
There isn’t anything magical about it: Why more millennials are avoiding sex - nkurz
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/social-issues/there-isnt-really-anything-magical-about-it-why-more-millennials-are-putting-off-sex/2016/08/02/e7b73d6e-37f4-11e6-8f7c-d4c723a2becb_story.html
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superuser2
Okay, I'll bite.

Isn't the elephant in the room obesity? Is it possible we are less sexually
active because people are turned off by unhealthy weights, and being in the
"healthy" BMI band now makes you an elite minority?

It'd be easy to demonstrate this isn't true, if we had something like "obesity
is mostly middle-aged people, young adults are roughly unaffected" or "weight
and number of sexual partners are actually uncorrelated" or something. But I
wonder.

~~~
vivekd
The suggestion that millennials are having less sex because they are
unattractive seems far fetched. I'm not sure what obesity rates among
millennials is - but I'm sure if enough of them were that fat, it would sort
of become the new norm and standards for attractiveness would change
accordingly.

I think the real explanation is the the curve in the graph, we had 3 for
greatest generation, 5 for silents then jumping up to 11 during the boomers,
then declining slightly during x and declining further during millennials.

I bet if we could extend the graph back historically we would see the vast
majority of human generations were closer to the greatest generation in number
of sex partners. This looks to me like there was an increase in sexual
promiscuity during the sexual revolution, the effects of which are tapering
off as humans return to their normal sexual habits.

~~~
DonaldFisk
> if enough of them were that fat, it would sort of become the new norm and
> standards for attractiveness would change accordingly.

The most attractive women have always, everywhere, had a waist-hip ratio of
around 0.7
([http://www.scienceofrelationships.com/home/2013/11/11/curves...](http://www.scienceofrelationships.com/home/2013/11/11/curves-
ahead-the-science-of-female-waist-to-hip-ratio-and-at.html)). That would rule
out obesity as the new norm of attractiveness. I assume there is also a
formula/ratio for attractive men that rules out their being obese.

Also, people are known to lie about the number of sexual partners they have
had
([http://archive.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2007/08/12/st...](http://archive.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2007/08/12/statistics_on_sexual_partners_cant_be_right_specialists_say/)).
Could that be a factor here?

Finally, the article focuses on age of first sex and number of sexual
partners, not frequency of sex. It doesn't rule out millennials having more
frequent sex with fewer partners.

Stop press: [https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/aug/03/large-
number...](https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/aug/03/large-number-of-
young-people-experience-sex-problems-study-finds)

------
mc32
It's interesting that this resembles the trend in Japan that many attribute to
their lackluster economic situation post real estate/bubble collapse in the
early 90s and the subsequent dirth of lifetime salaryman type job oops.

They are called the parasite generation, the herbivores, etc.

Some good things about it, some bad. Good in that fewer neglected children of
patents who were not prepared, bad in that our current economic model depends
on pop growth...

------
antiquark
Maybe it's because the millennials are less likely to own a car, more likely
to live with their parents, more likely to have a huge debt (student loans),
and less likely to have a job.

I can see how all those facts could put a damper on having lots and lots of
sex.

~~~
pizzman41
Also might be worth looking at the rate of anti-depressant use and the impact
they may have on sex-drive

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Mz
There was a time when you kind of had to hook up to get experience. Now, you
can google just about anything and talk to people all over the world, day or
night. You don't have to go expose yourself to a bunch of risks to get a clue.

I don't see that as a problem and I bet many millenials don't know how to put
their finger on why this is just not an issue for them. They weren't around
when their parents were hooking up to figure out some basics and they just
take their enormous access to information and life experience at their
fingertips for granted.

~~~
ams6110
People know how to have sex instinctively. You don't need to do a lot of
hooking up to figure it out.

~~~
draw_down
Definitely disagree.

------
yolesaber
Porn and hookup apps have commodified sex to the point where it isn't
necessarily as liberating or stimulating as it once was.

That being said, I'd be interested in seeing this broken down geographically.
I live in a big east coast city and let me assure millennials are having a lot
of sex.

