It’s been quite the week for sex. Well, talking about it, not indulging in it. The Washington Post reported that it’s stunned — stunned! — that men aged 18 to 30 are not having sex. Twitter took that and ran with it until it was revealed that the stunning sex epidemic was just 59 men not getting it on. Poor guys! But what no one seems to be discussing is why, according to the same article, women seem to be doing just fine — only 18 percent say they haven’t had sex in the past year versus 28 percent of men.
Who are all those women having sex with? Other women? Maybe. Married men? Maybe. Older men? Maybe.
Regardless of whom they’re bonking, I’d like to think that the reason young women are having sex more often than young men is because they are finally owning their sexuality and embracing casual sex (despite the constant messages that we’re not good at it), and they’re going to be picky about who they’re going to do it with.
The need for touch
At least this is what hit me when I listened to Nora McInerny, author of a new memoir, No Happy Endings, and host of the Terrible, Thanks for Asking podcast, on NPR’s Morning Edition this past Sunday.
McInerny suffered the miscarriage of her second child, the death of her 34-year-old husband and then the death of her father all within weeks of each other, leaving her a single mom, a widow and a grieving daughter, which she detailed in her first memoir, It’s Okay to Laugh: (Crying is Cool Too).
Just weeks after her husband died and way before she married again, she was aware that, a widowed mom at age 31 with a toddler, she had needs — sexual needs. And she took care of those needs by finding men who understood that whatever they did together wasn’t about anyone being a boyfriend, husband or partner, nor was there any promise of forever or even tomorrow — it was for just now.
As she tells NPR:
I was never particularly good at dating, but I would say that when you’re 31 and your husband has died — actually, I don’t even really care how old you are when this happens — you’re still a person. And people have physical needs beyond just food and water and sleep. And also grief is so exhausting. And you know what? I really just wanted to have any physical touch that was not a needy toddler, preferably with an adult male who I’d met on the internet who didn’t want anything from me but also wanted to, like, adore me and kill spiders and play with my hair but also not spend the night.
Not to say that women didn’t have had those urges decades ago, but we would most likely have been judged and shamed if we were obvious about acting on those urges, whereas men have always had the casual sex option available to them.
Women are being picky
That’s changing — thankfully — and if women are going to go that casual sex route (or as conservatives would say, offering men “cheap sex” as if women see all sex as transactional), well, we’re going to choose the kind of men who will make things happen for us and give us pleasure, which is going to leave a certain amount of men in the dust.
Thus, the unsexed young men.
Sorry guys, but she’s just not that into you.
There’s all sorts of speculation about why there’s a sex recession among young people although recent studies indicate more than half of young people don’t have a steady romantic partner, which makes having sex more challenging.
I’m not sure why we seem to be so obsessed with who’s having sex or not and how much we’re having — aren’t there other, bigger issues to focus on right now?
Still, sex is never a given, whether single or even partnered. That said, if you’re hopeful to have sex, being desirable — aka the kind of person you’d want to have sex with — probably really matters.
Just ask the ladies.
Want to individualize your marriage? (Of course you do!) Then read The New I Do: Reshaping Marriage for Skeptics, Realists and Rebels (Seal Press). You can support your local indie bookstore or order it on Amazon.
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