Have More Sex, Please!
By Magdalene J. Taylor
Ms. Taylor is a writer covering sex and culture.
Sex is good. Sex is healthy. Sex is an essential part of our social fabric. And you — specifically — should probably be having more of it.
Americans, in the midst of a loneliness epidemic, are not having enough sex. Across almost every demographic group, American adults old and young, single and coupled, rich and poor are having less sex than they have had at any point in at least the past three decades.
Sex isn’t the sole form of fulfilling human interaction and certainly isn’t a salve for loneliness in all forms. Still, it should be seen as a critical part of our social well-being, not an indulgence or an afterthought. This is in large part because the rise in loneliness closely parallels a decline in sex. More than a quarter of Americans hadn’t had sex even once in the past year the last time the General Social Survey asked, in 2021. It was the highest such level of sexlessness in the survey’s history.
That figure includes almost 30 percent of men under 30, a figure that has tripled since 2008. In the 1990s, about half of Americans were having sex weekly or more — that figure is now under 40 percent. For many who are having sex, the frequency has dropped precipitously. And it’s not just sex: Partnership and cohabitation are down, too. Less time spent with friends and lovers — these aren’t distinct issues but symptoms of the same cultural malaise, an isolation that is demolishing Americans’ social lives, love lives and happiness.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/13/opin ... =share-url
