1/ Something strange is happening with people’s sex lives. 20-somethings are having sex later and less frequently than previous generations. I spent several months digging into this for @theatlantic. https://t.co/5ehzmWY9wi

2/ This phenomenon—I’m calling it a Sex Recession—really surprised me. It seemed improbable in the age of Tinder, digital porn, and attitudes that are generally permissive and sex-positive.
3/ What’s happening isn’t exclusively American: Similar trends are being observed in other countries, including Japan, Australia, the U.K., Finland, and the Netherlands.
4/ One cause is obvious: Adults under 35 are less likely to be living with a partner than in recent decades, and more likely to be living with their parents—which, it’s safe to say, isn’t great for one’s sex life.
5/ But I also found other explanations, each with profound implications. The first, unsurprisingly, has to do with internet enticements. Netflix and other online entertainment may be substituting for sex.
6/ (If this seems implausible, one study linked the arrival of broadband internet access at the county-by-county level to a significant drop in the teen birth rate). https://t.co/PNMqmj6Zt7
7/ Since the ‘90s, the share of men who masturbate in a given week has doubled to 54 percent, and the share of women has tripled to 26 percent. Porn is part of this; so are vibrators. Amazon has thousands of varieties, and more than half of American women have used one.
8/ Another factor: People may be entering their 20s w/ less romantic experience. Among 17-year-olds in 1995, 66% of men and 74% of women had been in a romantic relationship. By 2014, another survey found, just 46% of 17-year-olds had dated, hooked up, or had a relationship.
9/ Then there are dating apps, which can be insanely inefficient and demoralizing. “It’s like howling into the void for most guys,” said one man I spoke with, “and like searching for a diamond in a sea of dick pics for most girls.”
10/ Relatedly, the more people rely on swiping, the more awkward it can become to approach someone in public. Remember how Grindr supposedly killed the gay bar? https://t.co/rZMG3Izea5
11/ Other people are retreating from sex that’s unwanted, unpleasurable, or worse. The economist @MarinaAdshade thinks this may be especially true for young women: “Men have bad sex and good sex. But when sex is bad for women, it’s really, really bad.”
12/ And because learning about sex from porn seems to have given some people troubling ideas about what a partner might like (think nonconsensual choking), it’s possible that their partners are being scared off of sex.
13/ Other experts talked with me about how depression, anxiety, poor self-image, sleep-deprivation, and distraction—which unprecedented numbers of us seem to be struggling with—throw on our sexual brakes.
14/ So where does this leave us? Some are panicked about a falling birth rate. The sex recession is related to that, of course—most sex doesn’t cause babies, yet most babies still come from sex. https://t.co/x3cWheZIBS
15/ Honestly, I’m more worried about the people who are already here. An overwhelming body of research shows that for adults, a happy sex life predicts overall health and happiness. Unfortunately, the reverse also seems to be true.
16/ Swedish leaders have said if the conditions for a good sex life have deteriorated, it is a political problem. We should think about the sex recession similarly—if both physical and emotional intimacy are becoming more elusive and fraught, that should be a wake-up call.
17/17 Hopefully in time we’ll rethink some things. The way we teach sex ed, for example, and our relationships with our devices. In the meantime, if you’re finding sex and dating tough, you’re not alone. https://t.co/5ehzmWY9wi

More from Society

Two things can be true at once:
1. There is an issue with hostility some academics have faced on some issues
2. Another academic who himself uses threats of legal action to bully colleagues into silence is not a good faith champion of the free speech cause


I have kept quiet about Matthew's recent outpourings on here but as my estwhile co-author has now seen fit to portray me as an enabler of oppression I think I have a right to reply. So I will.

I consider Matthew to be a colleague and a friend, and we had a longstanding agreement not to engage in disputes on twitter. I disagree with much in the article @UOzkirimli wrote on his research in @openDemocracy but I strongly support his right to express such critical views

I therefore find it outrageous that Matthew saw fit to bully @openDemocracy with legal threats, seeking it seems to stifle criticism of his own work. Such behaviour is simply wrong, and completely inconsistent with an academic commitment to free speech.

I am not embroiling myself in the various other cases Matt lists because, unlike him, I think attention to the detail matters and I don't have time to research each of these cases in detail.

You May Also Like

This is NONSENSE. The people who take photos with their books on instagram are known to be voracious readers who graciously take time to review books and recommend them to their followers. Part of their medium is to take elaborate, beautiful photos of books. Die mad, Guardian.


THEY DO READ THEM, YOU JUDGY, RACOON-PICKED TRASH BIN


If you come for Bookstagram, i will fight you.

In appreciation, here are some of my favourite bookstagrams of my books: (photos by lit_nerd37, mybookacademy, bookswrotemystory, and scorpio_books)