The "less sex" article comes out every few years. One version was on the cover of Time in 1985, literally the same week that my future wife and I moved in together. We were very happy to be missing out on the latest trend.
From the late 1990s to 2014, Twenge found, drawing on data from the General Social Survey, the average adult went from having sex 62 times a year to 54 times.
Probably because in 2014, he or she was 15 years older.
In 2005, a third of Japanese single people ages 18 to 34 were virgins; by 2015, 43 percent of people in this age group were.
That's just statistical cherry-picking.
.
I also see what you did there.
In 2005, a third of Japanese single people ages 18 to 34 were virgins; by 2015, 43 percent of people in this age group were.
It is? It sounds impressive to me. What am I missing?
literally the same week that my future wife and I moved in together.
It doesn't necessarily apply to you, and I'm sure it doesn't, but there's been a factoid around for longer than you've been together that frequency of sex declines once a couple moves in together. I don't know if there's any actual evidence supporting this, and I expect the commentariat to arise with one voice to declare that when they moved in with their SOs they were at it nine times a night for the next thirty years, but it's widely believed and has been since I was a chabby. I wonder if couples are moving in together sooner (to save rent and other expenses), and therefore (for whatever reason) shagging less after the honeymoon period.
Anyway, crisis averted: driverless cars will lead to plenty of extra nookie.
Here is a list of health information I would willingly input in a smartphone app (or any app, or anything connected to the internet other than the unavoidable patient portal of my actual physician):
[ ]
There were smart pelvic floor exercisers that could pair with smartphones via Bluetooth.
I... my god. I don't. W. zfzfzf. aaa
frequency of sex declines once a couple moves in together.
That seems counterintuitive to me and I think was not my experience, for the obvious reason that we spent more nights together when we, you know, lived together. Maybe we were doing non-cohabitation wrong?
nookie
I don't know if you saw the very best description of the Kavanaugh hearings.
1.3. That's a good catch if (as is likely) "average people" wasn't controlled for age. Still, there are a lot of statistics presented (and of course anecdotes!) that are pretty depressing.
Are you saying 18-34 year olds would skew younger in 2015 than 2005?
Maybe we were doing non-cohabitation wrong?
Clearly you were doing it right for you. For us, after the first week or so we were in the same place as many nights while we technically weren't cohabiting as when we were. This may or may not reflect American dating rituals and Brit lack thereof. A period of long (by UK standards) distance came later, and certainly involved more sex per weekend at weekends than when we had the whole week to indulge in, but that was, I feel, to be expected.
Anyway, this story should make us happy! Ha, ha young people! We had more sex when we were young!
frequency of sex declines once a couple moves in together.
That seems counterintuitive to me and I think was not my experience, for the obvious reason that we spent more nights together when we, you know, lived together
It's the modern domesticity kills eros thesis: http://a.co/d/dmlkTaM
In 1995, the large longitudinal study known as "Add Health" found that 66 percent of 17-year-old men and 74 percent of 17-year-old women had experienced "a special romantic relationship" in the past 18 months.
Okay, that percentage disparity made me laugh. (I know it's probably not just straight relationships, but still.)
15: Could be that more 17-year old women were involved with older men.
I'm finding this to be a significantly better article than I expected, which probably means over 70% of the rest of you will loathe it. (Which is fine!)
Over the course of many conversations with sex researchers, psychologists, economists, sociologists, therapists, sex educators, and young adults, I heard many other theories about what I have come to think of as the sex recession. I was told it might be a consequence of the hookup culture, of crushing economic pressures, of surging anxiety rates, of psychological frailty, of widespread antidepressant use, of streaming television, of environmental estrogens leaked by plastics, of dropping testosterone levels, of digital porn, of the vibrator's golden age, of dating apps, of option paralysis, of helicopter parents, of careerism, of smartphones, of the news cycle, of information overload generally, of sleep deprivation, of obesity. Name a modern blight, and someone, somewhere, is ready to blame it for messing with the modern libido.
All of the above, right?
17: I agree -- it was better than I expected -- probably mostly because she didn't go all in on any one particular crazy hypothesis.
18: Why-aren't-the-kids-fucking-anymore piece authors would get laid more if they weren't so afraid to commit.
