Millennials are having less sex than previous generations, and The Washington Post can’t figure it out.
Recent studies showing that Millennials are having the least sex of any generation since before the Baby Boomers apparently have befuddled Post writer Tara Bahrampour and her editors. So she set out searching for answers.
“It’s a less sexy time to be young than it used to be,” Bahrampour wrote as she began to report the findings of new studies about the sexual habits of the generation born between 1980 and 2000.
As the Bahrampour tried to unravel this knotty mystery with the experts she interviewed, she offered an assortment of explanations for why Millennials are having less sex.
The Post article’s video component by Claritza Jimenez summarized these explanations well.
TURNED OFF BY HOOKUP CULTURE
MORE PRESSURE TO SUCCEED, LESS TIME TO SOCIALIZE
MORE COMFORTABLE CONNECTING OVER THE INTERNET THAN IN PERSON
EASY ACCESS TO PORN
INCREASED USE OF ANTI-DEPRESSANTS, WHICH AFFECT SEX DRIVE
While all these explanations may be true, it is striking which explanations are conspicuously absent. There’s nothing about sex being morally wrong outside of marriage and nothing about the physical risks involved with premarital sex, such as contracting STDs.
It might be argued that “TURNED OFF BY HOOKUP CULTURE” covers these factors. However, these factors aren’t a matter of being “turned off,” like someone might be turned off by garlic breath or a beer-stained frat house. Furthermore, these factors aren’t limited to the new “hookup culture.”
After all, Millennials are still having more sex than the two generations immediately preceding the Sexual Revolution of the Baby Boomers youth. The trend within those generations couldn’t be explained by any of the factors listed in the video.
The author’s opinion in this news story comes out most clearly when she interviews Millennials who are not having sex. “Isn’t he curious?” she asked one, as if curiosity were a good reason for having sex. “Isn’t he curious?” she asked another.
The author followed those interviews up with a quotation from one Harvard professor: “Everyone’s missing out on a good time.”
Although this article acknowledges that some “experts” see benefits in limiting or postponing sexual activity, the benefits in question are highly subjective—such as emotional security, which the author likens to campus “safe spaces.”
Moreover, Bahrampour never interviews any experts from outside the “social sciences”—no philosophy professors, no priests, no rabbis, et cetera.
