Sextinction: Why We Are Having Less Sex (with Dr. Debra Soh)

Thank you, Drew. I'm very excited to be here too as well.

Right. So, I had been hearing about this so-called sex recession or the dating recession for a while. The first study showing that there has been this decline in sexual activity came out in 2016. And that study found that among Americans, they were having less sex than ever before. And this was especially the case for younger generations and especially among—well, data since then have shown that it's particularly among millennials and Gen Z and especially young men. So the reason why that's important to me as a former scientist who studied human sexuality is that sex is a very important part of life. It's obviously important if we want to continue as a species. But also in terms of emotional connection, especially for men, that is one of the primary ways that men connect with their partners and feel that closeness to a partner. And so if we are not having sex, that does not signal good things for society. I also wondered, well, what is taking the place of sex? Because if people are less interested in it, especially at a time when our culture is so sex-saturated, that's very unusual. So why are people less interested in it? What is taking the place of sexual activity? And so basically, Sexinction, my new book, is an investigation into what are the replacements for sex, how is this technology affecting us, what is it predicting for the future, and also, how are we going to get back to a place where people are connecting once again? Because I do think this is a symbol of how we are as a society in some ways growing apart, falling apart even I would say, because many people feel very lonely. I think there's a mental health epidemic happening and the solutions that are being proposed for this sex recession or this lack of connection is only going to leave us feeling more lonely and more empty.

The mental health crisis is a big part of it. Gen Z especially struggles with anxiety. So, they feel very self-conscious. They feel like they're being judged, especially around other people or with strangers. And I don't blame them. I do think a large part of this is due to differences in how they grew up with regard to access to the internet, as you mentioned, early exposure to pornography. A lot of their interactions with the opposite sex have been through a screen. So either social media, seeing depictions on social media, seeing people talk about the opposite sex in very negative ways on social media, texting as opposed to phone calls or in-person hangouts, things like that over time can really affect a person in terms of how they feel, how they feel about their peers and about dating. But I think also in terms of self-esteem because it's more difficult to grow and to feel like you are competent in social situations if you have less experience. I mean, it's very understandable, but I think especially social media, there's such a huge body of research showing the negative effects on young people in terms of their self-esteem, higher risk of depression, body image. We see the increased popularity of cosmetic procedures in both girls and boys, which is very concerning. And at younger and younger ages, I think that is due to social media. Again, this sense that—or even I would say online forums that really advocate for people looking their best. You know, looksmaxxing is one example of this, which I think is understandable that we all want to look our best when we go out to date, we go out to meet people, or to keep someone we're interested in. But it's taken to such an extreme now, especially for children. There's really no reason for them to be concerned. When I was looking on these looksmaxxing forums and I'm seeing that there are boys who are not even pubertal yet, so they're not technically supposed to be on these forums—I believe they're supposed to be at least age 13 to be on there—but they get access somehow and they're saying, 'I haven't hit puberty yet, but I want to know what should I take? Which hormones should I take? You know, what other potential medications can I take to extend puberty so that I can have more masculine facial structure?' And when I meet young men, Gen Zers, out in the wild, you know, going about my business in life—I'm very friendly, so I'll talk to anybody—I find it really heartbreaking that these young guys are so worried about the way they look. And I think, you know, you're young, you're fit, you should be out. Hopefully, I mean, you're active and hopefully you're just enjoying your life and spending time with your friends and talking to women and not feeling so self-conscious and constantly beating yourself up about not meeting this standard that does not actually exist in real life anyway. Everything on social media is so filtered and so fake. So, yeah, just in terms of the connection that the sexes have is really, really tenuous right now. And so that's also one of my goals in speaking about this is to hopefully help men and women find each other, back to each other.

Yes.

