Americans Are Having Less Sex
Key topics
The decline in Americans' sex lives has sparked a lively discussion, with commenters pointing to a complex web of factors contributing to this trend. While some blame the modern workplace, citing fear of HR violations and the challenges of navigating office dynamics, others highlight the role of societal pressures and personal circumstances, such as obesity and busy lifestyles. One commenter wondered how HR concerns could impact intimacy, prompting a clarification that the fear of being reported for flirting is a significant deterrent. As the conversation unfolds, it becomes clear that there's no single culprit behind this shift, with multiple factors at play.
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- 01Story posted
Aug 30, 2025 at 10:10 AM EDT
4 months ago
Step 01 - 02First comment
Aug 30, 2025 at 10:54 AM EDT
44m after posting
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2 comments in 0-1h
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Step 03 - 04Latest activity
Aug 30, 2025 at 12:32 PM EDT
4 months ago
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Here’s an incomplete list of things I think are causes.
Overwork, burnout, and anxiety.
Housing prices. Hard to be sexy when you live in your parent’s basement.
Porn, hookup culture, and sex everywhere actually drains sex of its allure and paradoxically makes it less appealing.
A downstream effect of the friendship recession / loneliness epidemic, a trend that itself has many causes and goes back at least as far as the 1990s.
Doom scrolling, addiction to social media and gaming.
Men being propagandized with “manosphere” content that makes them repellent to women, and women absorbing “femcel” content that does the same. This in turn is downstream of doom scrolling and social media since this kind of content is pushed by algorithms.
Death of in person socialization, which was a trend already in place before COVID but which COVID made a lot worse.
Some people shifting toward more conservative views, partly as a reaction against the aforementioned hookup culture and porn everywhere stuff.
I’m sure there are more.
Fear of HR violations in the workplace.
A good portion of people are morbidly obese. That hinders attraction and expression.
The modern inability to escape your past, leading to timid behaviour (in many endeavors).
The modern ability to find previous lovers of your partner, leading to jealousy and other emotions.
People may call it unhealthy, but these days when I have the time and urge I typically hop on VRC, find someone else, connect some “devices” to the PC, and have some fun with them. It’s not the real thing, but it’s good enough to satisfy me 95% of the time.