Why Women Are Sick and Tired of Having Sex With Men
And why the sex recession might be here to stay
For a while now, we’ve been in a recession.
And not only the one where you have to think twice before buying your favourite brand of butter because it suddenly got twice as expensive. But also the one that might be a bit less obvious — the sex recession.
Although much of the attention in recent years has been placed on male sexlessness — and understandably so, as it paves the way for incel ideology — studies across the Western world show that everyone is having less sex. And in particular, younger people.
Yup, that’s right.
You’d think that with the hookup-focused dating climate, a seeming lifting of many taboos and the sheer convenience of hooking up in the era of online dating apps and sliding into people’s DM’s, the sexual activity would be at an all-time high right now. It isn’t, though.
According to one recent study, Gen Z’ers and younger Millenials are having less casual sex or partnered sex than any of the previous generations.
And I’ve noticed two main reactions to this decline in sex.
On the one hand, some young men — including incels — believe this is entirely women’s fault and our ‘unreasonably high’ expectations. But on the other, some people — including feminists — claim this is just a long-overdue reaction to the ‘toxic’ hook-up culture and that we’d likely be better off reverting to the times before the sexual revolution of the 1960s.
And while I agree there’s some grain of truth in both of these claims, I also feel like many of the conversations on this topic are just ridiculously unnuanced. There are quite a few reasons for a rise in sexlessness, and yes, it also has to do with women and their expectations.
But it’s not as simple as hook-up culture=bad. Or women’s expections=unreasonably high.
The hook-up culture is a mixed bag
I went to university in the early 2010s, when hook-up culture — which had just started to be dominated by dating apps like Tinder — was in full swing.
And I’d lie if I said that as someone who grew up ultra-Catholic but fairly quickly realised that way of living wasn’t for me — to put it politely — I wasn’t enjoying it back then. To some extent, I was.
But despite the decades-long effort of the sexual liberation movement, the rules by which it operated weren’t exactly free of sexual double standards and taboos, and, as a result, mixed messages around women’s sexuality.
You were expected to be an empowered object of sexual desire. But at the same time, you shouldn’t be surprised that many men — and quite a few women — will perceive you as ‘easy’ and ‘used’ and treat you accordingly.
You were encouraged to own your sexuality and do whatever you wanted with whomever you wanted. But only as long as it was exactly what men wanted, too, and if you weren’t too ‘vanilla’ or too demanding.
And if you refused to maintain the façade of seeming totally cool and blasé about it all, well, then you were a boring prude. Or a crazy sex maniac.
For the most part, and when I was single, I did whatever I wanted with whoever I wanted and tried not to focus too much on all the ‘buts.’ But that proved to be a challenge on its own. Many men I hooked up with seemed shocked by my ‘audacity’ to demand anything and take control when I wasn’t too happy with how things were going.
It quickly became evident to me that to quite a few of my male peers — young Millenials — the female pleasure was an utterly alien concept they had little to no interest in discovering. At least not back then.
Still, and similar to some of my female friends, I did enjoy occasional hook-ups. But I wouldn’t say that all of my friends did. And yet, some of them frequently found themselves going home with strangers after nights out at the bar anyway.
Because everyone else was doing it. Because they felt it was their only option to connect with somebody. And because how dare you say no to sex, especially if a man is expecting it from you.
Unsurprisingly, the realities of hook-up culture and the pressure many young women felt to engage in it — coming from their peers, the media or men — while disregarding their own feelings and desires have left quite a few feeling rather… disempowered.
And when I talk with women a few years younger than me today, many of them feel like it’s all indeed been a ‘massive scam’ that has worked solely for the benefit of men.
Well, they aren’t entirely wrong.
The hidden cost of sex for women
In an ideal world, hook-up culture would likely work just fine for those who genuinely want to participate in it.
But we clearly aren’t living in one now. At least not yet.
Our society is still saturated with gender inequality, rife with patriarchal double standards and filled with men who are socialised to disrespect and dehumanise women. And all of that, unfortunately, shows up in many aspects of our lives — including hook-ups, relationships and sex in general.
And it’s the reason why there’s a hidden cost of sex for women.
On a societal level, the still existent purity culture implies that women ‘lose’ something while having sex with men, making the social stakes for women to engage in it much higher. Because while for men having a high ‘body count’ is a point of pride, for women, it continues to be a point of shame. And even something that can damage their reputation.
Even if you aren’t religious or don’t subscribe to sexual double standards, you obviously can’t control the fact that many people do and will judge you on it. (Ironically, that often also includes the men who want to sleep with you in the first place.)
Thanks to patriarchal social norms, women also bear most of the financial and health-related costs of birth control. We’re the ones who are expected by our male sex partners — casual or not — to stuff our body with hormones and risk its many side effects, ranging from depression and breast cancer to diabetes.
And then there’s, of course, the fact that depending on where you live, you might not even be able to access it. Or reproductive and sexual health care in general, including emergency contraception and abortions.
Women also face a much greater burden — and more severe health consequences — than men when it comes to getting diagnosed and dealing with sexually transmitted diseases. And it doesn’t exactly help that some straight men — according to some surveys among Millenials, as much as a third — never even got a full STI test, meaning they could be spreading HPV or other infections that rarely cause symptoms without knowing about it.
(Without the HPV vaccine, you might even develop cancer from contracting it. So if you’re a woman who’s never got it and hasn’t done a pap smear in a while, perhaps it’s time to book it now.)
