In the most recent surveys, men age 18 to 44 were more likely to have had no partners in the past year (16 percent) compared to women (12 percent). Most women and men reported at least weekly sex, and most people reported having one sexual partner in the prior year. Although much debated, it has been suggested that the introduction of smartphones has resulted in less opportunity for and skills in real-world human interactions, he said. An increase in depression and anxiety among young adults, and adolescents increasingly postponing the start of adult activities such as dating and sex, may also be a contributing factor. It is good that we can talk about sex, but we also need to be better at talking about not having sex."Ĭhanges in sexual norms, the stress and busyness of modern life, and the supply of online entertainment that may compete with sexual activity may explain some of the changes, Ueda said. Sexual inactivity and potential dissatisfaction with it seem to be sensitive topics, perhaps more so than sex. "A key question is to what extent sexual inactivity is associated with dissatisfaction? While being sexually inactive is a choice for some individuals, it could be a source of distress for others. "Although the decrease in sexual frequency among those who were sexually active is interesting, what deserves more attention is the increase in sexual inactivity, because sexually intimate relationships are important for many (though certainly not all) people's well-being and quality of life," Ueda said. Ueda said the study is unique because - though prior research has shown an overall decline in how often people are having sex - this study looks at the proportion of people with various levels of sexual activity, including those who report no partnered sex at all in the prior year. The study, which was published in the JAMA Network Open, used data from the General Social Survey, 2000 to 2018, to look at sexual frequency and number of sexual partners in the past year for almost 10,000 men and women combined.
"We're also now living in a time when people don't have many of their usual channels of meeting potential sex or relationship partners."
"While this finding would have been important at any time, it may be particularly salient now that the pandemic has shifted so much in our worlds, resulting in more people of all genders without employment," Herbenick said. Moreover, men of lower income, or with part-time or no employment, along with men and women who are students, are more likely to be sexually inactive. This coincided with decreases in those who had sex at least weekly and in those with one sexual partner over the past year, while the proportion of men and women with two or more partners in the past year had remained largely unchanged. Men and women age 25 to 34 also reported an increase in sexual inactivity during the time period. from 2000 to 2018.ĭuring that time, the researchers found that sexual inactivity had increased from 19 percent to 31 percent among men age 18 to 24. The study - co-authored by Debby Herbenick, professor in sexual and reproductive health at the IU School of Public Health-Bloomington, and Peter Ueda, a physician-researcher at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden - looked at the sexual activity and number of partners of 18- to 44-year-olds in the U.S.