Sexless Youth: Whatever happened to Horny Young People?

In the past few months, I have read a flurry of articles mentioning, sometimes bemoaning the fact that young people are having less sex. While the majority of the articles are quoting accurately the results of different studies, none are either asking questions or offering explanations for the phenomena. Until a few days ago actually, when a well known writer suggested that too much jogging was to blame.

Before I delve in some alternative potential explanations to the “jogging theory” let me look at some of the questions we should be asking ourselves:

1. Fact checker: Can we stand over the studies’ results? 

The studies I have come across have been conducted in different European and Northern American countries and they all seem to point to the same results: namely that young people are indeed having less sex than their parents. However, It is important to note that government bodies and universities are not investing in sexuality studies. The recent French study is interesting because it compares a new set of data with previous studies from 1970, 1990 and 2006. Interestingly enough, this time the study was paid for by a sex toy manufacturer. The data is not compromised by this and the survey was carried out by a trusted statistics centre but the question remains why do we need to rely on commercial entities to find out about our sexuality?

2. Does it matter that young people are having less sex?

As a sex therapist, my mission statement is to try to get people to have more sex so evidently it does matter to me. If I was a bit facetious, I could argue it is both good and bad, the worse people’s sex life is the better for business or on the contrary if this trend becomes the norm people won’t see lack of sex as a problem anymore and my job is gone.

More seriously, we should ask ourselves:  what kind of sex young people are having now and what kind of sex were young people having then? Is it comparable? According to the CSO, in 1973, the average age of grooms was 27.2 years, while it was 24.8 years for brides. While there was undoubtedly some pre-marital sex then, sex occurred predominantly within an established relationship and besides the religious taboos as well as access to contraception/termination played a huge part in the decision to have sex.

The French study points out that as female respondents’ age decreases, they are less likely to have sex to please their partner. In other words, the notion of conjugal rights is something young women no longer consider relevant. Is that  such a bad thing? 

When it comes to explanations as to why young people are having less sex, the answers are varied and each of them feeds into the pot. Here are a few: 

This is the first generation to go to bed every night with their own portable entertainment device. So the bedroom is not a sacred boudoir anymore. We used to speak about the intimacy of the bedroom but now the whole planet comes to bed with you and while this could be a lot of fun in very different circumstances, in reality it is another dividing wall for couples. In the French study, when asked if they had avoided having sex in the past year to watch an online program or play an online game?  50 % of men and 42% of women aged 35 or less agreed they had.  We are of course living through a golden area of digital content and it may be that sex doesn’t make the cut anymore. The study revealed that 54 % of female respondents (vs 42% of male respondents)  would envisage continuing to live with their partner in a platonic arrangement.

I am never keen on demonising pornography because it can play a part in ADULT -sexuality but the proliferation and ease of access means that young people can turn to quick and instant gratification rather than more complicated interpersonal negotiations to obtain sexual pleasure. It is easier to hide behind a screen than to be vulnerable in front of someone else and this is really at the core of intimacy and ultimately this may be the most dramatic societal change we are currently experiencing.

The studies are also giving a truer picture of sexuality than social media do and maybe this is the reason the newspapers are picking up on those studies. The statistics we have in sexology do not match the instagram picture of amazing, sex pre and post parenthood. Combining great sexuality and intimacy is an extremely volatile equation in long established relationships. We can write advice columns and point to exotic sexual practices but for the majority of people maintaining sexual desire is not a constant. 

It would take more than an article to go into the psychosocial genesis of human sexuality but I think it is interesting to point out that desire is nourished by absence, lack of availability, perceived uniqueness and a certain element of transgression. If I can have sex anytime with anyone and I think everyone else can also have the same sex as me, it becomes less special or exciting.

Finally and maybe a more controversial reason could be the decline of alcohol consumption which is accelerating in recent years. In France, wine consumption fell by almost 70%, from over 120 litres per capita per year in 1960 to less than 40 litres in 2020. Can we prove there is a link between young people drinking less and not having sex, well it certainly something which should be studied.

In sexology, everything and its contrary is true and I could spend the day contradicting myself but isn’t it paradoxical that in societies where it has never been easier both digitally and morally to hook up for no string attached sexual encounters, young people are less likely to do so?