~~~
greenshackle
Why are hookup apps making sex less stimulating? Because they cause people to
have more sex. I can't see any other reason.

So what you're saying is, young people are having less sex, because they're
having more sex?

(take this as tongue-in-cheek, I don't think you're really making that
argument)

~~~
bjourne
It's the chooser's dilemma. Girls are having to many options and can't make up
their mind so they end up with nothing. Same reason even very beautiful women
end up single and childless in their 40's.

~~~
Grishnakh
> Same reason even very beautiful women end up single and childless in their
> 40's.

I thought that was because they spent their 20s-30s focusing on college and
their careers, and just as they had extremely high standards for those, they
also had extremely high standards for men they dated, so they ended up not
"settling" for anyone.

I'm just over 40 and have dated a few of these urban-dwelling women who 40 and
up, never married, no kids. There's a ridiculous number of them in DC. In my
estimation based on personal experience, they're all incredibly picky and
won't date a guy unless everything is absolutely perfect. In my case they tend
to lose interest very fast because I live outside the city presently so I'm
not conveniently located. To be snarky, they seem to all want a guy who's over
6' tall, looks like a model, dresses like he's on the cover of GQ, makes
$300k/year, and lives across the street from her. And I actually meet a couple
of these criteria to some extent: I'm over 6' (which seems to be very rare
here on the east coast I've noticed...), I have a good-paying job (though not
$300k/year good), and I'm told I'm very attractive, particularly for an
over-40 guy as I'm thin and in great shape and frequently confused for someone
10+ years younger; my deficiencies are that I don't dress like a GQ model
(more like an engineer who wears polo shirts all the time), I'm not outgoing
and gregarious (I'm a software engineer....), and I don't live in the hip part
of town these women all live in. The last such woman that seemed to be
seriously interested in me (a 40yo lawyer) dumped me after a few weeks because
of the distance, or so she said, even though this was something she knew about
up-front. Oh yeah, these women also don't like guys who are separated or
recently divorced (good lucking finding a decent guy at 40+ who's never been
married or was divorced years ago). And AFAICT, they are not quick to jump
into bed with someone, in fact quite the opposite (and these are not
conservative religious women either, they're all liberal Democrats AFAICT,
though really more like "limousine liberals"). Sorry for the rambling, but the
thing about single, childless, pretty women in their 40s is something I have
recent and direct experience with so I couldn't help going off.

~~~
NotSammyHagar
You have a very interesting background and experiences. As a 40 something
software engineer I see a bunch of my friends getting divorced and not having
much success in the dating pool. I can think of one person very similar to you
in almost every way, he can't find anyone to date.

~~~
Grishnakh
If you'd like to chat more about it, I'd be happy to compare notes. I'm always
looking for more people in the same boat as me.

Are these friends of yours in or near metro areas? If so, which one(s)? From
my research, if you're a single guy in the Bay Area, you'd better be happy
with celibacy, and Seattle isn't much better. But NYC and DC are full of
single 35-45 women (but they're all incredibly picky IMO as I said before).
The problem, however, is that if your friends are all software engineers,
they're more likely to be in cities that have more men than women. NYC just
isn't a very good place for a SW engineer, unless you love finance and HFT
(and what I read about the work environments in those places is not good, and
you'll have no free time for dating anyway), or web development. DC is mostly
defense-related stuff, and in my experience there, the defense stuff is all
_well_ outside the city proper (defense contractors are cheap bastards I
guess), whereas all the upper-middle-class single women live in Georgetown or
near Dupont Circle or something, since they all work downtown or at the
university, so you're looking at a minimum 45-minute drive to visit each
other.

