Emily Jamea, Ph.D., is a sex therapist, bestselling author, and speaker. You can find her here every month to share her latest thoughts on sex.
I had been working for about four months with Lauren and Jason, a couple in their mid-50s, about the sexual decline they had suffered over the last decade of their relationship. Like most couples in long-term relationships, they had experienced ebbs and flows of desire over the course of their 20-year relationship—a dip after the kids, a surge after a nice vacation—but in recent years the desire had declined so much that they were considering a breakup. Fortunately, I was able to help them breathe life back into their relationship. At her last session, Lauren asked if she could get my opinion on her 25-year-old daughter Katie.
Lauren giggled. “I feel crazy asking this because it’s on the opposite side of the spectrum from the concerns my parents had about me when I was their age, but as far as I know, Katie only had sex a few times and she never had a long-term relationship.”
Lauren didn’t know how to feel. Her daughter was smart, kind and ambitious, but part of Lauren was worried. Should she be relieved that her daughter wasn’t as crazy about boys as she used to be, or worried that she hadn’t yet experienced the deep emotional connection, heartache, and passion that she’d always thought was a rite of passage?
“You’re not off base,” I assured her.
“Your question is at the heart of what researchers are calling the ‘global sex recession.’ All over the world and across all generations, people are having less sex. The decline is greatest among younger adults like Katie. It’s a trend with complex causes and serious consequences for health, emotional development and intimate relationships.”
Although I didn’t directly identify Lauren and Jason as victims of the sexual recession, their question sparked a conversation about this broader societal problem. I pointed out that the factors that contributed to the recent sharp decline in her own marriage were most likely similar to those that affected her daughter.
What’s behind the sex recession?
One of the most widely cited large-scale studies found that:
- American adults reported having sex about nine times per year in the early 2010s compared to the late 1990s.
- The decline was attributed in part to a growing proportion of adults without partners, but the study also found reduced sexual frequency even among adults with partners.
- The decline in sexual frequency was similar across gender, race, region, education level, and work status, and was greatest among those over 50 (like Lauren and Jason), among those with school-aged children, and (perhaps counterintuitively) among those who did not watch pornography.
Another large study found similar results, particularly emphasizing the decline in men. According to the study, about one in three men ages 18 to 24 said they had not had sexual activity in the past year.
This is not just a US phenomenon. Similar patterns have been documented in other developed countries, where young people marry later and often have sex less often than their parents at the same age.
I explained to Lauren and Jason that there may be a few good reasons for the decline.
- Young people drink less alcohol, which may lead to fewer risky sexual behaviors and regretted encounters.
- Active conversations about consent and sexual boundaries can lead to fewer people feeling forced into sexual situations they don’t want.
- For many, prioritizing career, education, and emotional preparedness over a relationship can be a thoughtful decision.
But there are also negative reasons for the decline. The main reasons of concern are:
- Younger adults (like Katie) have fewer romantic relationships. This fits with what many therapists observe in practice – sex often doesn’t disappear first, but the connection does. Sexual opportunities shrink as fewer people seriously date, live together, or enter into stable relationships.
- Economic stress and delayed adulthood also contribute. Stress, financial instability, and delayed independence can make it more difficult to build relationships where intimacy thrives.
- Alcohol also ends up on the bad list. It used to act as a proven social lubricant, but many young people fail to replace it with other confidence-building tools. In addition, lower alcohol consumption is seen as another example of the risk aversion typical of young adults. In other words, young children are anxious and this affects their ability to present themselves on the dating scene.
- Finally, we must acknowledge the role of screens and devices. This was a big part of my work with Lauren and Jason. We often associate device addiction with children and adults, but it affects people of all ages. Jason spent his evenings scrolling through various sporting events on his phone and messaging friends in his fantasy drafts. Lauren fell victim to scrolling cooking videos that she never got a chance to try. Luckily for Jason and Lauren, they recovered immediately after a digital detox. However, this is not often the case for younger adults who have never developed these social skills. As young adults spend less time in face-to-face social situations (where they learn to read clues, deal with awkwardness, flirt respectfully, and recover from rejection), it becomes easier to feel that love is abstract, risky, or not worth the emotional effort.
Consequences of the sex recession
These factors largely explain how and why sexual activity changes, rather than whether this change is important for health and development. Sexual contact, especially in intimate relationships, is not just about physical pleasure. It is closely linked to mental, emotional and relational health. There is growing evidence that regular, consensual sexual expression is associated with greater mental and emotional well-being, healthier relationships, and better physical health.
Lauren’s concerns about Katie were justified. She feared that her daughter would “miss out” not only on sex, but also on the exhilarating experience of good, bad and ugly that comes with falling in and out of love.
Our conversation gave Lauren and Jason greater insight into how their own breakup fit into a larger social issue and inspired them to provide information to share with Katie in the hopes that it might lead to a constructive conversation about their own romantic future.
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