get sum

Easy. "Sex" is only P in V. Anything else isn't sex. Probably also the type of people that insist trans men aren't men, etc.

Uhh, I’m not sure you’re familiar with what sex is, if that’s your definition. After all, your description includes soaking, and those Mormon teens assured me that neither god nor the government would mind.
- (psst, I'm explaining why they may have structured the question in the way they did, not explaining what I consider to be sex)
- ... What is soaking in this context (or should I avoid asking)?
trans people only make up a small percentage of the population and they don't explain the surge visible in the graph

I'd assume that there's actually more virgins between 18-30 nowadays, though. Loneliness might not be a specifically male epidemic, but it certainly is a societal epidemic in most western countries.

I won't disagree that loneliness is an issue in our society. But I don't think it is the only "problem". Anecdotally for me: I wasn't ready to have sex, a relationship or for dating for a long time. So I'm mostly happy to have taken that time. In previous generations you'd marry and have kids for a while at that point. I think we have a lot more room to grow individually today.
- We also have more room to fail individually today. Don't get me wrong, I'm not proposing that we go back to where western societies were in the 50s, but there are definitely downsides to our current societies that need to be dealt with. Lonely people aren't just individual people who are having a bad time, they are IMO a huge threat for societal cohesion. e.g. they're much more likely than non-lonely people to politically radicalize.
I work with a horny 24-year-old virgin that's socially awkward and saving it for marriage...
- Male or female?
- saving it for marriage
  He can't pay for marriage ceremony by his virginity.

👀 Take a look at those error bars on that graph. Awwwooooga! 👀

I mean, from your own link, those error bars come from:
The data being a clustered sample set,
That study wasn't specifically asking whether or not respondents were virgins, ie, had 0 sex partners.
...
The error bars there are large because the actual question was 'how many sex partners have you had in the past however many years?', and then your linked post explains how this particular dataset/survey/study was then presented to try to show the answer to a question that wasn't explicitly asked.
That can have a lot more variance than a survey/study that flatly asks binary question of 'have you ever had sex before?', and then goes on to define what does and doesn't count as 'having sex'.
...
And indeed when you actually do that kind of approach, there are many other graphs from many other studies showing it being increasingly for both young men and young women to be virgins, have had 0 sex partners.
https://news.iu.edu/live/news/26924-nearly-1-in-3-young-men-in-the-us-report-having-no
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/young-adult-sexlessness-skyrocketed-in-the-last-decade-while-male-virginity-doubled-study/ar-AA1z4kMy
https://www.cdc.gov/yrbs/dstr/index.html
All of these show a marked decline in the number of both young men and young women who have ever had sex, that more people remain sexless for longer, to an older age.
(Though this started earlier among men and is more pronounced, women are now catching up as well)
...
Also worth noting:
Compared to adult participants in the 2009 survey, adults in the 2018 group were significantly more likely to report no penile-vaginal intercourse in the prior year, the researchers found. Study participants were also significantly less likely to report engaging in any other sexual behaviors examined in the study, such as oral sex or anal sex. All modes of past-year partnered sex were reported by fewer people in the 2018 cohort.
Yeah, contrary to the implication of OP's image... no, young men are not having more of some other kind of sex than male/female p/v, but still having some other kind of sex.
They're just not having sex with a partner. At all.
Bros are not en masse becoming gay or bi or pan or trans, and then having 'non-traditional' sex that would make them not virgins in a 'non-traditional' way, not in the numbers you'd need to make that a statistically viable explanation for lack of m/f p/v sex.
This is funny haha meme joke, but its not based in reality, its based in whimsy.
You can check that against male self-id rates as LGBTQ and see that there has been a slow, gradual rise, from about 3% up to about 5% for men right now... but nothing like an 8% to 28% rise in roughly the same time period.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/719697/american-adults-who-identify-as-homosexual-bisexual-or-transgender-by-gender/
This one particular graph having error bars does not mean this is not a real thing that is happening.
...
And in case its relevant, I am a queer guy who has had varying kinds of sex and intimacy with both men and women, trans-inclusive.
- Going to point out that you've erroneously used the term, over and over again, "sex partners", when the graph states "sex with women" and so does the question they seemingly asked.
Honestly I trust a plot with huge error bars much more than a plot with tiny error bars or constant error bars.
It might be 5%, it might be 16%. Those are basically the same number, moving along
So, at age 18, my virginity comes back if I lost it sooner? I lost my virginity twice? Neat!
(ignoring trouble with the word virginity and what the definition of even a sexual partner or something would be when the average reader perhaps thinks PiV penetrative sex).
Edit: as usual, I should have scrolled down first as others beat me to it.
Honestly, feels like they asked like 30 people total
that's just a straight line with extra steps!
wordsmith, you've caused me to laugh, well done!