I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that software engineering is an
absolutely horrible profession to get into if you're a hetero male who isn't
an ultra-conservative churchgoer and wants to be able to date attractive
professional women: it places you in locations that are far from these women,
and keeps you in social circles that are completely alien to them, and in work
environments that are devoid of any such women. I really wish I had gone into
the medical field instead, honestly. In my experience, engineering is a great
field if you're either an ultra-conservative religious person who wants a
stay-at-home wife in a low cost-of-living region, or you're asexual and want
to live in Silicon Valley and dedicate your life to work.

------
niftich
This article admits that millennials are still having plenty of sex, but the
small percentage of millennials who isn't having as much sex is slowly
growing. This implies, either that:

[a] some people who had more sex in the past have less sex now; or

[b] some people who haven't yet had sex are waiting even later to do so

These are somewhat different circumstances, even if the article conflates
them, and even if some of the underlying causes apply to both groups.

------
atombath
Isn't sex over-rated though? Obviously it is the funnest activity evolution
has ever given us but the associated social/resource costs ruin it. From a
Millenial's perspective, previous generations have put sex on a pedestal
because there were few better things for them to pass the time with. Now we
not only have sexual agency(toys + porn) but we also have the world's
information and media at our fingertips.

I know it isn't the intention of the well-done article but the premise does
feel like the jock making fun of the nerd who simply has different priorities
and better things to do.

I wish these statistics cared less about generational changes and tried to
plot sex-drive changes for everyone by decade. I'm sure we'd see it plummet
after widespread acceptance of the internet and discrete shipping.

------
greydius
I'm not a millenial, but this quote sums up my attitude towards dating

> “For an average date, you’re going to spend at least two hours, and in that
> two hours I won’t be doing something I enjoy,”

~~~
niftich
Don't dating sites, or merely texting for a while before a date mitigate some
of that feeling? The parties involved can narrow down a range of activities
that they'd like for a first date.

In my circles, a normal first date is somewhere casual in public where you can
sit for a while, like a Starbucks or Panera, or equivalent coffeehouse in
countries where coffeehouses actually exist. First impressions matter insofar
as 10 minutes into the date you start to get an idea whether you and the other
person is truly on the same wavelength, and about 30 minutes in, you know for
sure.

If it's working, you're connecting with another person, and you can plan
something more engaging for the next encounter, and if it didn't work, you're
only out the price of a drink. Is it truly a common sentiment that dates are
too bothersome to make them worthwhile?

~~~
Grishnakh
>In my circles, a normal first date is somewhere casual in public where you
can sit for a while, like a Starbucks or Panera, or equivalent coffeehouse in
countries where coffeehouses actually exist.

You mean like the US? If you're in any kind of decent city, there's plenty of
nice coffee shops which aren't Starbucks. If the only coffee shops around are
Starbucks, you're living in a shithole.

I usually propose to meet at non-Starbucks coffee shops for my first dates
too. It's nice because even if the date is a bust (as it always is...), I now
know of a new coffee shop.

>Is it truly a common sentiment that dates are too bothersome to make them
worthwhile?

I really don't know because I don't hang out with Millenials that young (that
guy in the article was only 18 IIRC), but I kinda doubt it. I think that guy
was just a freak. He talked about how he just likes to sit at home in front of
his computer with 3 different screens showing 3 different things at once
(video game, movie, other) and focus on making money. I really don't think
that's normal, I think the article's author managed to find one of the
weirdest people possible and then try to present him as representative of all
younger Millenials.

~~~
niftich
> If the only coffee shops around are Starbucks, you're living in a shithole.

I don't disagree, but in my opinion picking a very mainstream, arguably mass-
market, but still decent place for a first date over the one-of-a-kind local
shop is useful signalling.

It makes it clear that you're not trying to impress by the choice of venue and
you're not trying to project a particular lifestyle, and is a form of
expectation management.

I don't believe that the hardcore multitasker in the example, gaming but
somehow still money-making, typifies the average millennial either, but since
the population of non- sexually active millennials is a subset, perhaps he's
less of an outlier in that group.

At the risk of subjectively overgeneralizing in the other direction, perhaps
that some of us perceive none of these anecdotes as very typical 'young
people' behavior suggests that quirkier people have less sex than people whose
behaviors and opinions wouldn't have stood out to us as much. Or we could just
be too biased to what we think is 'normal' behavior. It's an intriguing point.

