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Americans Are Having Less Sex Than 20 Years Ago, Study Finds (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: American adults reported having nine fewer romps a year in the early 2010s than they did in the late 1990s -- dropping from an average of about 62 times a year between 1995 and 2000 to around 53 a year between 2010 and 2014. Researchers saw declines across ages, races, religions, education levels, employment statuses, and regions. They linked the sagging numbers to two trends: an increase in singletons over that period -- who tend to have less sex than married or partnered people -- plus a slow-down in the sex lives of married and coupled people. But the drivers of those trends are still unclear. The study is based on data from a long-standing national survey called the General Social Survey (GSS). It involves a nationally representative sample of Americans over 18 years old, surveyed most years between 1972 and 2014. The new study involved responses from 26,620 Americans. Specifically, researchers found that married people's annual whoopee frequency dropped from an average of nearly 69 in the 1995-2000 period to just below 56 in the 2010-2014 period. The unmarried saw their lovemaking drop from 54 per year to 51 in the same timeframes. Meanwhile, the number of people without steady partners -- married or otherwise -- rose from 26 percent of survey respondents in 2006 to 33 percent in 2014. People who took the biggest hits in the bedroom since the 1990s were those with a college degree (about 15 fewer times a year) and people living in the South (about 13 fewer times a year). The study has been published in the journal Archives of Sexual Behavior.
Correlation with the rise of smartphones, tablets, social media, video on demand, ubiquitous porn, and poor interpersonal skills?
No, that's silly. The frequency of sex has to do with both people (and their respective schedules), and whether they actually communicate their needs to each other. When I watch porn it just makes me want to fuck the living crap out of my wife all the more.. that being said, I have to pay attention carefully to the signals, and do some things I normally don't really think about or feel like doing. As an added bonus, she's finally found her g-spot, and does this crazy thing with her hips, well.. whoosh!
Also, "the average woman does not compare..."; in what way? Doesn't she have a brain, and all the other naughty bits? I've been with stunning girls who were like cold limp beef in bed, and grey-skinned Turkish pig-women who were completely fucking hot. It's all in your minds, my friends.. Average is far far better than none.
It's like the weather: When it's crappy out, I remind myself that it's better than no weather at all.
The dirty little secret that Hollywood movies never told you is that married people have way more sex than singles. This drop in sexy times correlates to the drop in married couples in general (as the article cites). If you want to get it regular, put a ring on it and work to have a good relationship with your spouse.
If you disagree, please post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like
A part of me hopes that men in the US, much like those in Japan, are waking up to the terror that is false rape allegations, divorce and family law. Being aware of what *could* happen is like taking 100 ice cold showers while watching an old Richard Simmons workout tape.
Men; you have guilty. If it's your word against hers, I hope you can comfortably reach your ankle.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
I wouldn't be surprised if it's due to the over prescribing of anti-depressants. SSRI's are notorious for killing off your sex drive, and doctors prescribe them for everything under the sun.
I'm closing on 60 and still averaging over 150 a year (and about 9 hours a week). One may be related to the other-- sex may be of less value to average folks who take 3 to 15 minutes, half the women don't have an orgasm, etc.
Biggest suggestion I can make is to have your setup where the man can stand-- I prefer a inexpensive massage table. The height is adjustable. If she wants to ride cowboy, you can still lay down on it. It's comfortable but not so soft that you are fighting a mattress that's absorbing all your energy.
But for the guy- doing a 2 hour pushup is much harder than dancing for 2 hours.
Next, I'd say to guys *always* make sure she has an orgasm. Your orgasm is actually the optional one if you want to have a lot of sex- not hers.
And as you get older, look into tantric sex. But a little denial will actually make your interest stronger. And induces you to naturally be nice to her, complement her, etc.
I see so many couples who kill their sex lives thru random rejection. That's just a really deadly trap. One asks the other for sex and is rejected. After a few iterations, they stop asking.
To the women, I'd say- guys need to feel special and you gotta flatter them. That doesn't mean putting on lingerie and expecting them to get aroused. That works on 20 year olds but it fails against football and video games even for 28 year olds much less 30 year olds. Don't believe, "All I have to do is show up naked". No. You need to flirt. You need to touch. You need to express interest. Sure- he needs to do the same. But the male ego is a real thing. And even if he thinks he wants it- if his ego is torn up, the rocket isn't launching. Penetrative sex isn't the only show in town but it is the most important to many couples (and even women who feel validated that the male rose to the occasion).