“Since they turned 18” also seems needlessly specific.

Didn't you know? When you turn 18 your body hits the virginity reset button!
I'm guessing thats to avoid some ethical grey areas. Or theyre specifically gathering data on men after highschool.
I assume they don't want to open a can of worms regarding childhood abuse. Doesn't seem needless
- Two consenting 16 year olds having sex is neither child abuse, nor illegal in the UK.
I interpret the results as men between 18 and 29 who've never had sex. I'd answer at least 1 if I had sex at 17.
- Really depends on what the question asked. I'd mostly trust the GSS to report the data correctly, but not really trust Wapo to do so. I looked at GSS questions (can't view data on mobile) and it seems like Wapo might be being drawing some misleading conclusions from the data, as no question specifically asked this. Hard to be sure.
Might be that they want to survey adults
- They can limited the survey to adults and just ask them if they ever had any “sexual partner” and it would have done nothing but make for more accurate results.

They're turning the incels gay!

Aren't they turning the gays to incels?
- There’s a brief period where they go full femboy first

If they changed the question now they wouldn't have continuous data going back to 1989 anymore.

People weren't gay until 1989 so that makes sense. Literally not a single one. 😏
- But society was a fair bit more socially conservative when discussing homosexuality.
- Me and my lifelong roommates having each other's backs throughout life. Its good to have friends.
- You're kind of not wrong in a way because in a lot of societies and cultures, even in the past, being gay wasn't seen as abnormal or it was a part of certain politics etc, so likely people could 'get away' with a lot more than they can now. There are and were also cultures where it's not seen as an other, which is the world we can all hope for.
Sure, but like... maybe that data isn't really relevant or trustworthy either if that's how it was phrased?
Pollster: "Have you ever had sex with a woman?"
Closeted sexually active 28 year old gay guy when being gay could get you ostracized or killed: "Oh.... y... yeah! I love the vaginas. So... slippery and... moist (gag)"
Pollster: "NICE!" high five
- Yeah, this problem applies to all questions.

Does this weird anyone else out? Graduated HS in 1989 and it seemed like we were all fucking, even the nerds. I'm short and scrawny, still tripped and fell into pussy now and again.

There's something really alarming about this, can't put my finger on it. It's certainly weird that today's young people aren't fucking when we were going nuts during the AIDS epidemic, risking our lives for that cookie. Sex is such a basic human need I can't imagine what going without is doing to mental health.

