Summary

Young people are having less sex compared to previous generations, a trend observed across all age groups, potentially due to increased digital distractions.

Abstract

The article discusses a significant decline in sexual activity among young people, with data indicating a drop from 53% to 39% of high school students having lost their virginity from 1989 to 2017. This trend extends beyond youth, affecting older and married adults as well, suggesting a broader societal shift. The reasons for this decline are not hormonal or due to lack of opportunity, as early puberty and dating apps have made sexual encounters more accessible. Instead, the article posits that the ubiquity of digital entertainment, such as social media, gaming, and streaming services, has replaced the need for sexual activity as a form of boredom relief. The author, Joel Stein, emphasizes the importance of allowing oneself to experience boredom for the sake of human connection and creativity, warning that the future of the human race may depend on it.

Opinions

The author believes that a generation not focused on sexual pursuits may lack the edginess to create provocative art and form deep relationships.
Joel Stein suggests that the current generation's delayed social milestones (like drinking, driving, and working) contribute to their reduced sexual activity.
The author dismisses the idea that pornography is to blame for the decline in sexual frequency, as data shows that porn consumers are typically more sexually active.
Stein argues that the increase in available evening entertainment options has led to a decrease in sexual activity, as people turn to screens to avoid feeling overwhelmed by emotions.
The article implies that previous generations may have engaged in sex more frequently as a remedy for boredom, a dynamic that has been altered by modern technology.

No one is having sex anymore

The reason is in your pants

One of the things I looked forward to about being old was being disgusted by young people. Their music, their haircuts, their slang, their see-through pants.

But that is not what happened. Young people disgusted me by not being disgusting.

I have stayed silent about the horrors of mom jeans, normcore, and cutesy TikTok dances. But I can no longer watch a generation destroy itself with a self-imposed G rating.

Because I have found out that young people are not having sex.

The percent of high school kids who’d lost their virginity around when I graduated in 1989 was 53 percent. In 2017 it was 39 percent. If you want to know what percentage decline that is, ask a high school student since they apparently have tons of spare time from not having sex.

A survey found that the percentage of 18-to-24-year olds who didn’t have sex in the past year went from 18.9 in 2002 to 30.9 in 2018. Back when I was 24 if you didn’t have sex for a whole year and someone called with a survey, your response to every question was, “How you doing?”

As an elder, it is my societal responsibility to pass on my wisdom. Which is that you should have sex. A generation not constantly trying to get laid will not create anything edgy. They will not know how to form relationships. They will be lonely. Their parties will be as pointless and boring as the parties we married people throw.

To end the scourge of abstinence, I had to find out why it was happening.

I knew it wasn’t hormonal, since the sex drive hits earlier now that the age of puberty has plummeted. It’s not for lack of opportunity. With dating apps not only don’t you have to work up the nerve to ask someone to a dance, you don’t have to pretend to enjoy dances. Factor in all those closeted gay people when I was growing up who couldn’t hook up without fear of getting beaten up, and everyone should be doing it in the streets.

Perhaps, I thought, it’s merely another by-product of the fact that young people are socially years behind where my generation was at their age. They’re starting to drink later, getting their first jobs later, and going out without their parents much later. Most are delaying getting their driver’s licenses. When I was in high school, lots of kids drove before they got their license. Drunk. To work.

But during my research, I came across a far more distrubing fact in a column in the JAMA Network Open written by Jean Twenge, a San Diego State University psychology professor. I often read the JAMA Network Open after I call Twenge to explain something to me and she tells me to read her piece in the JAMA Network Open.

In the essay, titled, “Possible Reasons US Adults Are Not Having Sex as Much as They Used To,” Twenge noted that “the trend toward growing up more slowly does not explain why sexual frequency has also decreased among older and married adults.”

It’s not merely the young people. None of us are having sex.

The amount of action we’re getting has steadily decreased since 2000 regardless of the economy or sales of those Shades of Grey books.

I figured the cause was the ubiquity of pornography. When I was young, it was often easier to have sex than acquire porn. You had to go to a video store, walk to the back, push open the batwing doors as if you were a cowboy looking for shootout, and then bring your selection to the counter where you’d reveal your most intimate sexual desires — the stuff you might bring up four months into a relationship — to a stranger who lived in your neighborhood.

But it’s not. Twenge writes: “Because those who watch pornography are more sexually active, not less, this explanation is difficult to support with individual-level data. Changes in attitudes about sex are also unlikely to explain the trend, with attitudes toward premarital sex becoming more accepting not less.”

It turns out that people only have sex when they’re bored.

“There are now many more choices of things to do in the late evening than there once were and fewer opportunities to initiate sexual activity if both partners are engrossed in social media, electronic gaming, or binge watching,” Twenge concludes.

You know why your great-great-great-grandmother had twelve kids? Sure, a lack of birth control. And the need for farm workers. And child mortality. But also because she could only rock on her front porch staring at nothing for so long before she said, “Ebenezer, let’s go inside and get some horizontal refreshment.”

You think you look at your phone when you’re bored. And have sex when you’re overwhelmed with passion. But that’s not how we work.

We distract ourselves with a screen as soon as we feel anything that might be overwhelming: anxiety, excitement, frustration, lust, loneliness. The five key drivers of human sexuality.

We need to baste in a distraction-less present to do anything difficult: Having a creative idea. Solving a problem. Asking someone to sleep with us.

We need to let ourselves be bored. The future of the human race literally depends on it.

Joel Stein is the senior distinguished visiting fellow at the Joel Stein Institute. A former columnist for Time, the L.A. Times and Entertainment Weekly, he is, amazingly, also the author of In Defense of Elitism: Why I’m Better Than You and You’re Better Than Someone Who Didn’t Buy This Book and Man Made: A Stupid Quest for Masculinity. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Friendster, or Google+.