The declines were largest among married people living with their partners, who now have sex 16 fewer times a year. That decline has been in effect on for a while, since at least the late 1990s. Never-married people had sex more often in the 2000s than in the 1990s as the norms around premarital sex changed, but after 2008, that group's sexual frequency began to slide as well, declining by 8 times a year. The past decade has not been kind to the frequency of sex. Why did this happen? It's a difficult question to answer, but there are a few intriguing theories: 1. Smartphones have ruined our lives. Instead of connecting us to each other, perhaps smartphones are driving us apart. Entertainment is more entertaining than it used to be. You can stream TV and movies any time of the day or night, and play video games around the clock. They might make sex accessible for a certain cohort that seeks easy, quick sex, but they also might make the dating scene less appealing for those who really want relationships — which turns out to be most people. This may be because we were raised with high expectations. That might explain why they were happier; in fact, we recently found that. Overall, Americans are uneasy. This has been a trend for a few years. Even though the economy has rebounded, there is a widespread dissatisfaction and in the country. Trust in others and in institutions are at all-time lows, and unemployment figures might be artificially low if more people have given up on the idea of working at all. Economist Erik Hurst found that 1 out of 5 young men are not working — he believes this is partially because see point 2, above. Young men are among the primary drivers of sexual frequency, and if they are unemployed and playing video games, instead of working and getting married, sexual frequency is inevitably going to decline. Why do you think Americans have sex less often than they used to? I think Americans have wised up and realized that there is more to life than sex! Oh yes, it's the ultimate intimacy building experience for your relationships. It's human nature and a biological drive. But it's also fun! Nowadays there are many other options for entertainment on a personal level. Those same options not only keep us entertained they keep up isolated to a certain degree making human interaction less and less, even if we're in the same room. This factor coupled with the need for everyone to work as much as they can to pay for said entertainment and everything else, leaves little time for sex. Plus you can't dismiss the prevalence of internet porn as a factor in driving down actual sexual encounters. The internet has changed the landscape of social relations and is part and parcel of just about every relationship - especially in the developed and semi developing worlds. Nobody with a high sex drive would ever make a statement like that. But you have a point because in most marriages and relationships, it's the person with the lower sex drive that controls the frequency. So this article is really about what's changed with the lower-sex-drive partner. Yes, there is more to get a low-sex-drive partner distracted these days. In many ways that's the way it's always been for many and it's a sensible way also. Once you've experienced it.... It's not that the low sex drive person controls the flow.... Again, said by somebody with not an all that high sex drive. Once you've experienced it.... Uh, no, it doesn't for a good number of people with very high drives. Sure, it fits people with moderate and low drives. Actually, it is the low-drive person that controls it. That's been stated many times even here in blog articles. Nothing wrong with that as it applies to you. Just doesn't apply to some of us higher-drive people, period. In fact, PT feels that sex is so good that they devote a significant portion of their blog posts to making sure married people have sex, sex is kept interesting and what to do if a couple is not having sex. But, even with all that herculean effort, mysteriously people are having less sex. So, do we work harder to make sure people are having more sex? Sex, yes, is poor man's entertainment. Sex can be dangerous too, it can lead to diseases and unwanted pregnancies. Do we still want to encourage more sex? Even the homeless have cell phones. I know lots of homeless people, one of their biggest challenges is access to power to recharge their phones and devices. They are less interested in unlimited access to free condoms although they can get those pretty easily. Does sex become boring? I have to tell you this because it's so politically incorrect but yes it does. It doesn't matter if one is married happily, unhappily, or to their best buddy or how great their spouse looks. After a few years, for many people, sex to the same person becomes rote and boring. That's the truth of the matter. That's the truth of the matter. Yes, likely true for people with moderate to low sex drives. But for many with very high sex drives, it doesn't get boring easily. You can keep claiming otherwise, but it doesn't apply to many people with high sex drives. You're speaking only for those with mostly low sex drives, and that's OK. If that's you, that's OK, but you don't speak for me. So you just look silly claiming that the way you see the world is the way EVERYONE sees it, and that just ain't the facts. I have a wonderful friend, his mind is stuck in 1965. He believes in the Eisenhower value system. He wants so badly to be married, he's blown through 3 marriages so far. He believes deeply in family values. Normally I don't get involved in people's businesses but I'm somewhat scared he's going to do something so I will be opening a conversation with him soon. And my question to him will be, why is all this marriage and sex so important to him? Rather than keep trying maybe it is time to look at another way of living. Maybe it is time for a lot of people who are doing the same to take another look at they way they are living if it isn't working for them and find a new direction. If 50% of marriages end in often messy costly divorces why are people doing this? Why such a focus on sex? Mind you, I enjoy sex as well as the next person but I'm not going to turn my life upside down to get it. Many other people are with me on this. I find it also interesting that as Psychology Today devotes a huge percentage of its server space on sex posts, it can't seem to find one informative post on 1 How to effectively make friends 2 How to get involved in one's community 3 How to be a successful volunteer. These are subjects that are very important to a lot of people these days, but probably not the married suburban psychologists that populate the PT writer pool. Sex has been made dull. In da