Americans, in the midst of a loneliness epidemic, are not having enough sex

 Across almost every demographic group, American adults old and young, single and coupled, rich and poor are having less sex than they have had at any point in at least the past three decades.

Sex isn’t the sole form of fulfilling human interaction and certainly isn’t a salve for loneliness in all forms. Still, it should be seen as a critical part of our social well-being, not an indulgence or an afterthought. 

This is in large part because the rise in loneliness closely parallels a decline in sex. More than a quarter of Americans hadn’t had sex even once in the past year the last time the General Social Survey asked, in 2021. It was the highest such level of sexlessness in the survey’s history.

In 21st-century America, loneliness is essentially omnipresent, and the high schooler’s cliché fear that “everyone else is having sex” has never been less true.

Magdalene J. Taylor New York Times 13 February 2023

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/13/opinion/have-more-sex-please.html