The Millennial Sex Recession Is Bullsh*t
Despite what the media says, we’re not lonely, porn-addicted careerists who are too selfish or busy to get it on. According to top experts, Cosmo’s exclusive data, and, um, actual millennials, we’re the most experimental, enlightened, and sexually fulfilled generation yet.
Here, I’ll catch you up.
“Americans ages 20 to 24 are so sexually inactive that it practically boggles the mind.” That was Bustle in 2016.
Millennials and Gen Z “are having sex less often than any previous generation,” according to the New York Times in 2017.
“Today’s young adults are on track to have fewer sex partners than members of the two preceding generations,” wrote The Atlantic last year in a cover story titled “The Sex Recession.”
Then just this past March, the Washington Post shrieked about the “Great American Sex Drought,” adding that “you can blame young people for this dry spell.” (We’ve already been blamed for nut milk and the Kardashians, so sure, why not?)
The most okay, whatever headlines pit our new notoriety as sexless against our old rap as sluts. “Study Dashes Millennials’ Reputation as Hookup Generation,” one website crowed.
(It’s possible you missed all this noise because, I don’t know, you were too busy having sex.)
But the thing is: They’re wrong. The data behind these headlines is inadequate and doesn’t even really back up the grim tale they’re peddling in the first place. Nor does it take into account millennials’ own opinions about our sex lives (because no one asked us). Instead, the closer you look at the myth of the “sex recession,” the less it seems like a recession at all.
