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Why can't young men get laid ? [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-05-14
This is supposed to be a reality based community. So I would like to add a few facts and likely linkages between those facts. I am going to start with a relatively dry summary of what is known; and then provide my own commentary at the end.
The facts.
(1) First, young people are having less sex than previous generations. This is not anecdotal (rather, it is not just anecdotal). Here is a NYPost article talking about a survey conducted by the CDC
Rates of sexlessness are climbing from coast to coast among adults ages 22 to 34, statistics plucked from the newly unsheathed National Survey of Family Growth showed — with 10 percent of young males and 7 percent of their female counterparts saying they’re still virgins. In sum, for young adult males, sexlessness has roughly doubled across all measures over the last 10 years or so. For young adult females, it has risen by roughly 50 percent,” according to the Institute of Family Studies (IFS), which published an analysis of the study.
(2) Second, there are likely many factors involved. In sociological studies, it is generally impossible to link cause and effect the way engineers and “hard-science” scientists prefer. And non-sociologists (i.e. people like me; and I suspect most of you as well) are not expert enough to judge the relative merits of all the studies being touted one way or another. So I can only summarize the studies as best as I (i.e. a non-expert can).
To start with, we have to acknowledge that this decline has been occurring for quite some time. Specifically, we have to acknowledge that it started well before the pandemic. This acknowledgment is important because it appears that the pandemic may have been a significant factor.
(3) The pandemic was particularly hard on young people with respect to mental health. This is something that (I think) most people of my generation do not appreciate. Young people *need* social interactions more than older people do; and forced isolation is particularly hard on young people.
This article outlines how youth mental health issues have escalated post-pandemic, with significant increases in anxiety and depression due to factors like social isolation and educational disruptions.
Before the pandemic, rising mental health concerns among youth were already evident. In the United States, suicide rates among adolescents aged 15 to 19 increased from 8 per 100,000 in 2000 to 11.8 per 100,000 in 2017, marking a significant escalation (Miron et al., 2019). Concurrently, the prevalence of mental illnesses in Australians aged 16 to 24 rose from 26 percent in 2007 to 39 percent in recent years, highlighting a growing crisis (Waghorn, 2025). Escalation During the Pandemic The pandemic intensified these concerning trends. A systematic review and meta-analysis revealed that depression and anxiety symptoms among children and adolescents globally doubled during the pandemic (Racine et al., 2021). In the United States, more than a third of high school students reported experiencing poor mental health during the pandemic, with 44 percent feeling persistently sad or hopeless (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2022).
Did you get that number? 44% of all high school students reported experience poor mental health during the pandemic.
This study indicates a pandemic-induced decline in romantic relationships and sexual activity among young adults, attributing it to factors like increased parental co-residence and decreased alcohol consumption.
This study discusses how a decline in sexual activity may have contributed to depression , suggesting a bidirectional relationship between sexual wellbeing and mental health.
(4) One of the most significant non-pandemic related factors is social media. The exact mechanism is hotly debated; but there appear to be 2 theories: (a) time spent on social media reduces the time you have to spend with “real” friends, and walking under real trees (as opposed to giving a “like” to a picture of one (b) social media trains your brain to respond to “likes”. There are studies arguing both points of view, and I won't bother linking them because I don't understand the relative merits of the two arguments.
Regardless of the exact mechanism, it is clear that social media does have an effect.
This Systematic Review (review of other scientific studies) links excessive use of social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat) to increased symptoms of depression and anxiety. It found that high social media usage correlates with psychological distress, particularly in adolescents and young adults.
My commentary.
This is meant mostly for those who are mocking young people for not having enough sex. What is stopping you, you ask!
Let us start with the ethics of this equation.
On both the pandemic, and on social-media, young people were/are largely powerless to influence events, but were victimized by the needs of older people (i.e. our generation). We had a much greater risk from the SARS-CoV2 virus, and therefore we shuttered our society… with nary a thought given to the mental health epidemic raging within the younger people. My own opinion on this issue is that the lockdown (and school closures) became particularly cruel once the vaccine was offered to everyone. At that point, it was clear that adults were prioritizing their own perceptions of safety over the mental health sufferings of the young people. And yes, they (some of the young people) have noticed, and are very resentful. This is not anecdotal (or rather, it is not just anecdotal).
A study published in the Journal of Social Issues found that some younger individuals exhibited ageist attitudes, attributing the severity of COVID-19 restrictions to older populations. This sentiment was linked to support for age-based lockdown measures, reflecting a belief that older adults were "stealing" the present from the youth.
Results revealed that the younger people's endorsement of ageism towards older people increased the attribution of culpability for the severity of COVID‐19 restriction measures to older (vs. younger) people, which, in turn positively affected the attitudes towards older (vs. younger) people isolation and support for selective lockdown on older population only.
The title of that study literally includes the line “You are stealing our present”
There are many more such studies, if you care to look. Keep this in mind when you think of David Hogg. While I am not aware of David Hogg having expressed (or endorsed) this ageism himself, I believe he is aware of the issue, and understands the importance.
x The segment of Gen Z who was high school during Covid went significantly more to the right than older pre Covid Gen Z.
https://t.co/mz6qxkZYWW — David Hogg 🟧 (@davidhogg111) February 11, 2025
To be clear, am not endorsing this ageism myself. Not every older person was in favor of the schools being closed even after the vaccines were made available to everyone. The blanket ageism is just as harmful as a blanket racism. However, I do understand the resentment that breeds this ageism.
To be thorough, we should also include social media in our commentary. There is now clear evidence that social media is evil, particularly in the way it targets children. And yet, we (i.e. the adults) refuse to regulate it. There is a lot of chatter directed at young people to “stop watching porn”. And yet, our Congress, and our Justice Department turns a blind eye when those social media platforms direct that porn (and worse) at young people.
A joint investigation by The Wall Street Journal and researchers from Stanford University and the University of Massachusetts Amherst revealed that Instagram's algorithms actively promote networks of accounts involved in the commission and sale of Child Sexual Abuse Material CSAM. These algorithms connect users to such content through recommendations, even with minimal engagement.
Accounts found by the researchers are advertised using blatant and explicit hashtags like #pedowhore, #preteensex, and #pedobait. They offer “menus” of content for users to buy or commission, including videos and imagery of self-harm and bestiality. When researchers set up a test account and viewed content shared by these networks, they were immediately recommended more accounts to follow. As the WSJreports: “Following just a handful of these recommendations was enough to flood a test account with content that sexualizes children.”
Mark Zuckerberg has been quoted saying that Americans need 15 friends, but have only 5 on average; and that he intends to fill the need for 10 additional friends with AI driven creatures (presumably for a small annual fee of $100/user). This should be driving alarm bells in our heads.
Instead, we are arguing whether David Hogg was insufficiently polite. And the only social media platform we actually try to regulate is TikTok; and even there, the suspicion is that the scrutiny on TikTok being largely due to the pro-Palestinian narrative it helped spread.
So, in my mind, the young people are entirely justified in being pissed off at our generation. We have let them down, and have refused to take responsibility.
I hope they can overcome the ageism, and construct a better society than what we are leaving them. But having let them down, I am not exactly in a position to judge.
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