If your sense is that everyone is having less sex than they used to, the data backs you up. Across the developed world and increasingly in middle-income countries, adults — especially adults under 40 — are having less sex than the same age cohort did 10 or 20 years ago. Casual sex specifically is in steeper decline than partnered sex. The "sex recession" is real, contested, and worth understanding for what it suggests about modern intimate life.
What the data shows
The findings, broadly:
- Young adults (18-25) are reporting fewer sexual partners than the same cohort in the 1990s and 2000s
- The percentage of young adults reporting no sex in the past year has roughly doubled in many developed countries
- Hookup culture, peaked around 2010, has measurably declined since
- The decline is steeper for men than women in some studies
- Married couples are also having less sex than married couples did 30 years ago
- The decline has accelerated since 2020 (post-pandemic)
South African data is patchier but follows similar trends in urban populations.
The competing explanations
Phones and screen time
The leading hypothesis. Time spent on phones doesn't get spent on people. Late-night scrolling replaces late-night sex. Dating-app fatigue is real. The dopamine hits available from streaming, gaming, social media, and porn substitute (incompletely) for the dopamine hits that used to come from courtship and partnered sex.
This isn't moral panic. The time-displacement hypothesis is well-supported and the screens-and-sex correlation is large.
Dating app dynamics
Dating apps were supposed to make connection easier. The data suggests they've made it harder. The asymmetric attention economy (top 20% of profiles get most matches), the paralysis of choice, the swipe-fatigue, the rise of intentionally toxic dating cultures — these have made casual sex via apps less appealing for many users.
Many young adults report giving up on apps entirely. Others use them but with declining frequency and lower expectations.
Economic precarity
Young adults are poorer relative to their parents at the same age. They live with parents longer. They have less private space. They have less disposable income for dating activities. Casual sex requires logistics that are harder to manage when you don't have your own apartment.
This isn't romantic but it's real. Sex requires somewhere to have it.
Anxiety and mental health
Anxiety, depression, and ADHD diagnoses have risen significantly in young adults. Each of these affects libido, social engagement, and willingness to pursue casual encounters. Medications (especially SSRIs) often suppress libido further.
The "sex recession" overlaps with the broader mental health pattern. Both are real; both interact.
Changing values
Some of the decline reflects values shift — young adults reporting they prefer meaningful connection over casual encounters, that they're not in a rush, that they want to "do it right." Whether this is genuine change or post-hoc rationalisation of declining opportunity is hotly debated.
Probably some of both.
Porn availability
Free, instant, infinitely varied porn provides a substitute for some of what casual sex used to provide. The substitute is incomplete (no human contact, no relational dimension) but for some users it's enough to reduce the drive to seek partnered sex. This is most visible in young men.
Fear and post-#MeToo recalibration
Some of the decline reflects, particularly in young men, increased awareness of consent norms and uncertainty about navigating sexual encounters with new partners. Some men report being unsure how to initiate without misreading signals; the result is initiating less.
Some of this is healthy recalibration; some of it is over-correction. The balance is contested.
Who's affected most
The decline is uneven:
- Young men under 30 — steepest decline, both in partner counts and in any sex at all
- Single people — bigger declines than partnered people
- Heterosexual cisgender adults — bigger declines than queer adults (the queer scene has different dynamics, often less affected)
- Less-educated young men — particularly affected, partly downstream of the same factors that produce broader social isolation
What's not declining
Worth noting:
- Long-term established couples continue to have sex at roughly historical rates (lower than before but stable)
- Queer dating in cities continues to be active
- Sex within marriages has declined modestly, not dramatically
- Pornography consumption is up, often substantially
- Sex toy sales are at record highs
The decline is specifically in casual partnered sex, especially among young single people.
The mental health angle
The "sex recession" co-occurs with rising loneliness, anxiety, depression, and reported life dissatisfaction in young adults. The relationship is bidirectional and complex.
Less sex isn't the cause of the loneliness — it's a symptom of broader social atrophy. Young adults who don't have casual sex also often don't have many close friends, don't engage in many in-person social activities, and don't form the relational habits that lead to either deep friendship or romantic partnership.
Treating the broader pattern (loneliness, social engagement) addresses the sexual side as a downstream effect.
Is the decline a problem?
Reasonable people disagree:
Concerned view: Less sex correlates with worse mental health, more isolation, declining birth rates, and broader social atomisation. The decline isn't just preference — it's symptom of trouble.
Less-concerned view: Lower sex rates may reflect healthier consent norms, less coercion, more deliberate partnering, and better overall sexual ethics. The previous high rates of casual sex weren't all desired by all participants.
Both have truth. The decline is probably a mix of healthy recalibration and unhealthy isolation. The question is which side is dominant in any given person's case.
For young adults navigating it
If you're in your twenties and your sex life feels less active than the cultural template suggests it should:
- You're not alone — most of your peers are in similar territory
- The cultural template (everyone is hooking up constantly) was never accurate; current reality is closer to honest baseline
- Building social skill in lower-stakes contexts (friendships, casual conversations, in-person activities) compounds into sexual confidence
- Dating apps are optional; in-person meeting still works and might work better for you
- If anxiety or depression is significantly limiting your ability to connect, treating those is the upstream lever
For older adults watching this
If you're older and watching young adults' relationship lives with concern:
- Don't assume your generation's pattern was the right one — it had its own issues
- The current pattern may be a transition phase, not a permanent decline
- The young adults navigating this are doing their own version, which may produce different but workable outcomes
The South African angle
SA's pattern is mixed. Urban professional young adults follow developed-world trends fairly closely. Other demographics — early-marrying populations, communities with traditional structures, religious communities — show different patterns.
The South African dating scene has its own specifics: extreme economic inequality affecting dating dynamics, cultural diversity producing different cohort patterns, the lingering impact of HIV-era sexual conservatism, and the more recent rise of dating apps in urban populations.
The bottom line
Adults are having less sex than a decade ago, with young single adults showing the steepest decline. The drivers are multiple — phones, dating apps, economic precarity, anxiety, mental health medications, changing values, porn availability, post-#MeToo recalibration, broader social atomisation.
Whether this is recovery from a previously over-active baseline or symptom of broader trouble depends on the individual situation. Both interpretations have evidence. The cultural conversation is still working out which framing fits which slice of the pattern.
If your own sex life feels lower-volume than the cultural template suggests it should, the data is on your side. The template was always misleading; current reality is closer to honest.