It think that rather than early - really early - exposure to porn turning everyone into sex-fiends, it's actually terrifying a lot of them. What if I don't want to gargle cum like Adriana Chechik? What if I don't have a 10 inch cock to stuff my stepmother with?
A more optimistic reading might be that masturbating is easier, freer, quicker, and more accepted than ever before. Rather than risk an STI, pregnancy or human relationship, just crank one out and get back to work.
- Another hypothesis; The dopamine machine smartphone
- Even the boys I knew in high school already had messed up ideas about sex from porn, and that was 20 years ago.
  I never got into visual porn, which made for confusing experiences dating guys who knew little else, in my teens and early 20s. Aside from the obvious confusion that brought to the bedroom about what we were expecting, it was surprising how many guys had perfectly wonderful bodies yet thought they were inadequate. One guy had a 8.5" (21cm)* long dick and still thought it wasn't big enough. I told him, "Dude, you repeatedly stab my cervix. Trust me, you're big enough."
  It seems that dick insecurity is really common, and that no one size is immune, no matter what partners tell them.
Sex is such a basic human need I can't imagine what going without is doing to mental health.
In some cultures (mostly thinking if predominantly Muslim ones, but there are probably others) having sex in your youth isn't expected or even accepted, so really not having sex alone is fine. It's the whole Western idea of sex = self-worth that really fucks people up.
- As a non-Westerner, I think Western culture is pretty pragmatic but very hedonistic. I find non-Westerner cultures to be too prude and ascetic especially when it comes to sex, but the West's attitude towards it is on the opposite extreme. Yes, sex is fun, but it's like not having sex for them is a life or death situation. My classmates back then were bragging when they supposedly lost their virginity.
But it was also something people lied a lot about so the numbers could be shaky. Maybe we should redo it and ask old people when they got laid the first time.
- Yeah I learned the math from American Pie. But we got laid more, because we met people in the real world more. Also when dating sites first came out, they were actually built to find you a partner. I got laid so much more from those apps. I hear today those apps main goal is to keep you on the app. (So glad met my wife on OkCuipd before the enshitiction)
  I mean I once met woman from Craigslist on personal connections or whatnot. Not even sure that a thing now.
  Plus younger people aren't sex crazed like we were. I have three boys. Oldest 21 to youngest 16. Two in relationships. At 16 I was chasing girls like crazy. My 16 year old son could care less. He has other priorities. And my middle son isn't trying to get laid with his trans boyfriend. I mean as a father kinda glad they aren't out knocking up girls and shit. At same time do worry about it. But think it's us not them.
  Probably don't help that life harder now and their future looks bleak.
- Graduated in 91. Can't confirm first time for anyone but me and one girlfriend but I will confirm we were getting laid. I was almost 15 and she had recently turned 15. Can also confirm post virginity high school sex with another girl. I really only had two serious girlfriends in high school. I had a few other near misses but I don't recall any others that sealed the deal off the top of my head. I wasn't swimming in it, but I did pretty well for a nerd with self-confidence issues.
it seemed like we were all fucking, even the nerds
Checking in as a nerd who went to high school in the 00's. Yes, we were still fucking then. Especially the marching band nerds. Don't get me started on what people got up to on our long bus trips...
- LOL my god you band fags were THIRSTY. (Archie Bunker voice: What?! That's what we called them people in dose days!) One of my band friends was little Miss Christian, plainly dressed, straight A kinda kid, raspy voice from an emergency tracheotomy.
  One day in advanced European history, hissing at me, "Have you tried tying Debbie (my gf) up?! Steve tied me to the bed and it was awesome! Railed my brains out!" "👀 Uh, yeah, we tried that and loved it!" Next thing we're comparing notes on knots and BDSM techniques. "Couldn't get away, right?" Then class started. Back to business!
  Still laugh my ass off at the American Pie band camp chick! Yes kids, we did that shit.
  LOL, first time I got my finger wet was at a church camp retreat. They had to know what was going to happen if you throw a bunch of 14-17yo kids in sleeping bags and turn the lights off. Movie night at the church down the street was date night! Yeah, just going to throw this blanket over us. It's cold, OK?!"
My hypothesis is the decline is caused by a multifaceted change in environment:
cost of living crisis caused by inflation, folks are making only about 1/3rd what their grandparents made for the same labor
debt crisis caused by the above, crippling debt causes anxiety
educational treadmill, folks are working harder for top jobs, so schooling takes longer and is much harder
hormonal crisis, many young women are on hormonal birth control which is well known to significantly reduce libido in a large percentage of the population
food supply crisis, cheap, poor quality highly-processed food make folks just slightly less healthy all the time, possibly can affect libido with lowered testosterone caused by preservatives
social media crisis, evolution caused us to want to be nosy about 70 members of our tribe, not hundreds of millions. Social media is causing us to have the social equivalent of Daredevil's acute hearing, but it's addicting so folks can't easily shut it off (as I write on social media...)
fitness crisis, many folks just aren't healthy enough to lift and run, so they have less testosterone which lowers libido for everyone regardless of sex/gender
reproductive fear, folks realize they have it bad with little hope of improvement, so they don't want the same for their offspring
