Democracy Dies in Darkness

The share of Americans not having sex has reached a record high

You can blame young people for this dry spell, data show

March 29, 2019 at 7:00 a.m. EDT

The share of U.S. adults reporting no sex in the past year reached an all-time high in 2018, underscoring a three-decade trend line marked by an aging population and higher numbers of unattached people.

But among the 23 percent of adults — or nearly 1 in 4 — who spent the year in a celibate state, a much larger than expected number of them were 20-something men, according to the latest data from the General Social Survey.