It used to be you were nobody if you were still a virgin in high school. Oh how the times have changed. It turns out that the millennials are having far less sex than other generations. Millennials are twice as likely to be virgins than than GenXers. Time Magazine interviewed some psychologists about the trend.
“A few years ago, I would have been very surprised at this result,” says study author Jean Twenge, a psychology professor at San Diego State University and author of the book Generation Me. It certainly seems seems surprising, given Twenge’s recent data that same-sex hookup rates have doubled in the U.S. and young Americans are more sexually free and less traditional.
These guys have a lot of explanations of why this could be one might be their high level of wokeness:
Another intriguing explanation is that Millennials and the generation after them have grown up with a strong emphasis on safety. “That may potentially impact their sexual behavior, if they’ve gotten the message that you can get sick or even die from sex,” Twenge said. The safer-is-better state of mind is reflected elsewhere as well: underage drinking is at an all-time low, and protests on college campuses often call for safe spaces and safer sex.
There is an upside to all this of course, less teen pregnancy and lower rates of STDs. But there is a irony in these findings. Millennials talk about sex, think about sex, march about sex more than other generations. They obsess over new classifications and categorizations, they major in it and hold meetings about it, but the one thing they’re not doing is having it. Strange days indeed.