Americans Are Having Less Sex Than Ever. What Gives?
Updated: Jul. 25, 2017
No need to freak out, though.
You know what’s sexy? Statistics.
Modern Americans go against the seeming sexual norms when it comes to their sex lives. By age 44, 95 percent of Americans have had sex outside of wedlock, according to a 2006 study. From 1954-1963, that number was considerably lower, 88 percent within the same age range.
The trend toward the bedroom seems to have halted in recent years, however. A new study has revealed that Americans in the early 2010s are having sex about nine fewer times per year than their compatriots in the late 1990s.
The study, published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior took into account both partnered and unpartnered individuals and spanned from 1989 to 2014. Although the numbers as a whole decline from the late ’90s to the early ’10s, the decline was seen almost exclusively with partnered people as opposed to unpartnered ones.
Despite this decline among partnered folks, the study still notes that those involved in a regular relationship have more sex than those not in a relationship. The two primary factors for the decline are listed in the study as “increasing number of individuals without a steady or marital partner and a decline in sexual frequency among those with partners.”
When examining Americans by age group, individuals in their 20s had sex the with the greatest frequency, about 80 times per year, while individuals in their 60s had sex with the least frequency, about 20 times per year.
There was also a considerable difference from generation to generation; when looking at the whole of Americans born in the 20th century, the data showed that individuals born in the 1930s had the most sex, while individuals born in the 1990s had the least.
While there’s no clear culprit behind this decline, one possible reason could be technology. “Whether they’re at dinner or walking their dog, I see more and more couples looking at their respective phones while they’re together,” Marty Klein, certified sex therapist, tells CNN. Sure enough, that tech habit has seeped its way into the bedroom.
“Couples have allowed themselves to drift into habits that disconnect them. If sex has become boring for them, it’s because they’ve allowed the drift to dampen their creativity, not because that YouTube video is so much more exciting.” psychotherapist Deborah Fox also tells CNN.
If the generational declination of American sexual activity is really keeping you up at night, there are always ways to turn things around, like these tips that can improve your sex life in just one day. Just always make safe sex a priority, considering the way things are trending, health-wise.
