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 “The misperception that millennials have a hook-up culture may be
driven by the most promiscuous members of the generation, who are
now able to advertise their exploits through social media,” said
lead study author Jean Twenge, a psychology researcher at San Diego
State University in California.
“But the culture of dating apps leaves out a large segment of the
population,” Twenge added by email.
In reality, millennials born in the 1990s are more than twice as
likely to be sexually inactive as young GenX’ers born in the late
1960s, Twenge and colleagues report in the Archives of Sexual
Behavior.
Fifteen percent of young adults aged 20 to 24 reported having no sex
since turning 18, compared with just 6 percent of the previous
generation at that age, the study found.
Previous research has also found that millennials – born from the
1980s to 2000 – have fewer sexual partners than Generation X’ers or
baby boomers, Twenge said.
The only generation that showed a higher rate of sexual inactivity
in the analysis was born in the 1920s.
To look at generational shifts in sexual activity, researchers
examined survey data from a nationally representative sample of more
than 26,000 adults.
One limitation of the study is that the survey didn’t ask about
specific sexual activities, making it impossible to determine how
respondents interpreted questions about whether they were sexually
active, the authors note.
Still, the findings suggest that millennials may be experiencing a
unique set of circumstances that, combined, may make them less
likely to have sex in their 20s, the authors conclude.
For one thing, young adults are living longer with their parents and
delaying marriage, which may delay sexual activity, the researchers
note.
Oddly, the rise of hookup culture may dissuade sexual activity as
teens and young adults shy away from committed relationships.
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The mismatch between how adults perceive the millennial hookup
culture and the reality of what 20-somethings are actually doing in
bed speaks to a larger story about how older generations tend to
view the kids that come after them, said Joshua Grubbs, a researcher
at Bowling Green State University in Ohio who wasn’t involved in the
study.
“Middle-aged and younger adults have complained about how
disrespectful younger generations were, how risque they were, how
immoral they were, how lazy they were, or how unwise they were –
this is sort of the natural order of things," Grubbs said by email.
"However, the millennial generation is the first real generation to
face that criticism in the digital age, where hot takes and instant
opinions are ubiquitous,” Grubbs added. “So, instead of having
middle aged adults complaining about ‘kids these days’ at lunch or
at the water cooler, they are doing it on blogs and open-source news
websites.”
It would be a mistake to jump to conclusions about whether
millennials have a healthier sex life than the generations that came
before them, Grubbs said.
“I think there is some data to indicate that young adults in the
U.S. are perhaps a little more comfortable talking about their
sexuality and that there is a greater emphasis on sexual
self-awareness now, but there's also evidence (per the referenced
studies) that young adults may actually be having less sex or fewer
sexual partners,” Grubbs noted.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/2aOytk7 Archives of Sexual Behavior, online
August 2, 2016.
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