a large family.
- koolba 10y ago... and no Netflix either.
- trhway 10y ago>less talk, more action they grew up having less distractions to spend their time/energy on, even TV wasn't part of daily routine. So once all the talking is done and there is still time to kill... I remember reading about 20 years ago about India plans to produce cheap national TV sets to help combat high population growth, i.e. to give people something to kill time with other than the activity which naturally results in new children.
- d--b 10y agothat or THAT: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_sink https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_sink
- chillacy 10y agoWhat's wrong with the explanation the researchers gave in the paper abstract? They posit that it's due to the increased number of single people (less social pressure to marry, vs girls getting married at 18), and the existing married couples getting older (the paper notes that couples in their 20s have sex ~80x a year, in their 60s ~20x).
- coldtea 10y ago>What's wrong with the explanation the researchers gave in the paper abstract? That "more single people" is basically a restatement of the phenomenon of less sex, and not an explanation.
- chillacy 10y agoIt could indeed be the explanation: if nothing else changed and there were simply more single people, then that would be the entire cause, problem solved. In that case you can investigate the question "why are there more single people" instead of the billion other possible causes of "no sex" like intimacy problems, technology, pornography, etc. Instead, this thread is full of speculation akin to the most click-baity of science journalism: relatively boring paper goes in, crazy theories come out.
- andai 10y agohow u make that inverted b?
- flexie 10y agoI would trust few self reported surveys and especially anything involving sexuality. And then across generations. But if there were a drop, I would suspect obesity to be the main cause. After all, it may reduce the obese's interest in sex and potential partners interest in sex with the obese. Double whammy (no pun intended).
- hkon 10y agoInternet...
- webkike 10y agoI'm glad statistics proved what I was already painfully aware of.
- chillacy 10y agoThe article only says that people have been having sex 9 fewer times per year in 2010 vs 1990. That's an awfully small change to notice.
- seunosewa 10y agoWell it's certainly a big change to those who used to have sex less than 9 times a year.
- coldtea 10y agoAn absolute number doesn't say anything about whether a change is "awfully small to notice". If the average adult had sex 18 times per year in 1990 and does it "9 fewer times" in 2010, that's a 50% reduction for example.
- chillacy 10y agoThe answer is right in the abstract. They cite that the majority of sex is had between married couples, and that number is 80 times per year for couples in their 20s (down to 20x for couples in their 60s). Maybe the parent poster has carefully polled his married friends to determine this trend, but I suspect they're merely uncritically accepting information that aligns with their existing beliefs like we all do.
- coldtea 10y ago9 less from 20 is quite a decrease. So would be 9 less from 30 or 40 etc. And it could be way more per group. 9 is the average decrease, not one that just applies to the 80x population.
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- coffeymug 10y agoI would like to know the effect Tinder has had on sexual frequency.
- chillacy 10y agoThe authors mention Tinder in their paper, stating that it could increase the frequency, but it wasn't enough to make up for the other factors.
- avenoir 10y agoI know a lot of you guys/gals here are very successful and have your "shit" together. Do you ever ask yourself what a man or a woman of your interest has to offer to you when you seemingly have everything? I started doing this after a number of failed relationships started taking a significant toll on my well-being and the answer to this question has kept me single for a few years now (some of the happiest years too) because outside of consistent sex there is all too often nothing else. We don't even know how to "relationship" anymore. Ambitions and trying to one-up each other are taking precedence over everything else. It's really sad and reminds me of the society described in the book called "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley.
- BerislavLopac 10y agohttps://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/feb/02/amusing-ourselves-to-death-neil-postman-trump-orwell-huxley https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/feb/02/amusing-oursel...
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- pavel_lishin 10y ago> We don't even know how to "relationship" anymore. Ambitions and trying to one-up each other are taking precedence over everything else. I appreciate that you went through, and are currently going through a rough time relationship-wise - but don't ascribe this to everyone. If you're consistently unhappy with the people you date, there's one common factor.
- return0 10y agoThere's also a trend of men 'going their own way'. There doesn't seem to be a female equivalent yet. I wonder why this is not studied in more detail. And it seems the latest generations have a very pragmatic/utilitarian view of sexual relationships - to the point where it loses its magic. From a cost/benefit viewpoint, can't blame them.
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- pdog 10y ago> Age had a strong effect on sexual frequency: Americans in their 20s had sex an average of about 80 times per year... This seems too low to be true. Only three times per fortnight?
- trey-jones 10y agoAre you basing this comment on personal experience? If so, congratulations! As for me, a married man who had my first child at 26, I would say 80 times a year during my late twenties is probably close to accurate. Maybe slightly low. As for the sexual activity of my peers, I have no idea! Do you? There are probably also legions of 20-something Americans out there that simply have no prospects for sex on a regular basis. Could this be more or less true in rural areas than urban? I have no idea. We just don't talk about it enough.
- return0 10y agosex distributions are not uniform. some people have lots of sex others very little.
- metaphorm 10y agowhy do you think this is too low? Not everyone is in a committed partner relationship, and not every single person is involved in "hookup culture".
- irixusr 10y agoWell there's only 40~45 weeks in a year (if menstruation is no-sexy time) so then that's twice a week. Sounds about right.
- mooseburger 10y agoI haven't had sex in 28 years.
- maus42 10y ago1. Averages don't work that way. 2. Congratulations, you might not be as representative sample of the population as you thought! This is one reason why advocate visualizing the whole distribution into a some kind of graph whenever possible. I have institutional access, and unfortunately, the paper does not describe this distribution. Fortunately, GSS data is publicly available: http://www.gss.norc.org/ http://www.gss.norc.org/ edit. Outside the year 2012, when the questionnaire logic was slightly different, the mode of the distribution of 6 available categories ranging from "not at all" to "more than 3 times a week", has been almost always been "not at all". (With second peak around "2 or 3 times a week".)