~~~
Grishnakh
>I don't disagree, but in my opinion picking a very mainstream, arguably mass-
market, but still decent place for a first date over the one-of-a-kind local
shop is useful signalling.

I was mainly objecting to your line about "countries where coffeehouses
actually exist." We have those in the US, they're all over the place. Just not
in small towns or shitty (usually smaller and Southern) cities. Just open
Google Maps, pick any metro area with at least 1M people, and search for
"coffee". You should easily find something that's not Starbucks or Panera
(though I will admit Panera is pretty good, it's my favorite corporate chain
by far, but make sure to go to the corporate locations and not the franchises
if you can). They aren't all one-of-a-kind local shops; there are plenty of
local or regional chains around. I'll take any of those over Starbucks.

But for your "useful signaling", that can be played different ways. Picking a
Starbucks when there's better convenient alternatives, to me, says that you're
possibly a mindless consumer drone who just buys whatever's popular without
putting any thought into your consumption. Maybe I'm just biased, but from my
own experience, Starbuck's product is generally sub-par, and their shops are
generally too small and overcrowded compared to their competition. Not really
the kind of place where you can sit down with someone and have a nice, quiet
chat. Maybe they used to be years ago.

You're probably right about quirkier people. Maybe the Millenials have a
higher proportion of quirkier people than previous generations. The internet
certainly can be blamed for that.

------
haasn
I wonder if these numbers would change if one included sexting. I have a
feeling that a growing portion of both relationships and sexual activities are
being held over the internet.

~~~
soylentcola
But is that really "having sex"? I know we had the discussion of what
constitutes sex during the Clinton years but still, I feel like anything that
doesn't at least include physical stimulation of some sort (in the same
location) isn't really having sex. "Sexting" is more like flirting or "dirty
talk".

I wouldn't consider phone sex (to go back to previous years) the same as
having sex. It's like leaving a sexy note in your lover's or spouse's pocket
to find at work or calling them up at lunch to ask them to guess what you're
wearing.

It's definitely on the spectrum of intimate activities but if I've only had
sexy video-call time or sexy Snapchat exchanges with someone (but not actually
participated in anything in person) I would definitely not consider myself to
have had sex with them.

------
draw_down
I feel sorry for these people, quite frankly. You've been busy, eh? I see, I
see.

------
Joof
8 seems like a pretty reasonable number. It was much lower before that...

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peapicker
The curse of the Otaku is spreading....

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racl101
It's such a major liability to have sex with a girl, impregnate them, be stuck
with a kid all while job prospects suck too.

I say this is a side-effect of Millennials forgoing pretty much a lot of
comforts that boomers have come to enjoy, like owning a home or owning a car.

Austerity in every sense of the word.

Also, as a male millennial, I can honestly say that the climate to be
promiscuous has never been less inviting.

~~~
Yaa101
First of all do not take this personal, I am trying to react in general on a
whole generation and not blaming them as each generation deals with life they
get confronted with. As a generation X person I think that the millennial
generation is quite risk averse. You can see this in many fields, from
political correctness going over the top, to risk aversion in music and
culture, and even when it comes to building relations of which sex is a part.
I do not know or try to point why this is but it does stand out from what I
see around me. I feel very fortunate to have lived through punk music, squat
housing, crazy ass parties and taking risks in my life, it made me stronger
minded against what other people think of me and more confident in life.

~~~
lawpoop
> risk aversion in music

What do you mean by this? That you haven't heard anything original in music
since you were a kid?

~~~
Yaa101
Why are you trying to play it on the man? you must know better than that, my
generation heard and made many great tunes...

~~~
tremon
_my generation heard and made many great tunes_

Every generation will say this (which is probably the point the GP was trying
to make).