Yeah. Dating apps had the potential to help us meet people outside of our immediate circles. I did believe when they first came out on the market that this was an amazing idea. That, well, post-#MeToo especially, people can't really meet at work anymore. It's not considered appropriate and understandably men are terrified to approach women in public whom they don't know. So at least the dating apps offer this buffer in terms of if a woman's not interested she can just unmatch with you and men hopefully won't have their lives ruined that way. But because the algorithms are not transparent, because also meeting someone—quote, meeting someone through a screen, seeing a static image of them or several static images and texting or even having a video call—is not the same as meeting in person in the flesh, having a proper conversation, even if it's a very superficial conversation at first. I do think dating should probably be a little bit more in-depth in terms of—I'm all for people asking really cringe-worthy, embarrassing questions or revealing personal things about themselves early on because that's how you find the right person. But even still, if you're on an app and you're just swiping, so many people on there are just swiping for entertainment or validation and they're not even actually interested in meeting anyone or going on dates, which can make the process extremely frustrating for people who are taking it seriously. So all of these things have led to a serious fatigue around dating apps and as you mentioned also people have internalized these really unrealistic expectations of what they're supposed to look like and also I think in terms of their sexual behavior or how flirtatious they are or how sexually forward they are when they are on a date. Casual sex has become so normalized in society, especially for young women. And I do think young men obviously feel a pressure too to be promiscuous and have a high quote body count. Whereas women, their sole value is based on their quote body count. And I think everyone should just be a little bit less promiscuous. There's no pressure to do anything that you don't feel comfortable doing, especially if it's someone you don't know well. That doesn't make sense from a sexual health perspective either. And just to meet in real life again. I think that would be a big part of the solution is to make people comfortable or to have the confidence to approach each other in real life and men to not fear having their lives ruined and women also to be a little bit more kind and understanding and have compassion for men. Even if you're not necessarily attracted to a guy, you don't need to make it a horrible experience for him.

Thank you. Well, we'll say in the context of casual sex. So, most women when they go out into the dating world, they are looking for a relationship. They would like something long-term because when women have sex with a man, they become more attached after. It's a biological fact. And although our culture likes to deny differences between the sexes, it's just not true. Men and women, their sexual behavior on average is different, the tactics, we'll say, or strategies they use to get a partner are different on average. And so women typically want a relationship, whereas men typically are looking for sex. Not everyone, of course. I think it's great especially for men who have different values and are seeking long-term commitments and are seeking marriage in particular as opposed to just hooking up with as many people as possible. So when you look at it that way, when the sexes come together they are basically in a negotiation. And so if women want a relationship, men are going to be gatekeeping that. This is why so many young people feel confused. There will be young men who will sleep with women very early on and they don't understand why these women get so attached and then the young women also don't understand why they're so attached after because they think, why can't I have sex like a quote, like a man? And though I think this is also leading to this polarization between the sexes, that's not to say that I think men and women are complete opposites and they can never get along, but that if you have this understanding, if you have an accurate understanding of how the sexes approach sexual relationships, you are in a better position, whether you're a man or a woman, because you can understand your own behavior. You can understand where a potential partner is coming from. And also, if you do want that long-term commitment, it's better for you as a woman to wait. And I also think for men to understand that as much as you might like to have sex with her right away, it might also be better for you to wait because you'll get to know each other, see if you're a good match. I hear from so many men who say, 'I married this woman, right? And she uses sex as a way to punish me or she uses sex as a way to basically turn me down if I don't get my way.' And so the dating process is not just for the sake of dating. It's about vetting for the right person. And if you're sleeping with someone very early on, you don't vet them. You don't get a chance to vet them properly.

