“I Abstained From Sex for a Year to Donate Blood” (nytimes) shows that at least some people think it is newsworthy when a gay guy doesn’t have sex for a while. I decided to check out whether or not a heterosexual marriage could have made the news via a similar achievement. This 2014 study says that roughly 5-percent of non-elderly married Americans could write the same article, perhaps minus the “donate blood” part. Marriage per se can’t be blamed, if we are to believe data from 1994 in which married people of the same age were less likely to be “sexually inactive.”
What changed from 1994 to 2014? My vote goes to high-speed Internet. One person is in bed streaming Netflix. The other person is in the den catching up on those last emails or embroiled in a multi-player game.
See also “Millennials are having less sex than any generation in 60 years.” (LA Times)
Readers: favorite explanation?
[Related: a sexless marriage need not be profitless. See Real World Divorce for which states make it pay…]
Maybe they are disgusted by Donald Trump. You once posted an article to that effect.
Or maybe they agree with Andrew Dice Clay:
“Masturbation is king. Oh yeah, you know it, I know it so who are we bullshittin’?”
hard to believe people answer these types of surveys accurately, so don’t have much faith in them. Meantime, if you’re looking for something fun to watch with your spouse or SO, highly recommend “Hung” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hung_(TV_series). Just don’t binge-watch so you have time for sex:-) The handsome schoolteacher husband is left so destitute by his divorce that he ends up homeless (no homeowners’ insurance & then fire consumes his house). Has to resort to male prostitution to make ends meet. Meantime his ex has remarried a dermatologist (some sort of physician anyway) and is living in a McMansion.
One person is in bed “streaming Netflix.” Nice euphemism.
I remember there was a time when the lack of sex in my relationships used to bother me. Now I take enough prozac that most days I don’t even remember that there’s anything between my legs!
Testosterone levels have declined precipitously and the women are all on the pill, which lowers libido. Everybody is fat.
People aren’t fucking because they’re fat and unhealthy and depressed. The mental health surveys are astounding. Something like a fifth of women are taking anti-depressants.
OK, if watching an episode of “Hung” as I suggested above doesn’t do the trick (Thomas Jane is better looking than 99% of men, and more cerebral than most Hollywood actors — married & divorced from Patricia Arquette & just baffles me why she would divorce a guy that handsome & charming), then try this line my husband said a few years ago. Due to my advancing age in a society which makes any female who doesn’t look like photoshopped fashion models feel insecure, I was whining about aging and the toll it was taking on my body: “Sweetie, men aren’t that ridiculous. We tend to look at the good points.” Something along those lines is what you should say to your Valentine this year and every year. I am addressing the males here — unsure how to proceed with other genders in an age when Katie Couric is doing a special on gender ID on FB. And Leonidas or other luxe chocolates don’t hurt either.