Even though people are more open to
discussing sex these days than they were a
generation ago, they don’t appear to be
engaging in the activity any more frequently,
according to the results of a new study
published online this week in the journal
Archives of Sexual Behavior .
In fact, San Diego State University psychology
professor Dr. Jean M. Twenge and her
colleagues found that Americans who were
either married or living together had sex 16
fewer times per year on average from 2010 to
2014 than similar couples did between the
years 2000 and 2004.
Furthermore, data collected from the General
Social Survey (a nationally representative
sample of more than 26,000 US adults who
were asked about their sexual behavior dating
back to 1989) revealed that overall, Americans
had sex a total of about nine fewer times per
year between 2010 and 2014 than they did
between 1995 and 1999.
“These data show a major reversal from
previous decades in terms of marriage and
sex. In the 1990s, married people had sex
more times per year than never-married
people, but by the mid-2000s that reversed,
with the never-married having more sex,” Dr.
Twenge said in a statement .
So why are Americans having less
sex?
According to the authors, the results of the
study are due in part to the higher percentage
of men and women who do not have partners,
and who thus have sex less often as a result.
In addition, even though sexual frequency
among unpartnered people remained constant,
it declined among married and cohabitating
couples, meaning that those individuals made
love less often.
These decreases in sexual frequency were
consistent across genders, races, regions,
educational levels, and work status, and were
largest among those in their 50s, those with
school-age children and those who did not
watch pornography, the researchers found.
The differences were based on generation,
with those born in the 1930s having sex the
most often while those born in the 1990s
tended to have sex the least often.
“Age had a strong effect on sexual frequency:
Americans in their 20s had sex an average of
about 80 times per year, compared to about
20 times per year for those in their 60s,” Dr.
Twenge and her colleagues wrote. “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.”
“Despite their reputation for hooking up,
millennials and the generation after them
(known as iGen or Generation Z) are actually
having sex less often than their parents and
grandparents did when they were young,”
explained Dr. Twenge. “That's partially
because fewer iGen'ers and millennials have
steady partners.”
“Older and married people are having sex less
often – especially after 2000. In a previous
paper, we found that the happiness of adults
over age 30 declined between 2000 and 2014.
With less sex and less happiness, it's no
wonder that American adults seem deeply
dissatisfied these days,” she added, noting
that working longer hours isn’t to blame, as
those who spent more time on the job actually
tended to have sex more frequently on the
whole.