olde days milady might flash a little filet mignon on the village street to sort of wet the appetite but not so much as to frighten the horses or startle small children. She reserved her boudoir for serving up the whole cow for the delight of her lover who we would hope was also her husband. Today, milady serves up the whole cow right out there in the village street. There are no horses to frighten, the children pay no attention because in the 2nd grade they had a power point presentation of the various permutations of human sexuality. And milady receives her middle school lover in the back seat of her automobile. And we wonder why things appear screwed up?. The demographic bubble of the baby boomers is getting older. The numbers mean nothing unless they adjusted them according to age of respondent. Perhaps they did, but they didn't mention it. Plus maybe there's less pressure to overestimate in responses to such surveys now than in the past. I also am extremely cautious of intimate relationships. Intimate relationships cost money and time, things I have less of if I am to continue with everything I have going. I am less interested in being a playmate, event planner and compliant partner to a man. Most importantly, I am aware that my neighbors watch my every move. I don't need the gossip of what I am doing and with whom. I've had trouble in the past breaking up with men who didn't want to leave. Maybe that was okay when I was more mobile and less established, but with my status in the community right now I don't want to confide in a romantic partner who might have loose lips and make a pest of himself at a later date. I have a great successful life with a large social network,.... Why muck it up with an insular romantic entanglement? And just a word about Smartphones. Yesterday I saw a friend and stopped to talk to him. His dog was sick so I asked how the dog was doing. My friend answered but in the middle of his verbal answer his phone vibrated with a text. He stopped talking to me, pulled the phone out of his pocket, responded to the text and then continue to answer my question. I guess he thought that was okay. I can assure you, it wasn't. He couldn't wait the 20 seconds to complete his answer to look at the text. I've had my coworkers and my family and even my bosses prying into my personal life. It creates a no win situation when someone's personal life is not left personal. It's truly a serious problem that is society wide. People just can't keep their noses out of others' lives. There is a barrier created for beautiful people because of the prying. Seems if people have been together for a while that nobody cares. But if it's brand new then everyone around wants you to file a report so they can have the gossip effectively destroying the Personal aspect of the new relationship. I have a way of handling those nosy neighbors and all of the others like that. Those people are truly sick in the head and they are all asking the same question no matter how they phrase the question or how subtle they are about asking it. I just end their horse shit by asking them what they are asking me but I am NOT subtle about it. Everyone wants to Know!!! I have a dear friend and is dating a local woman here. When he drives her home in the morning he drops her off a block from her house so both can avoid any adverse neighborhood publicity and harassment. With the Internet it's beyond the walls having eyes, it's more like Radio Free Europe. Simply, if the cons of smart phones, video games, and whatever other distraction are unacceptable to a person, perhaps they may get back what they're missing by partaking less in these new luxuries. We actually tried therapy for a while but the dam could not be broken. This has lead to some resentment, which leads to some less than eventful sexual experiences, which leads to even more issues, and well, round and round as the story goes.... It seems we've grown further apart. I don't seem like my ideas are that far off the plantation, and she just wants things to stay the same. And even if they were far out there, so what? We're only on this earth one time, we're both adults, we both are sexual beings. What's the big deal? For the love of God, will everyone just chill. Stated above in an earlier comment, it's the lower drive partner that drives the bus, and the other just has to deal. Gee, is it any wonder why I'm having less sex now after 15 years of marriage, than before? Women that bring home at least half the household income don't feel the same obligation regarding sex. Sex seems to be the insurance policy of the financially dependent women and totally optional among the self sufficient. Women that bring home at least half the household income don't feel the same obligation regarding sex. You've revealed too much about yourself here. A woman with a high sex drive wouldn't comment as you did. Apparently you've totally bought into the 200-year-old stereotype that only men like sex, and women just put up with it, look up at the ceiling and think of England. A woman with a high sex drive wouldn't comment as you did. Silly albeit the enlightened square spontaneous. The previous comment rightly noted empowering economic realities. I know you missed the point made of oblige vs. The previous comment rightly noted empowering economic realities. I know you missed the point made of oblige vs. Not really, I missed no such thing at all. But you missed my point. It's biased because if you reversed the genders, the comment would be, as you say, silly -- men with economic dependence don't have to put up with obligatory sex. Uh huh -- the number of men I know with that attitude who had economic dependence is, uh, exactly zero. You're perpetuating the stereotype that women generally don't like sex. Not sure what century you're from. If you're drawing from your personal experience, perhaps you need a lesson in lovemaking and where a woman's anatomy is. I'm not saying women don't enjoy sex. My point is that women are the breadwinners in more than 50% of households, and a financially independent woman isn't going to have sex any more than she wants it. And that's why less couples are having sex. Women just don't want it that much. My level of interest in sex doesn't change that fact. Kind of a lame statement, really. In a good relationship people make concessions to each other and realize that great sex means taking turns giving to the other. That's no better than the breadwinning men of the past who didn't feel obligated to give their wives the time of day unless they jolly well felt like it. Women just don't want it that much. Fact is that almost half of couples coming to sex therapy with a desire discrepancy problem it's the woman wanting more sex than the