Generation frigid: nearly 40% of 18-30-year-olds in California have not had sex in a YEAR

As many as four in ten young adults are in the middle of a year-long dry spell when it comes to sex.

A nationally representative survey in California shows that by 2021, 38 percent of people ages 18 to 30 reported not having had a sexual partner in the past 12 months, up from 29 percent in 2019.

Older adults were much less likely to report a one-year period of abstinence. In 2021, that rate was about 20 percent, slightly higher than the 18 percent reported in 2020.

Researchers say the rising cost of living following the pandemic has led young people to live longer with their parents and spend more time online, reducing the likelihood of having sex.

Increasing computer use may play a role in the downward trend in sexual activity among young people, especially men (stock image)

The latest count comes from the California Health Survey (CHIS)the largest state health survey in the US.

Unlike their younger counterparts, older adults have not seen the same decline in sexual activity. The rate at which adults aged 31 to 64 reported no sexual partners in 12 months has hovered around 17 percent over the past decade.

Experts believe that high rates of abstinence, wanted or unwanted, reflect changing attitudes toward long-term relationships and marriages coupled with uncertain economic times and an embrace of digital distant relationships.

Dr. Lei Lei, a sociologist at Rutgers University who has studied declining incident sex rates, said: ‘The new generation of young adults became more individualistic and less social in real life, but more involved in social media and online gaming networks.

“The changes in the way young people interact affect their likelihood of having casual sex, which often serves as a trial or rehearsal for long-term romantic relationships.”

In a 2021 paper co-author of Dr. Slate with Dr. Scott South at the University of Albany, they conclude that the sexual recession is due to lower alcohol consumption combined with increased computer game use and higher percentages of young people living with their parents.

They found that between 2007 and 2017, the percentage of men ages 18 to 23 who had casual sex in the past month dropped from 38 percent to 24 percent. The rate fell from 31 percent to 22 percent for young women of the same age.

The decrease in drinking among young men explained more than 33 percent of the decline, while the increase in computer video games explains about 25 percent of the change in sexual behavior among young men.

The increase in living with parents explains just over 10 percent of the decline in men. And in young women, about 25 percent is attributable to a decrease in drinking, which was the only factor explaining a significant portion of the decrease.

The latest statewide study also found that one’s financial health has a strong influence on one’s sex life. More than half of Californians ages 18 to 30 living below the poverty line, less than $13,000 a year for a single person, reported having no sexual partners in the 12 months prior to the survey.

On the other hand, only a third of the highest earners experienced the same lack of sexual partners.

While many young adults are increasingly forging friendships through digital avenues such as video games, another technological powerhouse has taken its toll on deep personal and sexual relationship formations: pornography.

It has never been more accessible than it is today and, amid a lack of comprehensive sex education in schools, more and more young people are turning to sites like PornHub for study material.

But with time and frequent viewing, porn becomes less of an asset and more of a hindrance. Clicking on a raunchy video causes a surge in dopamine, the neurotransmitter in the brain that tells you when something good happens, “remember what caused this good feeling for later,” and leaves us wanting more.

The well-known spike in dopamine that occurs after clicking the first video or photo loses its impact over time, forcing the user to look for more graphic or extreme content that will provide the same dopamine kick.

Pornography can become an addiction and watching too much has been shown to damage deep relationships.

A recent study of the American Sociological Association found that 11 percent of people who started watching porn between the first two times they were interviewed were divorced by the second time researchers spoke to them, compared to just 6 percent of people whose porn viewing habits didn’t change .

And 16 percent of married women who started watching porn themselves are divorced.

The drop in casual sex could potentially lead to lower rates of sexually transmitted diseases, though that hasn’t been confirmed.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there were 2.53 million cases of chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis in 2021, nearly 6 percent more than in 2020 and up from 7 percent in 2017.

While certain STDs are still not as high in 2021 and in pre-pandemic years, others, such as syphilis, are seeing the highest numbers in more than 70 years.