Heterosexual women are also the least likely to orgasm out of… literally everyone else. According to one recent study, while heterosexual men orgasm nearly all the time, and lesbian and bisexual women about 86% and 66% of the time, respectively, heterosexual women only reach orgasms at a 62% rate.
There’s also a far greater taboo around female pleasure than the male one, and both men and women often grow up believing it simply doesn’t matter.
Not to mention that sexual violence and intimate partner violence both affect women disproportionately more than men — according to some global estimates, as many as 1 in 3 women experience it across their lifetime — or that thanks to a myriad of rape culture myths, rape remains one of the least frequently persecuted crimes.
And if all that wasn’t enough, many men now believe that feminism has ‘gone too far’ — in the UK, for instance, half of the young men do — and are being increasingly groomed by violently misogynistic online ‘gurus’ that equate women with…. animals. Or men’s property.
I wouldn’t be surprised if sex recession were here to stay
We shouldn’t be asking why women aren’t sleeping with men.
But instead, why would they risk their reputation, health, well-being and safety to have sex with men who might not even respect them, believe they should have rights, and only see their bodies as a vessel for their own pleasure?
If you were to make a cost-benefit analysis on heterosexual casual sex from the women’s perspective — or even sex in general — I’m afraid that the conclusion would be that it isn’t that great of a deal for women, unless they’re absolutely sure about the guy they want to sleep with.
Because all things considered, you can’t deny that women get the short end of the stick here due to sexual double standards, the taboo around female pleasure, the burden of safe sex, widespread misogyny and rape culture.
Even when it comes to straight relationships, you could likely make a similar case if you’ve added, for instance, the burden of domestic and emotional labour.
Although that’s not to say this is all the fault of individual men.
This situation is caused by a combination of both individual and societal factors, such as lack of comprehensive sex education, limited access and availability of birth control — including a wider variety of options for men — and all the sexist cultural hogwash that continue to linger on despite being disproved by modern science over and over again.
But unless more individual men — and women — recognise that and at least try to change whatever they can in their personal lives and unlearn their many biases, sex recession might be here to stay. And that’s a shame.
Of course, women don’t owe men sex.
No one owes sex to anyone.
Still, it’s a critical part of life and overall well-being, and so the rise of sexlessness — and loneliness that often follows it — is naturally a cause of concern.
But solving it is not as simple as just urging people to have more sex because it’s great and fun and whatnot while ignoring the many reasons why we’re in this situation in the first place. Or pointing fingers at those ‘picky females’ who finally dare to set boundaries.
Or reverting to the not-so-good, old days when sex and human sexuality — particularly the female one — were demonised even more than it is today.
I’ve been in a committed relationship for a few years now, but if I hadn’t, I likely wouldn’t want to participate in the hook-up culture anymore. Or at least not when it comes to heterosexual men. (I’m bisexual.)
And I’m honestly not surprised that so many other young women feel the same way right now.
Hook-up culture has been advertised to women as far more pleasurable and beneficial than it actually is, and I’m glad we’re finally discussing it more today. However, I don’t believe the idea itself is the problem here, but the fact that women are still treated as unequal to men.
And that should be our main focus going forward.
Why Women Are Sick and Tired of Having Sex With Men
Another thing that came from the hook up culture is Goddess forbid a woman want to see a man again after they have sex or get feelings for him. The man always acts like you have the plaque afterwards. Got sick of that bullshit
What a fantastic article! Thank you so much for writing about this!!!
Uhg When I was in college AIDS was huge. My generation lost its virginity (18) a whole year later than the average (17) from years past and since. My girlfriends and I would get tested every 6 months even if we just KISSED a boy. Oral sex was king. No one knew how HIV spread for sure. Like Covid, rumors ran the gambit from full sex to toilet seats. It was terrifying. Not to be out done, mother nature didnt relent on the teenage horniness. I saw my friends and roommates still giving the obligitory head jobs after dates. Where in the hell did THAT come from? Eesh. No thanks. Anyway, as I navigated the world of college sex and early 20s dating I figured if men could request the end of the evening blow job, why couldnt I? It was unbelievable how many were DOWN for it. Most probably thought theyd get laid afterwards. They ALL thought it was their "specialty" their " gift from God" and they all were very competitive about it. Without mentioning just exactly how many guys had gone down on me ( and be judged as a whore of course) I just had to imply ONE of them was king at cunnilingus and it was easy. And because after that I was DONE I usually was asked for a 2nd date so they could get theirs of course but that rarely if never happened. It was just a hate game to me after being brutally raped as a vigin of 17. My friends were all guys and thought it was funny. So thats how I managed to stay AIDS free in my 20s and not be a "dorm whore" or slut. Uhg I watched 4 of my friends get raped in college. None went to court, only one got any kind of justice when her boyfriend beat the shit out of her rapist. I saw so much horrible sexual behavior in college it ruined me for a long time when it came to relationships. These "boys" became the "men" I was dating from Match or meeting in clubs. *SHIVER*
Fortunately, like your article states women are getting wise to this "free sex" this no emotion/ no relationship trap bated as empowerment and enlightened sex for women. Its NOT. Its still the same old Madonna/whore dichotomy disguised AGAIN to lure ladies into dangerous one night stands. Sigh. I am so excited to see women finally just saying FUCK NO. To not bending to peer pressure and wearing the prude label with pride. Lol You go girls!!!