- brilliantcode 10y agowhat is driving lack of intimacy? My theory is pretty controversial but it's because women are working more as well as men. Less parent time, less attachment, less intimacy. For men without a strong male figure it's even more impactful. p.s. crazy theory I came up with after reading http://parenthood.library.wisc.edu/Hoffman/Hoffman.html http://parenthood.library.wisc.edu/Hoffman/Hoffman.html
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- taurath 10y agoGay men don't seem to have such a problem. I'd take facebook, unlimited ultra-specific porn, distraction devices in everyone's pockets, long commutes, and lack of 1-1 time over women working. It takes many many leaps of logic through many fields of study to believe that because children don't have a stay at home mother they're less intimate.
- VLM 10y agoI'm old enough that I dated about 6 coworkers and married one for about 20 years so far. Work is intimate and that leads to relationships. If you can date there, you're obviously going to get more action. I get the feeling I met my future wife right about on the border where earlier, like in the 80s, when management found out I was dating a hot coworker I sort of got frat boy high fives and maybe a comment about how lucky I was and I wish I was still your age and at most maybe a "be sure to behave yourself at work, but have fun" comments, but after my wife and I got married, it appears trying to date in the workforce as portrayed in the media would result in summary execution by firing squad at dawn by HR at absolute best possible case. At least per written policy. Then again I read stories about workplace harassment of women in Silicon Valley and the public stories of sexual harassment in tech show its way over the top than anything I saw or heard of from decades ago. This might be one of those corporate "what they say has nothing to do with what they do" things, kinda like diversity training. My advice WRT dating coworkers is if either of you tend toward high school drama, its going to end absolutely horrifically, but if you're both adults then working with an ex is not really all that bad. Oh and if "never trash talk an ex" is good life advice, "never trash talk an ex who's also a coworker" is good advice times a million.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- jimmyswimmy 10y agoFrom the article: "The results suggest that Americans are having sex less frequently due to two primary factors: An increasing number of individuals without a steady or marital partner and a decline in sexual frequency among those with partners." In other words: - Americans without partners are having sex less frequently because they increasingly have no partner to have sex with. - Americans with partners are having sex less frequently because they are having sex less frequently. Not a very enlightening conclusion.
- return0 10y agoamericans without partners by definition cant have sex. what they say is that there are more americans without partners i suppose.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- chillacy 10y agoNot enlightening, but also safe and soundly supported by evidence. The unsupported theories popping up in the comments section here would make any clickbait science journalism site happy.
- pavel_lishin 10y ago> There's also a trend of men 'going their own way'. Are those idiots a statistically significant percentage of the population?
- VLM 10y agoWell, there's people self-identifying, and there's people living the lifestyle, and the groups don't necessarily have to match up, like in the closet I guess. With respect to living the lifestyle, Time has an interesting article on the percentage of college grads living at home after graduation, aka failure to launch. We'll assume 50:50 male:female although of course not all degree fields are 50:50, and we'll assume that living in moms basement means the sex life is essentially zilch. http://time.com/4106297/college-degrees-parents-house/ http://time.com/4106297/college-degrees-parents-house/ So half of English lit grads, 40% of CS/IT grads, 30% of engineers, more than half of history majors. You could argue that the extrapolated trend around 30 is more relevant than just out of school and trying to find a new career, in which case its merely in the 10% to 20% range depending on major. Far too many college grads are produced than there are jobs for them, by integer multiples too many. Its the opposite for skilled trades, you'll make a lot more money and demand is intense for electricians so I'd imagine "failure to launch" for journeyman electricians is exclusively limited to, like, in home hospice care of ill parents and similar, so figure that rounds down to about zero although I don't have figures. Maybe unemployed college grads living at home make it work, I never had to do it, but I imagine it would be awkward having uni roommate conversations with your parents and little sister to get them out of the house when you're having someone come over, or I guess they could stay home and listen, or just ewww. Personally I came home from the Army while going to school in the day and I couldn't take the parenting for more than a couple weeks while I was doing the school GI bill thing, of course that's all the time I needed to get an apartment and car and start school and stuff. Where are you going who you gonna hang out with how late will you be out remember tonight is a school night do I know their parents oh can I meet this girl she sounds nice, is kinda cute or tolerable around thirteen but not a 20-something adult. My score while living at home was definitely zero, although I was too busy setting up apartment, car, school, all that stuff to go out anyway. So in summary, mid level double digit percentages. Not a rounding error.
- maus42 10y agoWhile the article is interesting, I think some of the more curious part of HN crowd might find it also worthwhile to look at the actual dataset available here: http://www.gss.norc.org/ http://www.gss.norc.org/ . Looking at the codebook, some of the relevant variables for analysis of this kind would be PARTNERS, SEXFREQ, NUMWOMEN, NUMMEN, PARTNRS5 (starting at p.2586). The codebook includes nice summary tables that might alone answer some the questions you are thinking about (like here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13823544 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13823544 ; I myself didn't download the data yet but could write that comment).
- xiphias 10y agoI don't know how much it's true in America, but here in Europe I see men moving to high paying jobs in already expensive cities (and making the cities even more expensive for women to move to) and women moving to cheaper cities (where they are able to get job for themselves) as the biggest factor in not having sex. Internet also helped the explosion of long-distance relationships where people are having sex for a weekend in a month even if they are in monogam relationships.