To both sides: Brush and floss your teeth. A mouth that smells like decay isn't sexy. I don't even think I've ever seen a rule of 34 for that. For other body odors and scents- you need to talk to your partner and find out what they like. Antiseptic is good for some, but a little humanity is good for others and some folks like it ripe.
Anyway.. sounds like a really low rate. It's a wonderful human activity and can be a lot of fun.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
I can save the "reserachers" a lot of time: People are having less sex because they're not as bored as before.
No sig today...
Too much Fa(r)cebook.
Seriously, the number of people who spend all their relaxation time buried in that pile of steaming shite and ignoring their partner is just astounding, no wonder no intimacy happens.... Especially, I have to say it sorry, women.
Its a little more than that, but that is certainly a part of it. I blame the smart phone. I thought I had a great marriage right up until my wife got an Iphone. Now admittedly I do spend a little too much time with computers and music gear. So I wasn't that worried about it when my wife first got her Iphone, but 6 months later I was genuinely lonely, felt ignored, felt like I could not a have a decent conversation with her, and its been a battle since. I try to have a conversation with her, she has to check this thing and wont give the courtesy of putting it away for all of it. I try to go places and do things with it -- we could be at an incredibly fancy restaurant sans kids and still has to whip this one (and yes, it might be limited to a brief snap of this to post about it, but its often not), I have sex with her and 30 seconds later that blue light is on. I can't even watch a movie with her without her checking it.
I even took the step of introducing a high voltage static discharge into her prior one. She simply bought another within hours. She is not a morning person, so to see her sprint up even before I did to rush out to the Apple store was disheartening. Coming up upon a decade and I decided to file for divorce now rather than risk my retirement to it.
Some people may have a less intense reaction to it than I do. It depends upon what speaks to you about being loved and feeling loved. For me its no different than choosing crack cocaine over your partner. 16 years together, the last 10 of them married.
Freedom is merely privilege extended unless enjoyed by one and all.
I feel ya.
My first marriage also died a horrible death under a blue glow. Not a word at the restaurant table for texting under the table. Even better I found she was hooking up with old flames.
(I'm not against that but don't don the life jacket before the soup arrives, and let the other passengers know please)
I guess I should have read that from the mass panic of "zomgz I need to get a phone before we fly out". I've really never seen so much panic at the hands of potentially not having a web connection. She even carried two phones in case one of them failed. She even rushed us out of the restaurant because she needed to get back to the hotel to get on Facebook properly.
There are shitty people. There are shitty people with no manners. You can be at the butt end of a decade of delusion and dishonesty and never really figure out where it went awry. It all seems so frivolous now but I'm still getting calls 8 years later from debt collectors chasing her, and I'm still not convinced she didn't rip off the bank before we moved to America. I guess I'll never know the truth behind that now.
Facebook was only a facet of the problem but it was definitely the most maddening.
As women move further up the ladder economically they are less and less dependent on men. While women still have their own inherent sexual drive, their sex drive is lower than men for a variety of reasons -- when they are younger, due to the inherent risks of pregnancy and child-rearing, and as they age, due to the decline in fertility and the increased risks of childbirth that come with aging.
I think there's all kinds of evolutionary biology that suggests that sex drive in women is tied to the availability a reliable provider. Pregnant women and women with small children have much greater survival vulnerability -- reduced mobility, increases in risks from physical threats, increased nutritional requirements for both them and any offspring too young to participate in food gathering. And this remains true whether you're talking about a hunter-gatherer community or contemporary American economics -- pregnancy and child-bearing are significant drags on female economic advancement in our economy.
Not only does having a reliable economic provider create the conditions for reduced child-bearing risk and increase innate sex drive, it also creates an environment where women are more likely to meet male sexual demands because of their economic dependency. They have both fewer disincentives for sexual activity and incentives to meet their partners demands for sexual contact even when their own sexual desire thresholds aren't met.
I think this goes some way to explaining why conservatives favor traditional female roles -- increased female dependency leads to increased male access to sexuality.
The way to improve the sagging sexual numbers in the US is probably much stronger economic rights for pregnant women (reduce economic risks associated with pregnancy). It won't help women at the end or past their fertility, though, since nature is already doing its job to reduce desire via declining hormones to prevent high risk pregnancies or because pregnancy is not possible.