I'm going to assume the decline is because kids today don't count butt stuff.
The decline in reported sex may be because kids today are less inclined to lie about their sex lives. Or because they are more inclined to under-report rather than over-report.
My opinion that it's worth reading is based on two assumptions: 1) the purpose of pieces like this is to get torn apart by a wider audience, because the population being discussed is so vast and wildly heterogeneous; 2) the quantitative data is meant to provide context and structure for the qualitative data (second half of the article, roughly), not vice versa. The author is also compassionate, and her strongest conclusion is a pretty tame "sex makes us human and it's fun".
It's also ironic, because no generation would be more likely to expect a comprehensive performance review of their sexual behavior than this one. I think the thing that made me saddest was the reported shyness about ever being seen naked, even in your own bedroom by your long-term partner. The sourcing on that claim was not so strong, though, so I can also discount it.
Which part of the shyness about being seen naked seems weakly sourced? Anecdotally, it matches the experience I've had with Mrs. Washington over the years (and which has gotten worse, not better, with time).
"Old-timers, guys that are 60-plus, have no problem with a gang shower,"
Aaaaand, there's the money shot
21 AIMHMHB, my mother in law told me about how she had to report every week in confession. The priest would add it all up, and the sermon would either be about sins of the flesh or the need to populate God's green earth, depending on how the numbers looked. My MIL said she always over-reported, and which point her sister, who was listening in, snorted: she'd always under-reported.
My first thought, like 1 and 9, was that this is an artifact of an aging population. But there's enough independent evidence of declining sexual activity among young people that I imagine some of it is real.
Anyway, New Englanders were isolates long before the internet made it cool.
I read the article, so now I know that 20 was wrong.
24 remains plausible, but unlikely.
I wonder if everybody switching from cocaine to heroin shouldn't take some of the blame.
Nothing that subsidized Ecstasy can't fix.
I wonder if everybody switching from cocaine to heroin shouldn't take some of the blame.
I assumed it had something to do with lead poisoning.
Actually, the entirety of the decline can be explained by the Unfogged reading group on Heidegger.
Despite taking small declines in society at large (most people do still get married, etc) and amplifying them with anecdotes from overeducated urbanites, I thought this was a very good article. Pointing to Japan as where other places might be headed. Pointing out how it's awkward to even talk to a stranger at all in public anymore, let alone flirt. Pointing out how the "sex drive" is very far from an irresistible force and easily overwhelmed by fear, indecision or simply having a good-enough life without it.
Writing in sentence fragments.
anecdotes from overeducated urbanites
New mouseover text?
Are you saying 18-34 year olds would skew younger in 2015 than 2005?
Without actually looking into it, I would expect there to be a skew due to cohort sizes, but it would go the other way.
This all makes me feel very topical. Since my uterine ablation last summer, I've tracked my thankfully almost nonexistent periods in an app. And I had almost a month on tinder trying to match with all genders, which was eye-opening but basically not bad. I don't know that I make for good overeducated-urbanite anecdotes, though.
You're our Appalachian correspondent. We'd be lost for thinkpieces without you.
I always already used to get laid more.
41: Okay, then big trends here are only dating Asian-Americans (by coincidence rather than design) although "dating" itself is kind of a weird word, discomfort about overlapping an annoying pushy hookup of the sort detailed within the article with having to speak at an anti-Kavanaugh rally the next day, and coordinating dead-language tattoos (also a coincidence and preexisting.) Hope that helps!
44: Can you settle for a hipster rotisserie chicken restaurant and a gayish sports bar with great chicken wings?
Okay but did you feed the period tracking app data into Tinder? If not, you're probably okay, albeit still an overeducated urbanite -- I see you trying to hide your books and your transit pass...
46: Not just no but there still isn't an app that lets people just input their custody schedules and get matched based solely on availability. It would save so much time and surely someone could make a fortune.
