A few days ago the LA Times passed along survey data from UCLA that says kids in California aren't having sex anymore:
In 2021, the survey found, the number of young Californians ages 18 to 30 who reported having no sexual partners in the prior year reached a decade high of 38%. In 2011, 22% of young people reported having no sexual partners during the prior year, and the percentage climbed fairly steadily as the decade progressed.
But why? One expert says it's because kids aren't growing up as fast as they used to. Or maybe it's social media? Or the rise in antidepressant use?
Maybe! Or maybe the UCLA survey is just out of date. Apparently things turned around massively last year:
Shazam! Suddenly young adults are shagging at the same rate as ever. As with so many things, we just had to wait a bit to see some reversion to the mean.
It's suspicious, though, isn't it? Did things really turn around this dramatically in just one year? Sadly, the answer will have to wait two years for the next round of GSS questioning about our private lives.
Perhaps the fear of contracting covid? This is California which had some of the most oppressive restrictions due to covid
Momentary fad of not telling surveys anything about your sex life?
As with any strange data coming out of 2020-2022, the best and most obvious explanation really has to be the pandemic.
Nobody should be surprised if young people in 2021 reported having fewer sex partners. A very significant fraction of the population avoided going to bars, restaurants, parties, etc. for a very significant part of 2020; that will of course impact the viability of dating/hookup culture.
I surprised there's so much variability, particularly in the 18-29 and 50-59 age brackets, especially since a lot of it was pre-pandemic.
Why was this a surprise to anyone? COVID was a thing. Did we all just forget about it?
Of course things "turned around" in just one year - remember "hot vax summer" in 2021? I'm not even in the 18-29 age bracket and I knew about it. Young adults are hornier than older adults, generally speaking, so of course once vaccines were out there was lots of boning to make up for lost time.
I'd say the drop in 2020 was due to COVID. Young adults rely a lot on social gatherings (parties, bars, or other type of nighttime going out activity) to find sexual partners.
With those largely shut down due to COVID in 2020 and parts of 2021, it would limit the opportunities to find someone to have sex with.
I would note that the drop off in kid sex was matched by the skyrocketing level of geezer couplings. Perhaps the kids were grossed out by the behavior of their (clearly too old to do "that thing") elders?
Or maybe nobody under the age of 30 knows if they're male or female anymore and what kind of coupling would work for them?
Pick your favorite hobbyhorse, and match it up to the data! That's the American Way!
I don't understand why you and Drum refer to 18 to 29 year olds as having "kid sex."
(☞ﾟヮﾟ)☞ Young adults had no bars to go to. ☜(ﾟヮﾟ☜)
Yes the pandemic. I mean just the hook ups that happened from the Taylor Swift, Pink, and Beyonce tours will spike the data for 2023.
Hey, all you folks in your 50s. You're still young! Get busy!