Sexy Times- Totally Not Depressing…

Young people are having less sex, but why? This is the story of my personal decline.

In recent years, news sources like The Atlantic have been reporting a decline in the amount of sex that young people are having in America. The big question is: Why? Are we Netflix and chilling too much? Is our access to porn stifling our ability to engage in real intimacy? Or are we simply getting wiser about who we’re sharing our bodies with?

Since I have been super content by my own declining sex life, I figured I’d share my journey of how I went from very horny teenager to still horny but totally fine with not having sex with shitty people adult.

It starts back to when the hormones were raging. I say were raging because today, fewer teenagers are opting to “go all the way.” There’s speculation as to why, both positive and negative. Comparing my teenage experience with teenagers today, they might have (nearly) unlimited resources for virtual relationships, but they also have an infinite number of resources to educate themselves about sex, despite the fact that our inherently sex-negative culture still widely refuses to establish proper sexual education courses in schools.

When I was a teenager, the football coach who also happened to be my health teacher, reluctantly played dated videos that I can’t remember much about, other than they were gross and embarrassing. Pretty much, I learned what I could from rumors circulating about other women.

This didn’t lead to particularly amazing first experiences, especially the “big one.” The first time I had sex was with a boy who I really did like, but he kept dumping me for his ex girlfriend. Finally, after a party, and with the help of Xanex (which typically makes you super horny AND blackout when you drink with it) I snuck him into my room and we had sex.

I suppose I was pretty lucky, since it didn’t hurt and I did actually have feelings for the guy, and he wasn’t a terrible person (because he easily could have been where I come from.) It was, in a word, anticlimactic.

Of course, since he wasn’t my boyfriend at the time, I was free to (and did) have sex with quite a few more boys just that summer… and then even more people the following year. Sex became my claim to power, or so I believed. 

This is not to say that having a lot of sex when you’re young is bad, but there was definitely a lack of understanding what I was getting myself into and why. That’s the bit that made it such a problem.

If I had to guess, I’d say that high school students now have a better understanding of what it means to engage in intimacy. Sexual empowerment is in the air, and a large part of that is getting to make the decision NOT to have sex. Maybe teens are more cautious now because they’ve heard the same stories we have about what happens at parties when football players/future judicial court members have one too many drinks.

Soon, I was in my twenties and a mostly single girl living in New York City. I was binging Sex And The City and searching desperately for… something, but what? Love, adventure, companionship… acceptance. Someone to torture me the way Mr. Big (who I don’t care, I still love him) tortured Carrie? (Also, Carried didn’t exactly handle her relationship issues with Big very well.) I would fall in love with guys I barely knew, and frantically work to get them to return my calls after we had slept together (which was likely upon meeting them, or after a first date.)

I just didn’t understand why my relationships didn’t progress. At least, not until years later, when it became clear that, if I had actually gotten to know these men before sleeping with them, instead of automatically assuming that they were worthy of pursuit because my self-esteem was so low, I would have seen that we really weren’t a great fit to begin with. Doesn’t mean I couldn’t still sleep with them, but I would have been doing so from a place of strength instead of weakness.

Then, there was the move to Los Angeles at 25 and it became just a little more difficult to make bad decisions. Bars closed earlier, you had to preplan how you would get to and from a place.

The #MeToo movement happened and exposed some ugly truths about experiences that I had in the past. I’m sure I’m far from the only person who felt this way. Nation-wide, women began to come forward, and suddenly we realized our sexual history was collectively more sinister than we’d care to admit.

My mindset changed quite a bit. I became more honest with myself about what I wanted, which was a meaningful relationship, and that helped me see that the decisions I had been making sexually weren’t supporting that. Not because “sluts get cut,” but because I had been using sex as a tool to (1) try and trap someone in a relationship before I knew anything about them and (2) weigh my worth.

When that became clear, it was definitely one of those exciting light blub moments. I didn’t just go home with anyone who would have me. In fact, once I realized that I wanted more I was much pickier about whom I decided to share intimacy with. Then, I eventually began having the “what do you want” conversation before engaging in physical activity.

It was tough to be honest with people about wanting a relationship up front because it narrows down the options quite a bit. (LOL.)  It meant some people were gone before anything even started, but the reality is that they would disappeared sooner or later and I was potentially saving myself months of ups and downs and heartbreak by simply learning the information I needed to know before sleeping with someone.

And it worked. Eventually I met a handsome and sweet guy who, although he wasn’t as ready as he hoped for a serious relationship, stayed committed to me and treated me with love and respect throughout our relationship.

Then I moved home and began transitioning to my 30’s.

Nowadays, I am pretty much sexually inactive. AND. I. LOVE. IT. For possibly the first time in my single life, I am not pining over some unavailable turd. I am not focused on some tumultuous back and forth, or waiting by the phone to see who texts. After years of discovery, I feel like I finally have permission to focus whole-heartedly on my own needs and desires- not as it pertains to someone else.

Of course, I still want love and intimacy, and it seems the more I focus on that the more fulfilling my sexual experiences are, and will be.  

It’s not entirely surprising to learn that I’m not alone in transitioning to a more modest sex life. For me personally, it has nothing to do with the technology further isolating me from deep human connection, or any other speculations that stem from fear of the shift in society’s views toward sex.

It simply has to do with knowledge and self-empowerment, and perhaps that’s why the shift is happening during a time that is more sex-positive than ever.