These should be the best times ever for sex. If hookups are your thing, Grindr and Tinder offer the prospect of casual sex within the hour. BDSM plays at the local multiplex—but why bother going? Sex is portrayed, often graphically and sometimes gorgeously, on prime-time cable. Sexting is, statistically speaking, normal. The age of youth sex recession.

From 1991 to 2017, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Youth Risk Behavior Survey finds, the percentage of high-school students who’d had intercourse dropped from 54 to 40 percent. In other words, in the space of a generation, sex has gone from something most high-school students have experienced to something most haven’t.

The causes of sex recession are unclear

sex recession

The term sex recession was first used in 2019 when, writing for the Atlantic, Kate Julian introduced America to the brave new world of the sex recession. Young people are having a lot less sex, Julian observed, for a variety of reasons. One of the main reasons for this sex recession is that young adults are primarily having less sex because of how they grew up, not because of the state of the world when it comes time for them to be sexually active, even if current conditions still make a difference, most notably lower rates of relationship formation and alcohol consumption.

Last year a survey in Australia found that 40% of people aged 18 to 24 report “never” having sex. Since then, young people have been lightly mocked on TV, and have even been made the subject of an “intervention”-based ad campaign for a condom company.

Can too many videogames be one of the causes of sex recession?

One of the causes for sex recession can be found in videogames, TV and the availability of porn practically 24/7 everywhere. A recent survey of UK students, for instance, presents a paradoxical picture. Lots of young people seem to be having sexual experiences mediated through a screen, with more than half of respondents reporting that they watch porn, and four in ten saying they have sent naked photos to a partner. But only a third of male students report having had sex during their time at university, despite only 11 per cent describing themselves as celibate by choice.

We are bombarded with messaging that we are doing sex wrong and it’s making us unhappy

Another reason for this so-called sex recession can be found in the huge pressure young people feel when it comes to sex. There is just one message about sex we are all imbued with from a very early age: Sex is incredibly important. More than that, it’s especially important to do it “correctly.”

The message we get is that with the “right” sexual experiences, we’ll be set up for a healthy, happy, and better life — and without it, we’ll be doomed to a depressing and meaningless existence, a point driven home by articles that state that sex is the key to unlocking happiness. As individuals, we’re certainly aware of what goes on in our bedrooms, but we’re left wondering about those of our friends, colleagues, and crushes — people who, we inevitably assume, are almost definitely doing it more or who’ve figured out the secret to being 100 percent satisfied with their sex life, a secret that still manages to elude us.

Generations before the sex recession were having more sex, but worse

A recent research shows that people born in the 1930s—the “silent generation”—reported the most sex. And those born around the 1990s, Millennials and iGen or Gen Z, reported the least. Still, the average amount of sex reported by the newer generation is only about six times fewer per year. But, more importantly, the quality of the sex between these generations is arguably wide-ranging.

As it turns out, the “silent generation” was not necessarily having satisfying sex. While much of the “sex recession” is being pinned on young people, our actions do not tell the full story. What the research shows is that the decline in sex was greatest among white middle-aged married couples. Since age is a primary factor in sexual frequency, the rising age of marriage is an important variable as well. And researchers have found that average married couples are spending more time with their children, which could mean less time with each other.

The sex recession generation is looking for deeper bonds

There are many reasons – social, cultural, religious, medical – that people (young or old) feel they don’t necessarily need sex in their life. Young people tend to be looking for close, intimate connections with people that doesn’t necessarily mean sex. Young people are also turning to new sources to learn about sex. Some of them have learnt everything they know from reading, YouTube and friends and the number of people who identify as asexual is rising too. Even Netflix recently released a season of Sex Education which features a teen who is asexual, to underling this growing trend.