perfectionism causing a lack of confidence, being able to see the best in the world at any second on your phone causes acute perfectionism that prevents folks from even trying. Look up rates of musical instrument playing to see how few are even starting compared to 20 years ago. Skills in an area lead to increased confidence which makes a person more confident
protective parenting combined with extremely restrictive schooling, leads to less "free time" where folks can hang out and build social skills
hyper niche porn on demand, every person can access the porn of their choice on demand at all times. This causes unrealistic tastes and lack of confidence.
infection fears, everyone is taught from a young age to be afraid of STDs and pregnancy, so it's a looming fear in many
entertainment quality, we've created the most addicting games, movies, shows, and apps. These make it more interesting to sit and zone out than socialize
anxiety/depression crisis from the above leads to a population with lower libido, SSRIs are well known to reduce libido in a large subset of the population
All in all, we've got a society that is nearly perfectly designed to reduce libido in the population. Those that manage to avoid or ignore these challenges find a very small dating pool compared to decades past. Those that pair off are less likely to have offspring, such that we will likely have a population collapse in the next hundred years. Hopefully by then have figured enough of this out that we build a society that makes it easy to be a human who finds joy and love in other humans and not in a screen.
- Lost third spaces, hanging out with other kids and helicopter parenting/stranger danger.
- Those are all great points. As a society we are likely suffering from a polycrisis and no single root cause.
  "The raindrop never thinks itself responsible for the flood" or something
- This post is so amazing and complete I have nothing to add but my appreciation.
It’s certainly weird that today’s young people aren’t fucking when we were going nuts during the AIDS epidemic
I am certainly not normal enough to represent anyone else here, but while not HIV, I do fear HPV (the sexually-transmitted strains).
My parents did not get me vaccinated against it when it would have been covered by insurance, because... because.
So, some quick overview from my mind which you shouldn't trust as a source of information: Often marketed as something to protect women from cervical cancer, thus being reduced to "the vaccine for girls". That's often the view of public even now that it is also recommended to boys, which wasn't always the case. Even then, the reason often ended up being not spreading HPV onto women. People being stupid -> Either "I have a boy, so it doesn't matter." or "I raised my girl well, she won't need it."
Well anyway, for men, throat cancer, anal cancer and penile cancer sound pretty relevant.
Speaking of penile cancer, yesterday I came across photo of a man who got large cancerous growth on his trunk as a result of HPV, and had to undergone penectomy (i.e. bye dickie), plus the radiation therapy went wrong causing large burns.
All in all, basically a cancer vaccine, only effective if you didn't come into contact with HPV, which most sexually active people do, also why it's typically only given to kids.
So, moving on, Gardasil-9 protects against 9 high-risk strains. Doesn't sound like a bad idea even if you had sex, likely you haven't collected all 9 yet. But certainly best before.
So, 3 doses, 2nd after 2, 3rd after 6 months. I think they take around a month to become effective, so I guess 7 months for total vaccination. Paid by patient, almost 400 EUR for all 3 doses as far as I could find in my country.
So, not like I could get any regardless, but safer sex would cost me 7 months of waiting and almost 400 EUR while I am about to start college and make 4.70 EUR per hour. And it cannot be fully done retroactively later (after activity). It's also good to have saved some money. If my laptop or phone breaks, I need a replacement immediately (and I sure as fuck want another convertible ThinkPad).
- Paid by patient, almost 400 EUR for all 3 doses as far as I could find in my country.
  Whoa. As an American who got the Gardasil vaccine for free in my 20s, this feels really weird. Paying for preventive medicine sounds like something I'd expect around here. I was in the notoriously-backwards state of Florida and had already been sexually active for several years, yet the vaccine was still covered for me.
- So thankful that vaccine came out! Got genital warts in the 90s, had 'em burned off a couple of times, EXTREMELY painfully. Never passed 'em on, but I would happily have avoided that mess. And fuck me, we had no idea of the cancer risks. Everyone needs that shot.
  Also, caught crabs, TWICE, didn't even get laid. :( Slept in dad's guest room after his friend was there the previous night, came back on me a month later. Now there's talk of the little fuckers going extinct!
  Still, those vaccines should be free. Your story and numbers make me sad. We could wipe that shit out in a single generation!
- Check if your insurance refunds the cost. In Germany, it's only paid directly by the insurance for kids, but many insurances refund a large portion of the cost if you get it before you're 25-ish.
If you're over 40 how many times did you get laid because "One thing led to another"? Like you ever chill and vibe so hard with someone you feel the need to fuck about it?
In the tail end of my singleness I found that I was able to have more and better conversations with women online or via txt/dm because we could share things and experiences without being in the same room... But we werent in the same room, to shoot your shot you had to arrange something, give them a chance to overthink it, give yourself a chance to overthink it, sort out the scheduling issues, work out transport and then hopefully when you get into the same room still have the same magic going on.
When we were bored we hung out to not be bored, sometimes that led to fucking.