There's clearly a serious problem that the app article is addressing (particuarly around representation in tech and America's reckless approach to personal data), and the Apple situation was particularly egregious, but the author's bait and switch style is really frustrating. She encourages you to get angry at how shitty something is, only to then point out there's a better alternative. Over and over again. "Hey, this cheaply made ad-supported app I did no research on is super crappy, like 99% of ad-supported crap on the App Store! But it turns out there are some apps with serious VC money that have better functionality, would you believe. But then this app designed to help you get pregnant assumes you want to get pregnant! The nerve. Oh yes, they also make another for people who don't necessarily want to get pregnant. But it has it's own issues. But then there's another app you can use, which doesn't have those issues, but, um, it tells you it gets smarter? Oh, and did you know there are apps that cater to shitty men?"
Would my boyfriend think it's freaky that I'm keeping a log of the particulars of our sex life? I mean, I certainly wouldn't show it to him
Amazing. She's just spent 900 words agonising about the possibility of some app company abusng her personal information and then she's like "oh I've been collecting intimate personal information about my partner without his consent or knowledge and putting it on my phone. Would he think that's weird? (Shrug emoji) Who knows? Anyway, back to the important stuff- I'm really worried about people who I am giving my personal data to voluntarily!"
MAYBE INCELS SHOULD BE VOLCELS TO PROTECT THEIR PRECIOUS BODILY DATA
True, if you date a journalist you have no reasonable expectation of privacy anyway.
At least the journalist is less likely to use puns.
reasonable expectation of privacy
That's hilarious!!!!
INCORRECT THINKING TOO!
10. "Average people" is different from "Average people between the ages of X and Y." I'm guessing that was unimaginative's point. The average age of people here in the US of A is rising. I think it's rising much faster in Japan, which has far fewer immigrants.
17. Over-determined! "It's the porn and the dating apps!" "It's a floor wax and a dessert topping!" I thought many of the explanations/causes listed, all acting at the same time, could have a synergistic effect. If you don't live with your parents at age 30, you might instead be a video game addict, or you might be a porn addict, or you might be terrified of #metoo, or you might not have a decent job, or you never had unsupervised play, or you might have been reading Unfogged/Heidegger. Doomed, I say, doomed!
floor wax and a dessert topping
Hott.
I don't know if this is depressing or cheerful, but my evidence-free theory is that the less-sex trend does have something to do with higher expectations for consent and avoiding abuses of power. Ambiguously unpleasant/borderline abusive sexual situations and relationships have been really common, and are becoming less so. But I don't think they're being replaced one-for-one by less abusive interactions; people who used to pressure partners into sex and don't feel safe doing that now largely don't want to be in fully consensual relationships as a substitute. Think incels.
||
I'll consider this my quota of post suggestions for the month, but should we have a post about the NYT Facebook investigation? I read it and, somewhat perversely, it left me feeling pissed off at Republicans.
|>
59 I suspect that the social acceptability* of 'I wasn't really all that interested, but went along because it was easier than arguing (or having silent passive aggressive drama) about it' even between long term couples has seriously declined.
* This isn't really the noun I want. Anyone got a better one?
I don't like it, but I'll go along with it as it's easier than arguing about it.
anything is easier than arguing about this stuff
59. I like the theory, too, but the article talks about other countries where surveys show a trend toward less sex. Japan (of course), a bunch of European ones (Britain, Finland, Netherlands, Sweden), Australia. I'm not sure the norms on consent and power have been changing in all of those countries.
66: why not? You think they've just been standing still? Other countries have been having (for example) MeToo moments as well.
A strong case would be if you could show a contrary trend in a country where the norms have been changing in the other direction. Russia? Turkey?
Norms about consent have only very very recently started to change in Japan, where the Shiori Ito case has finally brought it to public attention. That's definitely not a major factor in the reduction in sexual activity.
Better but much longer article about Ito, who now lives in London: https://apjjf.org/2018/15/McNeill.html
Yeah, I'm not sure to what extent the incels of other cultures would have been in those kinds of relationships previously.
I think the pace of life alluded to several times in that article is rather more of a factor - along with the precarity associated with any kind of failure.
||
NMM to screenwriting legend William Goldman.
|>
71: Damn. Best known for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, All the President's Men, and The Princess Bride. A varied repertoire.
I'm a little amused to see that Wikipedia lists "S. Morgenstern" as one of his pen names. That's the author of the story-within-a-story of The Princess Bride. I hadn't known until reading the articles that they carried the fiction as far as I did.
