I promise this is not a problem unique to any one generation lol.
Remember, we went hundreds of years in many western civs not believing women could orgasm… and not that far removed from the present time. It’s partially a byproduct of women historically being seen as property and a tool for men.
When I was doing sex ed with young people, we put MUTUAL pleasure near the top of the hierarchy just under consent for what partners should do within sexual relationships. Once you care about whether or not your partner is getting pleasure, and you’re at the place where you can TALK about that pleasure (or lack thereof), almost every other important part of sex will come into place (like protection and communication).
It’s so amusing to listen to my single friends who’ve met partners online and are looking forward to more, but no interest in marriage. And these ladies are older than I am. Oh and a few men, too. But as far as being aproached, the right guy(s) are fine. That’s a problem about the men in our age group: “sexy” has changed. So has “attractive.”
As for the younger, D1 could tell who, on Tinder, was out for an early hookup and wasn’t interested in those. She had fun in college, but that was a connection, not the random online stuff. Now, she was looking for a deeper connection. Changed sites and found him immediately. Other of her friends dropped long (ish) terms boyfrends and are fine with the drought, til they meet another. Maybe these kids are just more discerning.
And that’s something we all did hope for our friends, back in my day. (And our daughters, today) It drove me bonkers how many college friends were using sex to build relationships from the start, not as part of a relationship already built.
It’s sad that our kids’ generation won’t have many meet cute stories. My H and I have one and it’s fun to tell. My dearest friend has one and involves long distance phone calls and letter writing before actually meeting face to face. And this took place in the 90’s
If you’re talking about the post-college cohort, historically most sex took place within marriage or long term relationships where marriage was the ultimate goal. There are a lot of economic and cultural reasons, why many women no longer see marriage as desirable or its precursor step of a long term relationship.
“If you’re talking about the post-college cohort, historically most sex took place within marriage or long term relationships where marriage was the ultimate goal”
How far back do you have to go to be “historical”? My generation and my kids’ generation isn’t really that different, IMO. But, yes, different from my parents’ generation.
Plus, that prudish period of history, where sex was discouraged outside of marriage, was often one-sided and a fairly short period as far as history goes.
Yet, people still had sex before marriage even if people did get married earlier.
Plus, this is more about sex than marriage. Plenty of people won’t get married ever in the future, for a lot of reasons that have nothing to do with sex.
It should shock absolutely no one that single people have less sex than married people. If you want to find out why they are having less sex, start by finding out why they aren’t getting married. I would argue even the premarital sex in say 1980 for a twenty-something couple was usually in the context of a long term relationship, where someone was hoping their partner could be the one.
Well, my college days were early to mid 80s and plenty of people had sex outside of long term relationships, very few people were married by the age of 25. Maybe my friends and I were outliers but at least among similarly educated people in my region, I doubt it.
Also, with people not getting married today, that doesn’t mean no relationships or no co-habitating. It doesn’t mean no sex.
Were most of your peers virgins when they got married, @roethlisburger? I can’t think of one person I knew who was.
I do think the decline in sexual activity is partially due to more entertainment options. Look at the high birth rates 40 weeks after major power outages.
Old people not having sex is one thing, but younger ones? With birth rate and fertility rate both dropping throughout the developed world, will we humans become the first species to go extinct because of our own technologies?
I am sure that the human instinct to have sex is not going away soon. Although it may not be 60’s era free love anymore, I can’t believe that there won’t be enough folks having sex to keep the human species around for a very long time.
I did a sexual activity survey in college and the results matched both Kinsey and another study in the interim. A large number of my gen were not virgins at marriage. And it wasn’t just your fiance/fiancee.
If very few people you knew were married by 25 in the early 80s, the data shows your social group was an extreme outlier relative to the national average. I wouldn’t say they were virgins, but I would say most women hoped to eventually find a husband.
Let me explain it in a slightly different way. I think a lot of women now either have no desire for a bf/cohabitation/marriage or such high standards it excludes most of the potential dating pool. That leaves a lot of men permanently single in the musical chairs of the dating game, which forces those men to use porn as a substitute.