I'd say 10% not fucking is pretty standard/average and your thinking you were all (100%) doing it is either clouded by your own experiences or you grew up in a very liberal community where it deviates.
Why its rising is questionable. Personally, I'd say its due to rising depression rates.. well, it correlates at least.
- very liberal community
  1980s Oklahoma
  very liberal community
  Missed the mark on that one!
  See this comment? Amazing!
  https://old.lemmy.world/comment/18502562
Speculating wildly, I think it was a lot more common back then for teenagers to just disappear off for hours on end without their parents knowing where they were.
- to just disappear off for hours on end without their parents knowing where they were
  yeah when i did that, my mom went mad. that was in 2012.
what i have come to realize is how much different people's view on sexuality differs.
Everybody thinks their own emotions are absolute and the way that everybody sees it; though that is not true at all. A very clear example of this is how different people are attracted to different kinds of people. It's not only about being gay or not, it's also that there's a huge number of people who are either asexual or rather prudish to the extent that they basically don't have sex outside of very narrowly-defined contexts.
This has been a huge surprise for me to learn about since my own instinct is the opposite: sexuality is what keeps the society together, what facilitates the exchange of people and causes relationships. without sexuality, a lot of things wouldn't work or work only very slowly.
i'm nowadays also convinced that it is strongly related to the weather/climate of the region. areas like italy and france have a significantly higher tendency towards sexuality than northern regions, which tend to be rather prudish, i guess.
- I am appalled at the fact that some people have casual sex with people they don't intend to marry. That's insane! But also yeah that's the infinity of human expression, people are just all kinds of different.
I don't trip, I'm not clumsy like that 😌
I think the far-right "manosphere" influencers are a good indication at what it does to mental health. Fascism, and extremist groups in general, seem to thrive on men not getting laid. IDK what the cause of this is though; I suppose more digital, less IRL social entertainment. They drink and do less drugs, which could be a reason too (especially drinking).
Edit: This is a self-reported statistic too. It may just be men are more comfortable reporting that their virgins instead of lying.
- IDK what the cause of this is though;
  My bet is that it's the Western idea of having sex being somehow tied to self-worth. In cultures where having sexual partners from a young age isn't expected (or even accepted when you get into Muslim cultures) not having sex doesn't fuck people up like that.
Not meaning to be rude with this phrasing, but uh, I am significantly younger than you, born around the time you graduated HS... and yep, I have the same, gut, "this seems weird" reaction.
I was a terribly bashful nerd in the early/mid 2000s, and even I lost my v-card as either a 16 or 17 yo.
https://www.cdc.gov/yrbs/dstr/pdf/YRBS-2023-Data-Summary-Trend-Report.pdf
Thats a drop from half of kids literally fucking around in HS, to just a third, in only the last 10ish years.
I dunno if such data exists going back to when you were in HS, I'd imagine it would have been closer to around 6/10 back then (though thats just a spitball guess), but yeah, the decline has been shocking to me as well.
...
IMO, the main thing that is destroying mental health is... and again, I say this as an early tech adopter, tech nerd, who had a mySpace account, who was one of the first with a Facebook account...
The cause of this is mutlifactorial, general economic decline and precarity are huge factors, but the main problem is our modern social media based digital environment, and how it trains people to act.
Brainrot is a real thing, short form video content reduces attentions spans, makes you more anxious, less confident / have lower self esteem, rapidly propagates mis and disinformation, promotes narcissism and just literally retards rhe development of functional social behaviors.
...
That, and the destruction of 'third places', and then the subsequent enshittificstion of dating apps.
In your day, people could afford to go take a car and hangout somewhere they had some privacy, away from their parents at least, some area where people would go and hang out and just socialize.
Those physical spaces do not exist anymore, they all have paywalls people can no longer afford.
No average kid can afford a car on a summer job anymore.
...
Then, as things digitized, realworld meetups and hangout areas began to decline, dating apps happened.
They were good for a time, but then the people running them realized that you actually make more money as a dating app by making it something you keep coming back to, hiding people you may actually jive well with behind paywalls, that what you actually want is to create a rollercoaster of 'almost worked out but didn't in the end' type relstionships... as that produces your most reliable dating app customer.
These are smart data science people running these things, they know what they're doing.
They don't say what I just said outloud, because it would be bad for their branding and marketing.
- IMO, what is going on that is destroying mental health, and again, I say this as an early tech adopter
  i think you forgot a word or more in that sentence
  [the internet / social media] literally retards the development of functional social behaviors
  I have the same opinion, and i say that the internet takes attention away from functioning social forms of behavior. in other words, the internet feeds off people's attention, but that reduces inter-human contact too. because human contact needs attention
I don't think it's that complicated. In 1989, your average young male hadn't entirely given himself over to fascism. All of this manoshpere shit started right around that 2010-2012 timeframe.