man. So it would seem that you could just as easily blame porn, porn-induced ED, etc. My level of interest in sex doesn't change that fact. I think we can call this the main reason behind all these because people now can access all the other reasons like movies, entertainment, dating app at their smart phones very easily. And this problem is not only with Americans, this now has started to appear in almost all the parts of world. According to a website hip2hip. So do agree with you that technology certainly has made our lives easy but it also has a cost that we all have to pay. Real-life sex requires effort. Virtual sex is effortless. In as much as empirical data confirms that there are health and tax benefits, there is also the perception that it is a trap from which there is no escape without some form of pain. It would not surprise me if in a future societal incarnation, polygamy becomes a future default option for people who don't want to put their eggs in one basket. Humans are right in the middle between monogamous species and tournament species. Now sexuality is freed again and this time women are completely independent of the provider type male. If they want support they can simply earn money themselves, ask the state or sue the father of the child. Thus they have all the capacities free to choose for good genes instead of support. However they are still culturally wired to choose the monogamous lifestyle. So they get a provider, but feel no incentive to procreate with them. The other type of man would be the alpha male, whom they dislike socially, but are attracted to sexually, at least in theory. That's why they lose their sex drive unless they fantasize about completely unrealistic supermen as in 50 shades of grey. It's not the men, they are as horny as always and ususally just go for porn when no actual person wants to have sex with them, which is what is currently happening. They say lovers are selfish wanting their cake and eat it too, but sexless marriages without sex AND communication kills the marriage first. Parents pursue new romance, new marriages, new distractions, more money. Kid gets first smart phone. Kid hits social media. High School academic anxiety, high school puberty anxiety, high school status anxiety. Anti anxiety meds, add meds, birth control meds. By the time most modern young people hit 26 years old they are exhausted physically, emotionally, spiritually, financially. Anxious, unable to bond meaningfully with other people or the world around them many young people fetishize gadgets and dogs and tattoos and utopian politics, safe from the intimate and confining reality of sex and personal attachment. People are just older. Boomers are not booming like they used to. All those other things may play a role, but I'd like to see the age-adjusted data before speculating. Maybe true for some boomers, but not this one. Once a day is about right for me. I and my husband has been married for 4 years and we had no child. Though my husband loved me, his family and friends was talking him into sleeping out with other ladies and getting married to another woman, this really did hurt me so bad that i decided to seek a powerful help that is far different from the medical. I was browsing through the Internet searching for help and guidelines to get pregnant when i saw a PREGNANCY SPELL page on internet, i checked reviews online and found great testimonies of several people about how Lord Henry has helped them with a pregnancy spell to make them get pregnant. I also contacted him believing for a miracle and surely i got more than miracles. When i contacted him he gave me hope and did a pregnancy spell for me which seriously worked for me, he told me to wait for some few days before getting to bed with my husband, i obeyed and after the days i did as ordered and just few weeks later i felt some changes in me and headed straight to the hospital and was confirmed to be 3 weeks pregnant. All thanks to Lord Henry for making me a proud mother of two and for been a sincere and great man. Am so happy, you can also contact him if you have any problem or you need a good and positive pregnancy spell to help your marriage on Email: permanentspellcast yahoo. Good, unselfish, responsible sex should be the greatest connector in a wonderful relationship. I crave having that. My husband is lazy and selfish. I wish I had a nice man who was in it for an entire marriage and not just having a room mate. Divorce is not a bad thing.... I wish I had the courage when I was young, as the writing was on the wall right from the start. The debate is not about how often people are having sex but how often they are orgasming. I don't think people are orgasming any less than they used to. Men are having less sex with another human being because of pornography. The problem is pornography. For a lot of men, a real woman is just too much trouble. They've got to go out and try to meet her, or find her online, spend money on her, try to please her and get her to agree to having sex. Then they've got to have a place to do it and probably spend more money. So it isn't a question of how often people are having sex. It's the complete decline in wanting relationships that is the problem. A lot of women want to have relationships, form families and raise children. While a lot of men are just in it for the orgasm and if they can get that from looking at pornography why should they bother with any of the rest of it? The root of the problem is pornography, it's 25% of what's on the internet. As long as men can get off that way, why should they even bother with another human being. One they have to make happy, answer to or be responsible for. Just pop off to porn and go to the gym. It's really sad, upsetting, and disheartening. That WSJ article pointed out that many young women feel like there are fewer serious guys to date, and they're correct. And I think you make a great point that is almost always missed in these articles about sexual frequency. Another thing I'd add is another effect for people a bit older than the group you're addressing, that's been discussed as taking place of the last 50 years, and it's touched on by some of the other posts above. And that is that with women gaining economic independence, and the emphasis on sex as fun and recreation, and women who went to college with the sexual attitude that they are free to have it for fun and recreation. The same women who in the old days may have taken sex more seriously as a marital obligation, now regard sex as something they shouldn't have to do unless they jolly well feel in the mood for it, which just isn't that often -- and sometimes NEVER -- when they have kids, jobs, deadlines, laundry, soccer practice, music lessons.