Well, marriage signals a commitment. And some people might say, well, you can have that commitment without it being legally recognized. But I disagree because there's still a distinction between being committed to someone and being legally committed. And some people might say, 'Oh, that's unromantic, if you need a piece of paper.' But again, the people who say that tend to be the ones who don't want to get married for whatever reason. Maybe they have commitment issues. Maybe they didn't have a great experience growing up and they saw their parents' marriage. Maybe their parents are divorced or maybe there's a lot of conflict in the home. So that's leading them to have a really sour view of commitment and marriage. And so I do think for people who go into a situation saying, 'I'm not interested in marriage from the get-go,' they know that they can bail at any time. So if they know that, they're not going to really fully invest in their partner. And if their partner is okay with that, the individual person who says, 'I don't want to get married,' knows that their partner is also going to put up with it. It's a very insidious, I would say, dynamic and it's very common and it's understandable I think too for especially young people. If we look at Gen Z, they grew up with all this crazy messaging on the internet and very many of them, their parents may have been divorced or they might see friends' families where their parents were divorced. And so although divorce rates are at an all-time low now, I do believe some of the damage that's associated with being raised with your parents in separate homes or say being raised by a single parent has left a mark on a generation. So I would say if people are averse to the idea of marriage—I don't think everyone has to get married. I don't want to sit here and be shaking my finger and saying you have to do this, you have to do that. But at the same time to ask yourself why is it that you don't see yourself ever being with someone long-term. I'm willing to bet there are deeper reasons as to why. And marriage is important because again there's an understanding there that hopefully when you are getting married it's going to be forever. Although nowadays it's common for people to get married just to get married because there's a cultural pressure. Their friends and family are bugging them about it. Maybe they think it's romantic and they don't realize that marriage actually takes work. And I give an anecdote in the book about how—I won't give it away—but basically how people get married even though there are huge red flags even the night before the wedding day. And I mean that's a tragedy, but I don't think that says that marriage is bad across the board. And the other thing is that if young people are less interested in commitment and marriage, well, that explains why there's a sex recession, why they're turning away from sex. Because if you are not interested in pairing up or if you're not interested in being connected with anyone in that way, then you're not really as interested in sex either. The commitment and the sex tends to go hand in hand, especially if you are pursuing women.

Mhm.

Yeah, that's a really big conundrum and that was one that really got me interested in answering for Sexinction when I was writing it. And I think part of it is that because the younger generation is so inundated with sex, it's lost its allure because it's just everywhere. It's ubiquitous. It's almost boring to a point. I think that's part of it. And I've heard you say on a podcast that the influence of pornography to some extent in terms of how it's different for kids growing up nowadays, whereas with purity culture in the past it was very much—if children are not being sexualized at such a young age—it's a little bit more understandable why saying to them, stay away from this stuff, that might be a little bit more of a realistic approach. I agree with you in that I think porn exposure at a young age really has done some damage to these kids and they don't have the same innocence unfortunately that previous generations did. And some people might say, well, millennials had exposure to porn too, but it's not to the same extent. It is not the same content either. It's very, very—I would say it's not like magazines in the past where a woman would be smiling, you know, she might be by herself in the nude, looking like she's happy. Now, it's very violent. It's very degrading. I should say to your audience, I used to be a columnist for a well-known men's magazine that featured nude women. So, I just want to be very clear that my views on porn have changed a lot since then. At the same time, when people say, 'Oh, millennials were exposed to this, and it's not such a big deal,' millennials also are showing decreased rates in sexual activity. It's just not to the same extent as Gen Z. And I do think because Gen Z was so young, the minute you give a child a smartphone, they have access to porn. Even if they're not intentionally seeking it out, they're going to see it at some point or another. Either with friends sending it to them, strangers on the internet, which is very concerning. If they're playing video games, if they're on any social media platform, it's going to get sent to them and they will see it. So, I do think that has done a lot to their sexual development. It's really warped in some ways their expectations of sex. I think that might be why some, both boys and girls, are turning away from actual sexual relationships because they think, I don't want to do what I see in this content. Many of them, I think, were actually traumatized from seeing it and probably are still trying to make sense of that. And then in Sexinction, I talk about some really disturbing trends like choking or sexual strangulation that is associated with pornography. I don't believe that an entire generation is just suddenly interested in the women being choked and the men choking the women. That just does not seem like an organic or healthy or natural thing to happen. And there are some people who enjoy that type of dynamic in the bedroom, but that's due to different reasons. I think the fact that choking has become so widespread and so popular speaks to the influence of porn.

I feel really sad. I'm sure many in your audience have had this experience at a young age. And it just—I don't—we can't really go back and unfortunately undo these changes. But my hope is that for young men who may be wanting to heal from that or to outgrow porn as you say, to find it within them, I would say you can definitely do it. It takes some courage. And I mean I really applaud you for speaking about your experiences publicly because I can only imagine what that's like. But yeah, my heart breaks for these boys and for these girls. And I don't think it should be so normalized. I don't think porn should be so normalized in society.