When Cassandane and I got married, we picked books we like as centerpieces of the tables at the receptions. The Princess Bride was one of them and the theme from the movie was part of the wedding music. Maybe the processional itself, I don't remember.
Amazing career. His Adventures in the Screen Trade is one of the best things about Hollywood ever written.
||
Christ. I have just read 30 pages, in Norwegian, on the blogger who provided the ideological backing for Anders Breivik. Although himself Norwegian, he wrote mostly in English on American blogs along the Spencer/Geller axis. And what is so fantastically depressing is the degree to which those conspiracy theories have been mainstreamed since 2016. The stuff which was once confined to Norwegian crazies on blogs that nobody read is now pumped out all over Fox News. In fact, it's obvious that the European far right could not exist in its present form without American support and money.
He was also fanatically opposed to the EU, of course, and wrote for a blog which had the loathsome Daniel Hannan on its masthead.
|>
And "A Bridge Too Far" - he had the story in "Adventures in the Screen Trade" of how they needed to extend the shoot by a week, and that meant paying to get Robert Redford out of the contract for his next movie, and because they were filming in Nijmegen itself they could only film in the streets early on Sunday mornings when no one else was around... so the upshot is that they paid a million dollars to get one extra hour of shooting.
When Cassandane and I got married, we picked books we like as centerpieces of the tables at the receptions. The Princess Bride was one of them and the theme from the movie was part of the wedding music.
We did the dorky "Mawwiage is a dweam wiffin a dweam" bit in our ceremony, which I still think is cute even if overplayed. And fwiw, that's how Goldman wrote it in the book.
The movie really followed the book closely.
77: Yeah, left out the Zoo of Death scene (would have been hard to do justice to in general, and especially with 1980s special effects) and the framing device was different, but other than that it was almost the same, line by line.
@74 - but I imagine much of it was also being said in 2016 by people at the very fringes of the respectability and beyond (Mad Mel).
Mad Mel got a shock from the Breivik thing in 2011. He quoted her quite a lot in his manifesto. Her problem is that the conspiracy she started off believing in is perfectly plausible. The British security services were relaxed about the presence of Islamists in London in the late 90s. They thought that they had the better of the unspoken bargain. I mean, we do have a long tradition of sheltering foreign agitators (Hi, Uncle Karl) and until 9/11 not many people seem to have taken seriously the idea that they would operate in Europe and the US, too.
All her later conspiracies were vaguer and less defined.
But, no matter how much she hates the paper now, she will always really be the Guardian executive she once was, which is to say someone convinced that they are part of the country's natural ruling class and that only malign confederacies can be keeping them out of power. She grew more self-righteous and angrier the less notice anyone in power took of her. And once she had left the Guardian, the paper itself became part of the malign confederacy that kept her from running the country. This is similar to the way in which Bat Ye'or repurposed the Protocols of the Elders of Zion to be a conspiracy by gentile bankers and power-brokers against the Jews.
But of course Melanie was never entirely excluded from public life or influence in the way the eur\abia bloggers were or felt they were.
72: I'm a little amused to see that Wikipedia lists "S. Morgenstern" as one of his pen names. That's the author of the story-within-a-story of The Princess Bride. I hadn't known until reading the articles that they carried the fiction as far as I did.
He wrote another short book called The Silent Gondoliers as Morgenstern absent any framing story. It was dreadful. Stop when you're ahead. (Although the good news it was so dreadful that no one really has heard of it.)
77, 79: The movie really followed the book closely.
Well, if you don;t count out all of the parts of the book* where he discusses the "William Goldman" character in the present time. Which to me really is what put it over the top when I first read it. But probably for the best that they did not try to use those parts in the movie.
*Also the numerous asides and non sequiturs "from" Morgenstern, but they added less to the book in my opinion.
The book did not get much notice for a number of years after it first came out*. Actually, neither did the movie although it caught on fairly quickly. Cary Elwes' book As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of The Princess Bride covers that and is worth a read for true fans. Good Andre the Giant anecdota.
all of the parts of the book* where he discusses the "William Goldman" character in the present time. Which to me really is what put it over the top when I first read it.
Me too. I read the book only once, about 25 years ago, and it was so revelatory I can still remember whole passages. And then I read Boys and Girls Together, which was revelatory in a different way, and left me with some very confused ideas.