Young adults’ attitude to sex never healthier

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Please be sure to include your name, address and telephone number. The right to edit submissions, which should be no longer than 200 words, is reserved. Pseudonyms will be published only in exceptional circumstances. Older generations always seem to fret about the sexual behaviour and romantic lives of the younger crowd. In the 1920s, there was alarm when boys stopped visiting in the parlour and started driving girls around in what one newspaper called “a house of prostitution on wheels”. This worry paled in comparison to the panic evoked by the rowdy sexual revolution that began in the late 1960s.

In the 1980s, observers were alarmed by the growing prevalence of early teen sex, Aids and STIs. In the first two decades of this century, anxiety shifted to the varsity hookup scene and the emergence of dating apps to facilitate casual sex.

Recently, however, a new concern has surfaced, with the finding that young adults, those aged 20 to 24, are now having less sex than Gen-Xers or baby boomers born in the 1960s did at the same age. Indeed, 15% of 20-to-24-year-olds today report having had no sexual partner since they turned 18 (double the percentage for those born the 1960s).

Some experts posit that porn and virtual sex are replacing the intimacy of actual sex. Others blame the distraction of social media, unrealistic expectations of beauty and sexual prowess perpetuated by the mass media, the pressure of preparing for careers, or the inhibiting effect of so many young adults living with parents.

Positive

My own sense is that the changes in the sexual behaviour of millennials are less dramatic and more positive. This generation is hardly embracing celibacy in significant numbers. Most of the increase in sexually inactive 20-to-24-year-olds occurred among women; much of this is probably due to their rising age of marriage.

At the same time, most millennials have never been the sexual players portrayed in the media; nor were the Gen-Xers. Still, they face an unprecedented romantic and sexual challenge. Never before have young people reached sexual maturity so early, had so much freedom to explore their sexual desires and identities, and yet had such strong incentives to postpone making longterm romantic commitments.

After interviewing more than 20 000 college students, sociologist Paula England found that fewer than half of all campus hook-ups involved sexual intercourse. Less than 10% reported having hooked up without ever going out on a date or being in a long-term relationship. More than one quarter had never hooked up, but dated or formed long-term relationships.

As a member of the older generation, I am impressed by the positive changes we see in the sexual behaviour of teens and young adults today. The widening acceptance of consensual sex has been accompanied by a much more definitive rejection of non-consensual contact.

True, in recent decades, sexual frequency among couples has declined. Distraction by computers, smartphones or work pressures may be part of the story. But another part may be that women today enjoy more equal status in their relations with men and feel more comfortable saying no.

One group of Gen-Xers and millennials, moreover, seems to have discovered a new secret to sexual happiness. Among heterosexual couples married since the early 1990s, those reporting the highest marital satisfaction – and the most sex – are couples who share housework and child care. So perhaps we should spend less time worrying about millennials’ sex lives and more time following the models they’re pioneering.

Don’t feel pressured to have sex unless you really want to. Don’t feel embarrassed about having consensual sex whenever you want to, with whomever you want to, without feeling you need to make a commitment to either the partner or the “lifestyle”. But when you do, don’t settle for anything less than the equality that forms the basis of long-term erotic and emotional satisfaction. – The Washington Post

Coontz is the director of research at the Council on Contemporary Families and author of