This article is from the source 'guardian' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.
You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/03/millennials-dont-have-sex
The article has changed 3 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.
| Version 1 | Version 2 |
|---|---|
| Millennials don’t have sex? Of course we don’t | Millennials don’t have sex? Of course we don’t |
| (21 days later) | |
| It started in the spring of 1996. I’d just turned 11, and I’d recently come home with a letter from school explaining that we were about to cover reproductive biology – or as my classmates put it: “We’re doing sex education! Doing it! Geddit? Hur hur hur.” | It started in the spring of 1996. I’d just turned 11, and I’d recently come home with a letter from school explaining that we were about to cover reproductive biology – or as my classmates put it: “We’re doing sex education! Doing it! Geddit? Hur hur hur.” |
| My mum had already attempted a flustered discussion, starring both Jesus and Fallopian tubes, and I’d had some curious playground conversations about s-e-x that had led me to believe condoms were knitted and sperm came out green. So I was looking forward to a clear-eyed, concise discussion of the facts, ideally with a dollop of reassurance about this terrifying, bewilderingly adult act, the existence of which was already inspiring me to plot ways to avoid joining the adult world. Let me put it this way – if we’d had the internet at home, I would have been asking Jeeves how to join a convent. | My mum had already attempted a flustered discussion, starring both Jesus and Fallopian tubes, and I’d had some curious playground conversations about s-e-x that had led me to believe condoms were knitted and sperm came out green. So I was looking forward to a clear-eyed, concise discussion of the facts, ideally with a dollop of reassurance about this terrifying, bewilderingly adult act, the existence of which was already inspiring me to plot ways to avoid joining the adult world. Let me put it this way – if we’d had the internet at home, I would have been asking Jeeves how to join a convent. |
| So when the first session arrived I was apprehensive but curious. An hour later, all 28 of us were in tears about the possibility of getting pregnant or dying of Aids. | So when the first session arrived I was apprehensive but curious. An hour later, all 28 of us were in tears about the possibility of getting pregnant or dying of Aids. |
| The teen pregnancy rate rose by 10% between 1981 and 1990. Looking back, I can understand that our teachers and parents were desperate to scare us straight, and stop us from experiencing a life-altering pregnancy at a young age. We were told that academic and professional achievement was everything and sex would only get in the way. It seemed to work. Even though the UK, as a country, still has one of the highest teen birth-rates in Europe, the numbers have fallen to an all-time low. | The teen pregnancy rate rose by 10% between 1981 and 1990. Looking back, I can understand that our teachers and parents were desperate to scare us straight, and stop us from experiencing a life-altering pregnancy at a young age. We were told that academic and professional achievement was everything and sex would only get in the way. It seemed to work. Even though the UK, as a country, still has one of the highest teen birth-rates in Europe, the numbers have fallen to an all-time low. |
| This is good news, but it seems all this scary sex ed has affected us negatively too. According to research from the Archives of Sexual Behaviour, millennials – those of us born between the mid-80s and 90s – are significantly less likely to have sex than our Generation X counterparts. Some 15% of people born in the 1990s report that they have had no sexual partners since the age of 18, compared with 6% of people born two decades earlier when they were in the same age group. People who grew up before effective treatments for HIV were available, and when Aids was the subject of a series of terrifying televised public-health warnings, somehow managed to be less frightened of sex than we are. | This is good news, but it seems all this scary sex ed has affected us negatively too. According to research from the Archives of Sexual Behaviour, millennials – those of us born between the mid-80s and 90s – are significantly less likely to have sex than our Generation X counterparts. Some 15% of people born in the 1990s report that they have had no sexual partners since the age of 18, compared with 6% of people born two decades earlier when they were in the same age group. People who grew up before effective treatments for HIV were available, and when Aids was the subject of a series of terrifying televised public-health warnings, somehow managed to be less frightened of sex than we are. |
| The response has been predictable. Of course millennials don’t have sex, they’re far too busy catching Pokémon, or sharing selfies on Snapchat. But I don’t think this is a laughing matter. There has been so much hysterical handwringing about how damaged and deviant we would become as the first generation to grow up with porn in our pockets. Collectively we’re still very anxious about the “sexting epidemic”. Of course it’s worrying that children are pressing each other to send sexually explicit images, but I think the greatest tragedy is that the sex we manage to have rarely goes beyond a screen. | The response has been predictable. Of course millennials don’t have sex, they’re far too busy catching Pokémon, or sharing selfies on Snapchat. But I don’t think this is a laughing matter. There has been so much hysterical handwringing about how damaged and deviant we would become as the first generation to grow up with porn in our pockets. Collectively we’re still very anxious about the “sexting epidemic”. Of course it’s worrying that children are pressing each other to send sexually explicit images, but I think the greatest tragedy is that the sex we manage to have rarely goes beyond a screen. |
| I worry that we’ve trapped ourselves behind glass. We’re so bewildered by real life that we’ve had to invent a hashtag for it, and IRL – in real life – is now a state that is removed from the way we actually spend our days. It’s no wonder that we’re not having sex when we’re frightened of our own flesh. In 2014 the British Social Attitudes survey revealed that almost 10 million women feel depressed because of the way they look. And poor body confidence is said to be on the rise among men. | I worry that we’ve trapped ourselves behind glass. We’re so bewildered by real life that we’ve had to invent a hashtag for it, and IRL – in real life – is now a state that is removed from the way we actually spend our days. It’s no wonder that we’re not having sex when we’re frightened of our own flesh. In 2014 the British Social Attitudes survey revealed that almost 10 million women feel depressed because of the way they look. And poor body confidence is said to be on the rise among men. |
| According to the latest National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyle, 33. 8% of men and 44.4% of sexually active young women – almost half – don’t enjoy sex because they experience pain and anxiety. Millennials have been scared off sex, and if we’re not focusing on the ways in which it could physiologically damage us, we’re staring at images of impossible perfection and deciding that we could never be enough for our potential partners. | According to the latest National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyle, 33. 8% of men and 44.4% of sexually active young women – almost half – don’t enjoy sex because they experience pain and anxiety. Millennials have been scared off sex, and if we’re not focusing on the ways in which it could physiologically damage us, we’re staring at images of impossible perfection and deciding that we could never be enough for our potential partners. |
| We urgently need another sexual revolution. We must celebrate sex, talk about tenderness and togetherness, and address the fact that a whole generation is so anxious about looking good that they can’t allow themselves to feel good. To paraphrase the English writer John Berger, right now other people act, and millennials appear. It’s imperative that we address this. | We urgently need another sexual revolution. We must celebrate sex, talk about tenderness and togetherness, and address the fact that a whole generation is so anxious about looking good that they can’t allow themselves to feel good. To paraphrase the English writer John Berger, right now other people act, and millennials appear. It’s imperative that we address this. |
| At secondary school I was lucky enough to get one sensible bit of sex advice from a biology teacher who said: “Girls, sex is fun. But not cool!” This is our problem. My generation has such a narrow, restrictive definition of cool that we’ve forgotten to have fun. | At secondary school I was lucky enough to get one sensible bit of sex advice from a biology teacher who said: “Girls, sex is fun. But not cool!” This is our problem. My generation has such a narrow, restrictive definition of cool that we’ve forgotten to have fun. |
| • This article was amended on 4 August 2016. An earlier version referred to people who grew up “when HIV was almost impossible to cure”, where “before effective treatments for HIV were available” was meant. | • This article was amended on 4 August 2016. An earlier version referred to people who grew up “when HIV was almost impossible to cure”, where “before effective treatments for HIV were available” was meant. |