
Declines in Sexual Frequency Among American Adults, 1989–2014 - rodionos
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10508-017-0953-1
======
avenoir
I 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.

~~~
return0
There'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.

~~~
dakroot
Female here! I "went my own way" about three years ago...and it's awesome! I'm
not a cat lady either...can't stand the things.

I won't deny radical Libertarianism had a lot to do with this decision, but
it's basically this: if you find someone you adore, spend time with them. Have
sex with them if you feel like it. If you guys don't make each other happy at
some point, do some solo traveling. Spend time contemplating alone. Hang out
with different people. Then, come back together.

It's incredible how much new, interesting shit you'll have to talk about when
you live this way. You may fall in love with each other all over again.

I don't know if it's true that we "don't know how to relationship" anymore,
rather, we're relationship-ing in a way that doesn't serve modern
society/reality/whatever-you-want-to-call-it.

Cheers!

~~~
nojvek
Average life expectancy a couple of hundred years ago was 40. Marriage kind of
made sense. Now it's double that and soon we might end up tripling it.

My grandmother and her great grand daughter are both alive.

When humans live that long, having the liberty to change partners is
refreshing. Like having another sub-life.

~~~
taylodl
Yes, average life expectancy was dramatically lower than now but that's
because of childhood diseases. Generally, if you made it to your 20s you'd
make it to your 60's. But boy did all those children dying wreck the average
life expectancy calculation!

~~~
sanswork
Sapians talks a bit about how bad it was. King Edward I of England who would
have had access to the best care of the time had 11 out of his 20 kids die in
childhood.

------
webkike
I'm glad statistics proved what I was already painfully aware of.

~~~
chillacy
The 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.

~~~
coldtea
An 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
The 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
9 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.

~~~
chillacy
You're not wrong but I wish you backed your evidence with numbers from the
paper instead of hypotheticals.

~~~
coldtea
The paper is behind a paywall though.

Besides the original comment just gave the number "9 less" without any other
number from the paper as context so that we can evaluate the importance of the
change.

~~~
chillacy
My bad, I assumed everyone else had access. Someone else posted a link in the
comments section.

------
brilliantcode
what 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)

~~~
cgriswald
I think the divorce rate of previous generations has a lot to do with it. My
parents divorced when I was young. It took me a long time to be able to even
develop the emotional maturity to have an intimate relationship, and longer
still to develop any real skill at it. I had no real role models, and the
survival lesson I learn was "never be vulnerable." But vulnerability is key to
intimacy. It was not until I went through a divorce of my own that I really
even "got it".

And now... I'm having trouble finding a partner capable of that level of
intimacy. My most recent ex-girlfriend was a brick wall; no vulnerability, no
expression of deeper emotion. Just a willingness to fight and a quickness to
get angry. She's convinced she's not worth loving, and so, of course, she
pushed me away, questioned _everything_ , and didn't trust me when I said, "I
know you think I feel Y, but I actually feel X." She, too, is the product of
divorced parents.

~~~
brilliantcode
This really hits home. I pondered whether I should write the following string
of text because they are deeply personal but I've worked up the courage to put
them in writing because it's been driving me nuts and I'm sick of having to
protect my parent's failures.

The earliest memory I have of my father is raging and suffocating my mother
with a blanket. The whole movie is spotty. It's like my mind was trying to
protect my 7 year old brain by "deleting" traumatic moments. This is the tip
of the iceberg. All I can say is I've never felt safe. My biggest fear at the
end of school was walking home in fear _every single day_ that my dad might
try to kill my mom.

My lifelong desire was to provide financially for my mom and younger sister so
she wouldn't have to depend on my father. I've failed here but I'm still in
this software game, hoping that I can finally provide the life my mom and
sister is owed-my father being the world's poorest and financially
irresponsible dentist.

Even as I'm writing this I'm starting to get uneasy and it's hard for me to
continue. Everytime I revisit these scenes, it starts to trigger anxiety and
panic.

While I think divorce is traumatic, the aftermath of toxic adults who have
deep hatred for each other is even more harmful to a child.

I really wish my parents had divorced earlier. I wish I hadn't seen,
experienced early childhood, teens to adulthood.

I am utterly broken. I'm 100% certain that I will remain the way I am. Unable
to marry, unable to have meaningful intimate relationships. I'm 30 but I do
not feel like my emotional maturity is remotely close.

But all that I can bear. As long as there's a single breath of life in me, it
will go towards creating products that will solve challenging problems and get
paid for it so I can find peace for my family and myself.

Happy Wednesday, dear reader.

~~~
cgriswald
Hey, thanks for sharing that. I hope it was as helpful to you sharing it as it
was for me reading it.

I really relate to your need to support your mom and sister. Whether I wanted
it or not, I was the 'man of the house' very early on. It's extremely unfair
and affected every relationship I had up until I got divorced.

I also relate to your missing/foggy memories. For a long time I couldn't
remember the _happy_ parts of my childhood. It was like life began for me when
my parents divorced; and life was hell.

If you haven't, consider therapy. I can't really describe how it helped me
move past the emotions of my childhood, but it did. I have no issues
remembering the happier times, and I can remember the miserable times without
really feeling that black dread spreading across my stomach anymore. If you're
still feeling it, you're stuck, and it's okay to get help with it.

Trust me when I say you are not utterly broken. You've been tenacious in your
pursuit of peace, be tenacious in your pursuit of a whole self.

------
jimmyswimmy
From 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.

~~~
chillacy
Not 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.

------
maus42
While 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).

------
coffeymug
I would like to know the effect Tinder has had on sexual frequency.

~~~
chillacy
The 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.

------
xiphias
I 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.

------
pdog
_> 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
Are 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.

------
d--b
I'm curious about the correlation with alcohol consumption?

~~~
trhway
>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
Long 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
From the abstract: "The decline was not linked to longer working hours".

~~~
dllthomas
That says nothing of the _mismatched_ working hours that the parent was
speaking to.

------
542458
Sounds interesting. Anybody have a link to the full article?

~~~
return0
[http://sci-hub.cc/https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%...](http://sci-
hub.cc/https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10508-017-0953-1)

------
hkon
Internet...

------
pavel_lishin
> _There 's also a trend of men 'going their own way'._

Are those idiots a statistically significant percentage of the population?

~~~
dang
Would you please not comment like this here?

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

We detached this subthread from
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13823356](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13823356)
and marked it off-topic.

~~~
pavel_lishin
Sorry; I shouldn't have let my personal opinions color my comments like that.