You don't have sex partners.

I don't even have friends.

We are not the same..

Well unless you count my cat as a friend, but that seems one sided. (My cat doesn't see me as a friend, just a dumb monkey)

I'm part of that group. One reason is I feel like shit, don't really like myself and want the best for the people I love. That ain't me.

Are you talking to a therapist?
- Don't really like to info dump but, I have been to therapy. I've felt this way since before I hit puberty. In my oldest memories where I still recognise myself I've felt like this. I've sorta accepted that I'll feel this way for the rest of my life. Everyone experiences a range of emotions and for some people that range lies closer to despair than bliss.
Same
- /Off topic
  What's the Netherlands like, I've always wanted to visit. Being depressed in a new place is always exciting lol.

The amount of Femboys...boy, you have no idea. Those aren't virgins.

They didn't wifes, so they became the wifes.

I mean, there aren't enough gay dudes out there to change the numbers much.

There are more bi guys than society recognizes though.
- Anecdotally, I'm 54 and have never known a bi man. Yeah, there were deep in the closet last century, but still, I've known loads and loads of gay people. No idea how that works.
Ackshually, AFAIK around 5% of the population are homosexual. If that is completely ignored in the graph, the actual number would be closer to 22%. It could possibly be even lower if you consider bisexuals who just not had sex with women. And if you consider that homosexuality is much more accepted these days the numbers are skewed and the percentage could be even higher among younger people.
- AFAIK around 5% of the population are homosexual. If that is completely ignored in the graph, the actual number would be closer to 22%.
  Assuming homosexual people are all fucking, which seems unlikely - the loneliness epidemic is real (whether it's the often-talked about male loneliness epidemic is another matter), and being homosexual further complicates it, especially for people who are looking for a relationship rather than one night stands.
- According to a quick google, men are overwhelmingly more likely to be gay than bi (as opposed to the other way around for women), so it wouldn't change that much.
Bi men exist. And Bi people are likely the largest group of non-heterosexual people, due to evolutionary benefits, they are just heavily in the closet. Almost all gay men have/had to deal with the "straight" guy trying to fool around with them but not really committing due to various internal issues.

OP is saying gay sex being excluded, iiuc. Trend seems extreme since 2008, and it would be nice to see the spikes to 16% or so 3 times between 1989 and 2008. The spikes could be corelated to rising stock market bubbles for all I know. Seems over double the 1989-2008 average that I guesstimate at 12%.

Maybe gay men used to experiemnt with women to "find out"? Maybe harsher economic inequality keeps men home? It's not obviously internet porn, which became available in late 90s, though 20 years later would get a lot of under 30s.

It’s not obviously internet porn
It's social networks and the loss of 3rd (and 1st) places. Everybody knows what the problem is. Everybody has some idea how to fix it (look how to fix car transit). Every person in power is intent on refusing to improve things in any way and making it worse.
Trend seems extreme since 2008
Huh, just after the release of the first smartphone, odd.

I may be a cis male, but if I can't get some from the ladies, bring on the guys!

I honestly had to reread it and think for a moment before I got it, but to my credit, I just woke up.

They could have just removed the word "female."

Direct results of all that Barney and Spermbob bullshit.

They're going with human sacrifice rules

Is it when the respondent turns 18 or when their female prey turns 18? The White House is asking for clarification.

"Jane, did you compare the percentage of teenage male Rex Manning fans to the incidence of homosexuality amongst teenage males?"